Rebecca Solnit is one of those writers with a knack for putting new slants on familiar ideas, challenging your preconceptions and, at times, making you amend your own views.
The uniting theme of this excellent essay collection is how the world will be improved for all (not just women) when, it is to be hoped, it is no longer geared towards the concerns of certain (but by no means all) men.
The title essay of the collection, which is credited with inspiring the word mansplaining (although Solnit doesn’t like the term) begins with a humorous party anecdote which Solnit develops into a wide-ranging exploration of the undermining of women’s credibility. Other topics Solnit explores include how same-sex marriages create an opportunity—seen by some as a threat—to challenge traditional gender roles within marriage; and the importance in coining suitable terminology when campaigning against issues that harm society. But, to me as a factual writer, the standout essay in the collection was Solnit’s New Yorker article Woolf's Darkness about the need to embrace uncertainty, rather than covering it up with overconfident, comforting certainties.
Highly recommended.
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