This is a quiet book of pondering and wandering: mostly about place, culture and history.
There were some parts that were golden and poignant and lots that were ordinary and forgettable. A mixed bag of soft meandering essays but overall it was a gentle read.

This was…incredibly boring. I marked a few pages for quotes (not hers). I read the whole thing because each section is sort of its own entity, and I didn’t want to judge the whole for disliking some parts, but I wish I hadn’t wasted my time, to be honest. It started off interesting, but it just dragged on. I read someone’s review on here that said something like “reading this is like being stuck talking to that one person at the cocktail party who is full of themself” and I think that about sums it up. Gave it two stars because she’s a good writer and because she mentioned “negative capability” ( )

Intelligent essays built from the tender synthesis of experience and broad reading. I love smart people with soul who can share both the smart and soul through words. I found the theme of getting lost addressed in insightful and imaginative ways.

"The simplest answer nowadays for literally getting lost is that a lot of the people who get lost aren't paying attention when they do so, don't know what to do when they realize they don't know how to return, or don't admit they don't know."

...there's another art of being at home in the unknown, so that being in it's midst isn't cause for panic or suffering, of being at home with being lost."

"People look into the future and expect that the forces of the present will unfold in a coherent and predictable way, but any examination of the past reveals that circuitous routes of change are unimaginably strange."

"Worry is a way to pretend that you have knowledge or control over what you don't--and it surprises me, even in myself, how much we prefer ugly scenarios to the pure unknown.”

"Lost really has two disparate meanings. Losing things is about the familiar falling away, getting lost is about the unfamiliar appearing. There are objects and people that disappear from your sight or knowledge or possession; you lose a bracelet, a friend, the key. You still know where you are. Everything is familiar except that there is one item less, one missing element. Or you get lost, in which case the world has become larger than your knowledge of it. Either way, there is a loss of control. Imagine yourself streaming through time shedding gloves, umbrellas, wrenches, books, friends, homes, names. This is what the view looks like if you take a rear-facing seat on the train. Looking forward you constantly acquire moments of arrival, moments of realization, moments of discovery. The wind blows your hair back and you are greeted by what you have never seen before. The material falls away in onrushing experience." ( )

Solnit is always worth reading. ( )

I appreciate the author's thoughtfulness and introspection, her sense of space and mapping, and her willingness to find other ways of seeing. ( )