With 'No Time to Spare,' Ursula K. Le Guin strikes at the heart of a changing world

The KUOW Book Club has been reading "No Time to Spare: Thinking About What Matters" by Ursula K. Le Guin this month. I'm your reading guide Katie Campbell. We conclude this month's reading with Le Guin's blog posts "About Anger" and "Without Egg."

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rsula K. Le Guin died in Portland in 2018 at the age of 88. Born in 1929, she lived through so much, from war to the advent of the internet, and her writing was deeply influenced by what she saw.

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Her blog "No Time to Spare" was not only a place for her to reflect on those 88 years of history, but also to imagine what the years to come — without her — would hold. And as science fictions writers are wont to do, she shared a few warnings that now feel prophetic:

I picked the blog post Le Guin called "About Anger" out of curiosity. She wrote it in October 2014, ruminating publicly about the power of women's anger as well as the treachery of persistent, weaponized anger.

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She lamented what she described as the "racism, misogyny, and counter-rationality of the reactionary right in American politics" and the "destructive force of anger deliberately nourished by hate, encouraged to rule thought, invited to control behavior."

We can't end this month's reading with our usual author chat, of course, and I'm out of the country as you read this, so we're also not tapping into the mind of someone who knew Le Guin. So, while I cannot provide answers to my questions, I wanted to share some of what I jotted down as I read "About Anger": Was she more or less hopeful by the time she passed in 2018? How would she have written on anger today, in 2025? If anger is a weapon, what weapon shall we draw against it?

I don't know that she would have had satisfying answers anyway; she seemed confounded on page 143:

Anger indulged rouses anger.

Yet anger suppressed breeds anger.

What is the way to use anger to fuel something other than hurt, to direct it away from hatred, vengefulness, self-righteousness, and make it serve creation and compassion?

Reading what was on Le Guin's mind in the final chapter of her life was fascinating, though it made me feel a little lonely. She seemed a little lonely, reaching out to the world on this blog of hers, like a digital manifestation of the void. But maybe I'm projecting.

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Even her post "Without Egg" took an existential turn.

I wasn't actually planning to make that my second selection for myself, especially not after reading Le Guin's sharp words on anger. But I decided to read it just for fun, and alas, it was the perfect pairing. Like a soft-boiled egg with a Viennese breakfast.

Like so much Le Guin wrote on her blog, "Without Egg" wasn't what it seemed at first glance. It began with her recounting how she stunned a Viennese waiter when she requested her breakfast without the soft-boiled egg it came with. She felt deep guilt for years about the way her refusal of the egg had disturbed the waiter's world. And from there, perhaps as an act of repentance, she lovingly explained how one goes about eating a soft-boiled egg out of a proper egg cup. It is not something one does while distracted, apparently. There, the story takes it's first turn:

"The grave is without egg." Good lord, woman.

That's crisis-inducing enough, but one twist is not enough for a creative genius like Le Guin, no sir. This piece wasn't what it seemed on first or second glance. The final paragraph delivers a last sucker punch, in case you got too comfortable:

That law did take effect last year, but as she predicted, Le Guin did not live to see it.

If, by chance, the grave did come with egg, I hope it was laid by a hen that lived a good life. And if not, I hope Le Guin indulged in her anger, not out of the self-righteousness she feared but out of the compassion she craved.

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Spoiler alert: Those of you who like to get a head start on what we're reading will be happy to hear I have locked in our December read — no plot twists in the schedule this time, I promise.

Next month, we'll be reading "Positive Obsession: The Life and Times of Octavia E. Butler" by Susana M. Morris. It's a beautiful biography of Butler that not only explores her work but also the key historical and social moments that shaped it — and the literary styles Butler herself inspired.

Morris considers Butler's life and legacy through the real movements that influenced her imaginative writing, including the Civil Rights Movement, Black Power, women's liberation, LGBTQ rights, and more. Throughout her life, informed by these movements, Butler envisioned better futures for humanity, centering Black women as pillars of strength and wisdom. Whether they were shape-shifting immortals or young vampires, Butler's characters fought the status quo, challenging gender norms and demanding better from the world around them.

But what drove her? What made Butler attuned to the moment in ways other writers were not? In "Positive Obsession," Morris will show us that Butler felt she simply had to write.