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I got about a third of the way through this. It's a great concept but doesn't work for me in this format.

It's a collection of (highly) abridged speeches with an (admitted, but still present) US and anglosphere bias. It was an impulse pick-up from the library's rainbow shelf – the cover is very nice. But it didn't hold my attention (each speech being edited down to one page) and wasn't sufficiently interesting to revisit regularly enough before the library demanded it back...

I did really enjoy reading this, and will almost certainly go on to read the other Earthsea books.

I came to Earthsea after reading several of Le Guin's Hainish cycle books and short stories, including some of the earliest ones like Rocannon's World. I can see similarities with the earliest Hainish cycle works, from around the same time - an emphasis on male characters, for example - which I am sure would have been handled differently by the same author had she written them later on. But there are still a lot of great ideas here, and it is far more open-minded than most fantasy literature of its era.

My first time reading the Earthsea books, after enjoying lots of Ursula K. Le Guin's Hainish works, and other short stories.

Going to try to finish this time!

Not an easy read at all, but I'm glad I read it. Another book that I wish I had known about and read a long time ago.

First novel I have read in a while, mostly because I borrowed this on my e-reader to read next to a sleeping kid.

I wish it was easier to borrow good ebooks or buy DRM-free copies. I’d do this much more often.

Also a bit melancholy that I only discovered Ursula K Le Guin’s works in my thirties; I like to think they’d have meant a lot to me if I had read them as a teenager.

I got this from the library (after a long wait) and managed to read Part 1 before returning it today. Definitely a thought provoking read, I hope to borrow it again to read Part 2.

Finally finished with this book in time to return it to the library before going on summer vacation. I found it moving, and some of the stories were sad or difficult to read - but also, it's a book full of reasons for optimism. It was telling to see common themes emerge in people's stories; I learned a lot about the different intersecting cultures, traditions and power structures one finds amongst Sámi peoples, and also in Sápmi (definitely not always the same thing). Taken as a whole, many of the people interviewed really are queering Sápmi - questioning existing structures and norms. It would be interesting to know how much has changed or improved since this book came out over a decade ago.