Rebecca Solnit

Rebecca Solnit's essay Men Explain Things to Me has become a touchstone of the feminist movement, inspired the term 'mansplaining', and established Solnit as one of the leading feminist thinkers of our time—one who has inspired everyone from radical activists to Beyoncé Knowles. Collected here in print for the first time is the essay itself, along with the best of...

Hope In The Dark by Rebecca Solnit is an inspiring exploration of the power of hope amidst the turbulence of contemporary life. In a world often overshadowed by political unrest, environmental challenges, and social inequalities, Solnit presents a compelling argument for maintaining optimism. Through vivid storytelling and profound insight, she unveils the latent potential of social and political movements, illustrating...

What does it mean to be out walking in the world? From pilgrimages to protest marches, mountaineering to meandering, this modern classic weaves together numerous histories to trace a range of possibilities for this most basic act. Touching on the philosophers of Ancient Greece, the Romantic poets, Jane Austen's Elizabeth Bennett, André Breton's Nadja, and more, Rebecca Solnit considers what...

A retelling of Cinderella from A Fairy Tale Revolution, a series designed to breathe new life into old stories, for modern girls and boys. Rebecca Solnit retells Cinderella. A Fairy Tale Revolution is here to remix and revive our favourite stories. 'She looked like a girl who was evening, and an evening that had become a girl...' In the kitchen,...

In 1872, Eadward Muybridge, a British photographer who had landed in California during the Gold Rush, captured images of high-speed movement. These photographs would go on to lay the foundations for motion pictures, changing the west coast of America, and the world, forever. River of Shadows is both a bold and original biography of a true pioneer—his trailblazing work, and...

'I loved this book... An exhilarating romp through Orwell's life and times' - Margaret Atwood Outside my work the thing I care most about is gardening - George Orwell Inspired by her encounter with the surviving roses that Orwell is said to have planted in his cottage in Hertfordshire, Rebecca Solnit explores how his involvement with plants, particularly flowers, illuminates...

Who gets to shape the narrative of our times? The current moment is a battle over that foundational power. Women, people of colour and non-straight people are telling other versions, and white men in particular are fighting to preserve their own centrality. In this outstanding collection of essays by one of the most prescient and insightful commentators today, Solnit appraises...

Following on from the success of Men Explain Things to Me comes a new collection of essays in which Rebecca Solnit opens up a feminism for all of us: one that doesn't stigmatise women's lives, whether they include spouses and children or not. Solnit brings empathy to the silences in men's lives as well as the silencing of women's lives,...

What makes a place? Infinite City, Rebecca Solnit's brilliant reinvention of the traditional atlas, searches out the answer by examining the many layers of meaning in one place, the San Francisco Bay Area. Aided by artists, writers, cartographers, and twenty-two gorgeous colour maps, each of which illuminates the city and its surroundings as experienced by different inhabitants, Solnit takes us...

How do we respond to disaster? What expressions of care and solidarity might we find among the debris? A Paradise Built in Hell is a study of five major disasters - the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, the Halifax explosion of 1917, the Mexico City earthquake of 1985, the 9/11 attacks and Hurricane Katrina - and the expressions of altruism, generosity...

With a new afterword by the author In her map to loss, losing and being lost, Rebecca Solnit explores the challenges of living with uncertainty. Meandering eclectically through memory and mortality, Hitchcock movies and heartbreak, Solnit's beloved account of staying off the beaten path sheds glittering new light on the way we live now. A Field Guide To Getting Lost...

Winner of the 2017 Brendan Gill Prize from the Municipal Arts Society of New York "The maps themselves are things of beauty . . . A document of its time, of our time." —Sadie Stein, New York Times "One is invited to fathom the many New Yorks hidden from history’s eye." —Maria Popova, Brain Pickings Nonstop Metropolis, the culminating volume...

Published as a standalone on International Woman's Day, the essay that became a touchstone of the feminist movement and inspired the term 'mansplaining', with an afterword on its origins. This famous and influential essay, which describes the time when, at a party, a man explained to Rebecca Solnit the argument of her own book, inspired the term 'mansplaining' and established...

This book's title, No Straight Road Takes You There, is an evocation and a declaration. Highways tend to be built across the easy routes and flat places, or the landscape is cleared away - logged, graded, levelled, tunnelled through - but to stick to these roads is to miss what else is out there. In her writing and activism, Rebecca...

A landmark, incendiary collection from one of the leading essayists working today. Inspiring everyone from radical activists to Beyoncé Knowles, Rebecca Solnit's essay Men Explain Things to Me has become a touchstone of the feminist movement and established her as one of the leading thinkers of our time. Here it is collected along with the best of Solnit's feminist writings....

"The maps themselves are things of beauty."—The New York Times Explore the hidden histories of San Francisco, New Orleans, and New York with this brilliant reinvention of the traditional atlas, from Rebecca Solnit, Rebecca Snedeker, and Joshua Jelly-Schapiro. In the past decade, Rebecca Solnit—aided by local writers, artists, historians, urbanists, ethnographers, and cartographers—has compiled three stunning atlases that have radically...

“An intriguing amalgam of personal memoir, philosophical speculation, natural lore, cultural history, and art criticism.” —Los Angeles Times From the award-winning author of Orwell's Roses, a stimulating exploration of wandering, being lost, and the uses of the unknown. Written as a series of autobiographical essays, A Field Guide to Getting Lost draws on emblematic moments and relationships in Rebecca Solnit's...

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER LOS ANGELES TIMES MOST ANTICIPATED BOOK OF 2026 Rebecca Solnit offers a thrilling account of the sheer breadth and scale of social, political, scientific, and cultural change over the past three quarters of a century. In this sequel to her enduring bestseller Hope in the Dark, Solnit surveys a world that has changed dramatically since the...

A feminist reclamation of London's hidden history, through a reimagining of the city's iconic Tube map. Londoners Reni Eddo-Lodge and Emma Watson have reimagined the iconic Tube map, in collaboration with Rebecca Solnit, to celebrate the lives of women and non-binary people who have left a lasting impact on the city. The new map, unveiled on International Women's Day in...

In 1981, Rebecca Solnit rented a studio apartment in San Francisco, her home for the next twenty-five years. There she began the process of forging a voice in a society that preferred women to be silent. Liberated by West Coast activism, growing gay pride and punk rock, she broke through oppression and over time transformed into a writer and activist...

Gifts come in many guises. One summer, Rebecca Solnit was given three boxes of ripening apricots, fruit from a neglected tree that her mother, gradually succumbing to memory loss, could no longer tend to. In this courageous, heartbreaking memoir, Solnit draws from this unexpected inheritance, weaving her own story into fairy tales and the lives of others. Encompassing the Marquis...

'An old world is dying; a new world is being born; now is the time of monsters' Antonio Gramsci Solnit maps the extraordinary revolution of ideas and rights that we've experienced over the last fifty years, which has profoundly changed our world. In recognising the interdependent and symbiotic relationships in nature and among humans, this revolution is beginning to overturn...

Winner 2018 Kirkus Prize Beginning with the election of Donald Trump (The Loneliest Man in the World) and expanding back and forth into American history, surveillance, violence against the individual, the denormalizing of misogyny, and the rehumanizing of public space. The ultimate focus of the book is climate and feminist activism, bringing Solnit's trademark deep analysis to bear on a...

In this investigation into loss, losing, and being lost, Rebecca Solnit explores the challenges of living with uncertainty. A Field Guide to Getting Lost takes in subjects as eclectic as memory and mapmaking, Hitchcock movies, and Renaissance painting. Beautifully written, this book combines memoir, history, and philosophy, shedding glittering new light on the way we live now.