
No Time to Spare
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Narrated by:
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Barbara Caruso
About this listen
From acclaimed author Ursula K. Le Guin, and with an introduction by Karen Joy Fowler, a collection of thoughts - always adroit, often acerbic - on aging, belief, the state of literature, and the state of the nation.
Ursula K. Le Guin has taken listeners to imaginary worlds for decades. Now she's in the last great frontier of life, old age, and exploring new literary territory: the blog, a forum where her voice - sharp, witty, as compassionate as it is critical - shines.
No Time to Spare collects the best of Ursula's blog, presenting perfectly crystallized dispatches on what matters to her now, her concerns with this world, and her wonder at it.
On the absurdity of denying your age, she says, "If I'm 90 and believe I'm 45, I'm headed for a very bad time trying to get out of the bathtub."
On cultural perceptions of fantasy: "The direction of escape is toward freedom. So what is 'escapism' an accusation of?"
On her new cat: "He still won't sit on a lap. I don't know if he ever will. He just doesn't accept the lap hypothesis."
On breakfast: "Eating an egg from the shell takes not only practice, but resolution, even courage, possibly willingness to commit crime."
And on all that is unknown, all that we discover as we muddle through life: "How rich we are in knowledge, and in all that lies around us yet to learn. Billionaires, all of us."
©2017 Ursula K. Le Guin (P)2018 Recorded BooksListeners also enjoyed...
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Performance
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Overall
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Performance
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Performance
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Over-acting voice actors
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
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Ralph Elllison's Invisible Man is a monumental novel, one that can well be called an epic of modern American Negro life. It is a strange story, in which many extraordinary things happen, some of them shocking and brutal, some of them pitiful and touching—yet always with elements of comedy and irony and burlesque that appear in unexpected places. It is a book that has a great deal to say and which is destined to have a great deal said about it.
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How Did This Escape Me?
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Critic reviews
"Narrator Barbara Caruso delivers a collection of previously published reflections by Ursula K. Le Guin, who passed away in January. Caruso's wondrous ability to capture Le Guin's humor and energy gives listeners an unhurried experience." (AudioFile)
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Performance
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Story
In Victoria on a former prison colony, two exiled groups - the farmers of Shantih and the city dwellers - live in apparent harmony. All is not as it seems, however. While the peace-loving farmers labor endlessly to provide food for the city, the city bosses rule the Shantih with an iron fist. When a group of farmers decide to form a new settlement further away, the bosses retaliate by threatening to crush the "rebellion".
-
-
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- By: Ursula K. Le Guin
- Narrated by: Christina Moore
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Performance
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Story
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Overall
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Performance
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-
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- By Michael on 03-30-24
-
Lao Tzu: Tao Te Ching
- A Book about the Way and the Power of the Way
- By: Ursula K. Le Guin
- Narrated by: Ursula K. Le Guin
- Length: 1 hr and 22 mins
- Abridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
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Story
In this landmark modern-day rendition of the ancient Taoist classic, Ursula K. Le Guin presents Lao Tzu’s time-honored and astonishingly powerful philosophy like never before. Drawing on a lifetime of contemplation, she offers an unparalleled window into the text’s awe-inspiring, immediately relatable teachings and their inestimable value for our troubled world.
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I wanted to love this
- By Cody Joseph Painter on 09-16-20
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The Wind's Twelve Quarters
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- Narrated by: Amy Landon, Grover Gardner, Will Watt
- Length: 11 hrs and 10 mins
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Overall
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Story
A must-listen collection, Words Are My Matter is a manual for investigating the depth and breadth of contemporary fiction - and, through the lens of deep considerations of contemporary writing, a way of exploring the world we are all living in. "We need writers who know the difference between production of a market commodity and the practice of an art. Developing written material to suit sales strategies in order to maximize corporate profit and advertising revenue is not the same thing as responsible book publishing or authorship."
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One of Le Guin's best collections
- By Cameron on 05-11-19
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Worlds of Exile and Illusion
- Three Complete Novels of the Hainish Series in One Volume—Rocannon's World; Planet of Exile; City of Illusions
- By: Ursula K. Le Guin
- Narrated by: Michael Crouch, Alyssa Bresnahan
- Length: 16 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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Three remarkable journeys into the stars: Worlds of Exile and Illusion includes Rocannon's World, Planet of Exile, and City of Illusions. These three spacefaring adventures mark the beginning of grand master Ursula K. Le Guin’s remarkable career. Set in the same universe as Le Guin’s groundbreaking classics The Left Hand of Darkness and The Dispossessed, these first three books of the celebrated Hainish series follow travelers of many worlds and civilizations in the depths of space.
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Well and Beautifully Told
- By K.E.H. on 04-07-25
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Changing Planes
- By: Ursula Le Guin
- Narrated by: Gabrielle de Cuir
- Length: 7 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
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Sita Dulip has missed her flight out of Chicago. But instead of listening to garbled announcements in the airport, she discovers a method of bypassing the crowds at the desks, a nasty lunch, whimpering children, their punitive parents, and the blue plastic chairs bolted to the floor: she changes planes—literally. Sita discovers entire planes of existence and visits societies not found on Earth—bizarre societies that share similarities with Earth's cultures and sometimes open doors into the alien.
