A Field Guide to Getting Lost is an investigation into loss, losing and being lost. Taking in subjects as eclectic as memory and mapmaking, Hitchcock movies and Renaissance painting, Rebecca Solnit explores the challenges of living with uncertainty. Beautifully written, this book combines memoir, history and philosophy, shedding glittering new light on the way we live now.
A Field Guide To Getting Lost
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Review
Nine short, brilliant essays - covers an amazing amount of ground. Go on. Start walking. Get lost. Who knows what you'll find. (Guardian )
A wonderful book,which becomes (marvellously) lost in itself . . . her writing is so lucid and sympathetic, so interested in the world around her, that she never seems lost in her herself, or self-obsessed. (The Times )
Rebecca Solnit is unquestionably one of the finest non-fiction writers of her generation. Possessed of eloquence and erudition in equal measure, her books have a wonderful capacity to lead the reader on unexpected and intriguing journeys . . . As with Solnit's previous books, there is an emotional, even a polemical dimension to these ideas. It is a rare writer who can write so excitingly with both heart and head. (Scotsman )
The book itself is a kind of wandering, and it is hard to say where we get to, but there are good things along the way. (Sunday Times )
Like Simon Schama, Solnit is a cultural historian in the desert-mystic mode, trailing ideas like swarms of butterflies (Harper’s Magazine )
Radical, humane, witty, sometimes wonderfully dandyish, at other times, impassioned and serious (Alain De Botton )
Fascinating, inspiring and beautifully written (George Monbiot )
Flawless scintillating prose, writing it is impossible not to admire (Financial Times )
A wonderful book,which becomes (marvellously) lost in itself . . . her writing is so lucid and sympathetic, so interested in the world around her, that she never seems lost in her herself, or self-obsessed. (The Times )
Rebecca Solnit is unquestionably one of the finest non-fiction writers of her generation. Possessed of eloquence and erudition in equal measure, her books have a wonderful capacity to lead the reader on unexpected and intriguing journeys . . . As with Solnit's previous books, there is an emotional, even a polemical dimension to these ideas. It is a rare writer who can write so excitingly with both heart and head. (Scotsman )
The book itself is a kind of wandering, and it is hard to say where we get to, but there are good things along the way. (Sunday Times )
Like Simon Schama, Solnit is a cultural historian in the desert-mystic mode, trailing ideas like swarms of butterflies (Harper’s Magazine )
Radical, humane, witty, sometimes wonderfully dandyish, at other times, impassioned and serious (Alain De Botton )
Fascinating, inspiring and beautifully written (George Monbiot )
Flawless scintillating prose, writing it is impossible not to admire (Financial Times )
Book Description
'Never to get lost is not to live'
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95 of 109 people found the following review helpful
By Ben Whitehouse
VINE™ VOICE
Format:Hardcover
Rebecca Solnit is an essayist/writer from San Francisco and author of a number of successful books including A Field Guide to Getting Lost. I remember reading the field guide a year or so ago but wasn't able to quote more than a few lines from chapter two: the blue of distance. There was something about Simone Weil, the Hindu God Krishna & light, lots and lots of light. I needed to revisit the book, time had dulled my memory of the book but I vividly remember my initial breathless reaction to the writing, having to lay the book down and pace my flat repeating the words and them settling like dust around me. I remember carrying the book with my in my shoulder bag & dipping into it in the public park close to where I live in Edgbaston, Birmingham. I didn't remain seated for long during my reading, something in Solnit's writing drove me to my feet and meant I didn't pay much attention to where I was walking. I walked safely but managed to get lost in the process, which I think Solnit would be proud of.
Rereading the book to prepare for this review has been a deeply rewarding experience and have discovered that it has subtly influenced my reading over the last year or so. Authors quoted or books mentioned have quietly appeared on my bookshelf, as if summoned by being read. I can't claim this book will change your life, I'm not even sure it's what changed mine but I can trace the resonance of phrases, the impish nudge towards uncertainty and the words "the blue of distance" back to this book.
Solnit shares from her own experience, quotes liberally from other authors and is unashamedly intelligent and rich in her writing but is in no way alienating with her prose. She holds our attention whilst writing eloquently about loss, being lost and uncertainty. She comes back again and again in the book to the idea of "the blue of distance", she turns it over like a paperweight and explores from different angles.
You should rush out and buy this book, read it, forget about it and then reread it. There's a strange alchemy at work when you're reading it and it will mark you once you've finished. Your dreams will shift to a more bluish hue, you'll want to answer the call of adventure, the lure of the horizon and find yourself sneaking through open doors at every opportunity. My review stands as the last signpost before you wander into your own desert following Solnit's footprints in sand and I encourage you to chase her ideas where they lead you. Toss that map aside, enjoying being uncertain and above all: Get lost!
Rereading the book to prepare for this review has been a deeply rewarding experience and have discovered that it has subtly influenced my reading over the last year or so. Authors quoted or books mentioned have quietly appeared on my bookshelf, as if summoned by being read. I can't claim this book will change your life, I'm not even sure it's what changed mine but I can trace the resonance of phrases, the impish nudge towards uncertainty and the words "the blue of distance" back to this book.
Solnit shares from her own experience, quotes liberally from other authors and is unashamedly intelligent and rich in her writing but is in no way alienating with her prose. She holds our attention whilst writing eloquently about loss, being lost and uncertainty. She comes back again and again in the book to the idea of "the blue of distance", she turns it over like a paperweight and explores from different angles.
You should rush out and buy this book, read it, forget about it and then reread it. There's a strange alchemy at work when you're reading it and it will mark you once you've finished. Your dreams will shift to a more bluish hue, you'll want to answer the call of adventure, the lure of the horizon and find yourself sneaking through open doors at every opportunity. My review stands as the last signpost before you wander into your own desert following Solnit's footprints in sand and I encourage you to chase her ideas where they lead you. Toss that map aside, enjoying being uncertain and above all: Get lost!
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
A series of essays and thoughts on the feelings associated with being lost or losing. I fet that that they were linked, but did not always have a flow from one to the other.
That said the writing in here is exceptional. Solnit writes with such a sense of place and purpose, and she is easily able to evoke a place or a time or a memory with consummate ease.
That said the writing in here is exceptional. Solnit writes with such a sense of place and purpose, and she is easily able to evoke a place or a time or a memory with consummate ease.
0 of 4 people found the following review helpful
By blackbird
Format:Paperback
Book arrived as stated and in good nick co no complaints there. I read the great reviews on the author and liked the subject area so took the plunge on a new author. The positives are that the author has some unique insights and writes well through most of the book. However by the end of the book I got a little tired of the cliches and the letter 'I'. Just not entirely my cup of tea.
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