Library Manager
Manage your library—your way. Keep a running list or organize archived books into little stacks. i.e. Beach Reads, Cozy Covers, True Crime, etc.
Always Coming Home
A Literary Fiction Novel by Ursula K Le Guin
Subgenres:
- Post-Apocalyptic,
- Anthropological Fiction
This book is for you if you're into...
- Anthropologist-style deep dives into imagined cultures
- Post-apocalyptic California reimagined through myth, poetry, and song
- Bonus chapters and behind-the-scenes essays expanding the original vision
From Little Stack
Always Coming Home is one of the earliest progenitors to the solarpunk genre. In this story, the Kesh aren’t just using nature, but see themselves as part of it, with the land shaping their culture rather than the other way around. Their civilization is made up of a network of communities and villages rather than megacities, with the highly advanced technology existing in this world serving the background function of sustaining nature, not invading and overriding it. Don’t get me wrong: it’s not as plot-driven as a lot of sci-fi, but the slower pacing and the abundance of songs, myths, and personal stories woven throughout the book make it something truly unique.
Ursula K. Le Guin's richly-imagined vision of a post-apocalyptic California, in a newly expanded version prepared shortly before her death.
This fourth volume in the Library of America's definitive Ursula K. Le Guin edition presents her most ambitious novel and finest achievement, a mid-career masterpiece that showcases her unique genius for world building.
Framed as an anthropologist's report on the Kesh, survivors of ecological catastrophe living in a future Napa Valley, Always Coming Home (1985) is an utterly original tapestry of history and myth, fable and poetry, story-telling and song.
Prepared in close consultation with the author, this expanded edition features new material added just before her death, including for the first time two "missing" chapters of the Kesh novel Dangerous People.
The volume concludes with a selection of Le Guin's essays about the novel's genesis and larger aims, a note on its editorial and publication history, and an updated chronology of Le Guin's life and career.
Follow This Author
Sign up & we'll email you when a new title is available for pre-order or hits the bookshelf
Little Stacks of Modern & Literary Fiction
Emotionally Gripping Women’s Fiction about Mothers and Daughters
Whether funny, moving, or thought-provoking, these engrossing women’s fiction novels explore the complex relationship between mothers and daughters.
Angel Down Wins the 2026 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction
Daniel Kraus's WWI novel joins a celebrated lineage. Discover the Pulitzer-winning books readers love most.
Best Pulitzer Prize Winners of All Time According to Readers
How do you pick the greatest books from the list of legendary Pulitzer Prize winners? Well, we’ll give it a go!
Get Free & Discounted eBooks
Curated reads, irresistible prices—subscribe now