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Lovely
- By Laura Sharp on 12-07-23
By: Ursula Le Guin
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Gifts
- Annals of the Western Shore, Book 1
- By: Ursula K. Le Guin
- Narrated by: Jim Colby
- Length: 6 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
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In the Uplands, people have magical and fearsome gifts. Orrec, a boy growing into his powers, can destroy any living thing with simply a glance. But he refuses to use his ability, and wears a blindfold to protect others from his devastating gaze.
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Book 3 won the 2008 Nebula Award
- By K. Danielson on 11-10-11
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The Unreal and the Real
- Selected Stories of Ursula K. Le Guin, Volume One: Where on Earth
- By: Ursula K. Le Guin
- Narrated by: Tandy Cronyn
- Length: 11 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
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The Unreal and the Real is a major event not to be missed. In this two-volume selection of Ursula K. Le Guin's best short stories--as selected by the National Book Award winning author herself--the reader will be delighted, provoked, amused, and faced with the sharp, satirical voice of one of the best short story writers of the present day. Where on Earth explores Le Guin's earthbound stories which range around the world, from small town Oregon to middle Europe in the middle of revolution to summer camp.
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Shame on you, Audible
- By Audrey McCombs on 07-03-20
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The Language of the Night
- Essays on Writing, Science Fiction, and Fantasy
- By: Ursula K. Le Guin
- Narrated by: Alyssa Bresnahan, Michael Crouch
- Length: 10 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
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Le Guin’s sharp and witty voice is on full display in this collection of twenty-four essays, revised by the author a decade after its initial publication in 1979. The collection covers a wide range of topics and Le Guin’s origins as a writer, her advocacy for science fiction and fantasy as mediums for true literary exploration, the writing of her own major works such as A Wizard of Earthsea and The Left Hand of Darkness, and her role as a public intellectual and educator.
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The Complete Earthsea Series & The Left Hand of Darkness
- 3 BBC Radio Full Cast Dramatisations
- By: Ursula K. Le Guin
- Narrated by: full cast, Toby Jones, Kobna Holdbrook-Smith, and others
- Length: 7 hrs and 50 mins
- Original Recording
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Ursula K. Le Guin was one of the most revered and influential writers of the 20th century. Her Earthsea books have sold millions of copies and been translated into numerous languages, while her trailblazing novel The Left Hand of Darkness was a landmark in feminist science fiction and ranks among the greatest SF novels of all time. This BBC collection brings together the magical radio retellings of both these seminal classics.
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Too much fluff and interruptions.
- By KDSC on 01-20-22
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Across the Spectrum
- By: Ursula K. Le Guin, Vonda N. McIntyre, Patricia Rice, and others
- Narrated by: Aaron Abano, Tess Van Horn
- Length: 18 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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Book View Cafe celebrates its fifth anniversary with an anthology of our favorite stories. From the fantasy and science fiction of our roots to steampunk, romance, historical and mainstream; from humor to life's hardest challenges, across the spectrum from light to dark.
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wonderful
- By Cami on 03-17-17
By: Ursula K. Le Guin, and others
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The Lathe of Heaven
- By: Ursula K. Le Guin
- Narrated by: George Guidall
- Length: 6 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
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In a future world racked by violence and environmental catastrophes, George Orr wakes up one day to discover that his dreams have the ability to alter reality. He seeks help from Dr. William Haber, a psychiatrist who immediately grasps the power George wields. Soon George must preserve reality itself as Dr. Haber becomes adept at manipulating George's dreams for his own purposes.
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Amazing!
- By Adrienne R. on 11-23-18
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Dancing at the Edge of the World
- Thoughts on Words, Women, Places
- By: Ursula K. Le Guin
- Narrated by: Gabrielle de Cuir
- Length: 14 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
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From modern literature to menopause, from utopian thought to rodeos - in this classic collection of essays, Ursula K. Le Guin roves with her customary audacity over the intersecting arenas of literature, feminism, and social responsibility, exploding any received notions she comes across and revealing visionary possibilities in their stead.
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Not my favorite Le Guin collection, but...
- By Cameron on 05-11-19
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The Found and the Lost
- The Collected Novellas of Ursula K. Le Guin
- By: Ursula K. Le Guin
- Narrated by: Alyssa Bresnahan, Jefferson Mays
- Length: 34 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
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Every novella by Ursula K. Le Guin, an icon in American literature, collected for the first time - and introduced by the legendary author - in one breathtaking volume. Ursula K. Le Guin has won multiple prizes and accolades, from the Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters to the Newbery Honor, Nebula, Hugo, World Fantasy, and PEN/Malamud awards. She has had her work collected over the years but never as a complete retrospective of her longer works.
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You gotta be kidding me.
