In praise of the indirect, the unpredictable, the immeasurable, the slow, and the subtle -- Visions. A truce with the trees -- Sky full of forests -- On letting go of certainty in a story that never ends -- Tortoise at the mayfly party -- In praise of the meander -- Insurrectionary aunthood -- Revisions. Despair is a luxury -- On not meeting Nazis halfway -- Against centrism and its biases -- In the shadow of Silicon Valley -- Masculinity as radical selfishness -- Abortion is an economic issue -- Toward a democracy of voices -- The storykiller and his sentence -- Feminism has just begun -- More visions. Deep time versus short term -- Changing the climate story -- Climate of abundance -- The great transformation -- Hope on far horizons -- Credo

"Beginning with an essay about a three-hundred-year-old violin and what it can tell us about forests, abundance, and climate, and ending with on about a prisoner dreaming of seeing the ocean, No Straight Road Takes You There deftly bridges the political and the literary, offering unique insights, nuanced understanding, and inspiration for the challenging work ahead. In her latest essay collection, the award-winning author explores climate change, feminism, democracy, hope, and power and its abuse. Throughout she asks us to heed the stories we tell or have been told, and the ways those stories can be, or should be changed. Solnit offers a reappraisal of the value of indirect consequences, an embrace of unpredictability, slowness, and imperfection in the politics of how to change the world"--