Ursula K. Le Guin

The science-fiction legend—whose new book, No Time to Spare, is a collection of essays on everything from aging to cats—talks about the books that mean the most to her.

MY FAVORITE BOOK AS A CHILD

I was a bookworm. I ate books. I read so many, with so much pleasure, there’s no way I could pick a favorite.

THE ILLICIT BOOK I HAD TO SNEAK GROWING UP

When I was a teenager, I noticed a sex manual in the bookcase in an apartment we were renting, but when I went looking for it, it was gone. After a few years, I asked my father if he’d hidden it, and he said yes. I was curious, because he wasn’t the censor type. I asked him why, and he said, “It was so inaccurate!”

THE BOOKS I’VE READ OVER AND OVER AGAIN

Dozens. From Alice in Wonderland to Black Beauty, from The Jungle Book to Kim, from Pride and Prejudice to Jane Eyre to Little Dorrit to To the Lighthouse. And poets: Shelley, Keats, A.E. Housman, T.S. Eliot, Robinson Jeffers…

THE BOOK PEOPLE MIGHT BE SURPRISED TO LEARN I LOVE