- By Spam on 07-02-19
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The Beginning Place
- By: Ursula K. Le Guin
- Narrated by: Rob Inglis
- Length: 7 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
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Tembreabrezi is like Eden - a beginning place. There, Hugh and Irena assume they have merely discovered an escape from the dull monotony, even the terrors of their regular lives. But Tembreabrezi has a secret, a dark fear that is threatening the very life-blood of the kingdom. Hugh and Irena were led there for a purpose, selected for an impossibly hopeless mission. If they accept the challenge, they may lose everything - their new-found paradise, and possibly their lives.
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Really needed an editor and some clear point
- By starling01 on 03-09-21
What listeners say about No Time to Spare
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- Kathy F.
- 07-26-20
Wonderful!
Insightful and delightful, often funny, sometimes poignant. Ms. Caruso was a perfect choice as narrator.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Jefferson
- 10-07-19
Wit and Wisdom and Daily Life
Who wouldn’t want to read a selection of Ursula K. Le Guin’s most interesting blog entries? That’s what No Time to Spare (2017) is. After a fine introduction by Karen Jay Fowler that explains how Le Guin got into blogging late in her life, the book presents the entries, which range thematically rather than chronologically from 2010 to 2016, in the following sections: Going Over 80 (on aging), The Lit Biz (on fan letters, awards, the great American novel, utopia/dystopia, Homer, etc.), Trying to Make Sense of It (on gender, politics, economics, uniforms, exorcism, childhood, anger, belief, etc.), and Rewards (on opera, theater, her recently deceased fan-letter-answering-assistant and friend, soft-boiled eggs, her Christmas tree, the Portland foodbank, a rattlesnake, a lynx, and the Oregon high desert), and—in three different interludes—The Annals of Pard (on the antics of her last cat).
Le Guin’s wise and witty mind and pleasurable and precise use of language are on display in her blog entries. She likes to take some perceived conventional wisdom and then skewer it or correct it, as she does with sayings like, “You’re only as old as you think you are,” or “the Great American Novel,” or “fantasy is escape.” Even when she’s talking about something like aging, she is liable at any moment to insert a tart opinion or keen perspective on things like the American Dream, gender, or writing. And in her blog entries she prefers asking questions to answering them, as with her suggestion that we find a better metaphor for economics than constant unrestrained growth (which sounds to her like cancer) or as with her wondering whether it’s possible to find a constructive use for anger or to join a male institution like the military as a woman without being coopted by it.
Anyone who has read and loved Le Guin’s great work like The Left Hand of Darkness, The Dispossessed, or the Earthsea series would get a great, warm, provocative kick out of her blog entries (though I suppose you could also just go to her official website and read them there!). The audiobook reader Barbara Caruso is pretty much just right, a seasoned woman with the intellect and emotion to enhance Le Guin’s experiences and opinions and insights, though her voice gets a bit high when she’s emphasizing key words, a quality that at times rubbed me the wrong way (it may be a matter of taste).
This collection is some of the last writing that Le Guin did near the end of her long career, and it reveals some details of her daily life and many examples of her independent mind and heart. It ends on a sublime note, as with fine poetic and vivid nature writing Le Guin describes the high Oregon desert and its flora and fauna, like when she describes some vultures in flight, “quiet lords of the warm towers of the air,” and then a flock of black birds, “flowing down and away . . . and into the reeds and across the air in a single flickering particulate wave. What is entity?”
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7 people found this helpful
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- Anonymous User
- 02-22-23
Work from a master storyteller
I have read and listened to a lot of Ursula Le Guin. Her mastery of the descriptive sentence is unparalleled and these non-fiction essays are delightful. Especially if you love cats.
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- Catherine York
- 07-01-22
Love UKL. Miss her immensely
I am approaching the end of life as well. This was profound for me. Thank you for another gift dear, Ursula. May you WIP (write in peace) forever.
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2 people found this helpful
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- Lex
- 07-20-19
Beautiful in every way
If you are a woman, or if you are a man wishing to understand the soul of a woman - listen to this. Listen to this alone and in a quiet space - preferably outside if weather permits.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Harman Benda
- 08-06-18
Wonderful Listen
Well written. Narrator is wonderful. I thought the author was reading her work because the inflections we're just right. I love author readings to get a sense of the person. No Time to Spare provides a glimpse into her life and thinking which I found fun, informative and made me want to read her books.
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- Linda Evans
- 02-22-18
I enjoyed this book!
I do not share her dogma or political views, but I enjoy her writings and I was sad when her story ended.
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48 people found this helpful
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- DS Hearn
- 02-02-18
words for living
I loved this - the writing and the narration, perfect fit. Words from a master.
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22 people found this helpful
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- Kindle Customer
- 03-09-18
Words of enchantment and wisdom
She is a celebration of a woman...nice to read this on "National Woman's Day", especially when downloaded to a Kindle, when I had no other power, and was otherwise in dispair. Thank you! A truly wonderful book!
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19 people found this helpful
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- Luiz Rocha
- 08-06-19
Le Guin's blog posts magnificently narrated
I have a bias for Le Guin's work and for most of what she stands for and this book is aimed at people like me.
It's a collection of her blog posts, where she would poetically share whatever she had in her sharp mind. She's funny and thoughtful and thorough.
And it's perfectly narrated. Feels like Le Guin itself is with you sharing her stories.
Worth your time.
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4 people found this helpful