Firstly we’ve heard a bad news regarding the departure of yet another literature figure Ursula K. Le Guin, age 88. I’ve just got her latest book No time to spare: thinking about what matters on my desk.

Le Guin was a popular Si Fi and fantasy writer and wrote the standard themes of her chosen genres: sorcery and dragons, spaceships and planetary conflict. Her books were translated into 40 languages and more, and read by millions. Le Guin focused on gender and race in particular as most of her characters are people of colour and she used alien to examine culture and society in reality.

Le Guin ‘influenced Booker Prize winners and other writers, such as Salman Rushdie and David Mitchell, and notable science fiction and fantasy writers including Neil Gaiman and Iain Banks. She won the Hugo Award, Nebula Award, Locus Award, and World Fantasy Award, each more than once. In 2014, she was awarded the National Book Foundation Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters. In 2003, she was made a Grandmaster of Science Fiction, one of a few women writers to take the top honor in the genre.’ (Wikipedia)

You can reserve Le Guin’s titles here.

Today Google’s doodle is Virginia Woolf, one of my favourites. Born in 25 January 1882 – 28 March 1941), Woolf was an English writer. ‘She is considered one of the foremost modernists of the twentieth century and a pioneer in the use of stream of consciousness as a narrative device.’ ‘Woolf was a significant figure in London literary society and a central figure in the influential Bloomsbury Group of intellectuals.’  (Wikipedia)

Woolf’s works have been widely read and been translated into more than fifty languages. Virginia’s works, such as A room of one’s own, To the lighthouse, Three Guineas and Mrs Dalloway  inspire generations of feminists.

You can reserve Virginia Woolf’s titles here.