Author Guide · Science Fiction & Fantasy
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Ursula Kroeber was born in Berkeley, California, in 1929, the daughter of two anthropologists, Alfred and Theodora Kroeber. In 1968 she published A Wizard of Earthsea, a fantasy for young readers whose hero has red-brown skin; a year later The Left Hand of Darkness, about a planet whose people have no fixed sex, made her the first woman to win both the Hugo and the Nebula Award for Best Novel. She went on to write more than twenty novels and more than a hundred short stories, and won eight Hugos and six Nebulas. In 2014, four years before her death, she accepted the National Book Foundation’s medal for lifetime achievement on behalf of the fantasy and science fiction writers who had been “excluded from literature for so long”. This guide covers her 14 key books, in order, and where to begin.
By Lisanne Swart · 14 key books · 1968–2017 · Updated October 2026
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Quick answer
Ursula K. Le Guin’s best-known books are the Earthsea novels, starting with A Wizard of Earthsea (1968), and two science fiction novels of the Hainish Cycle, The Left Hand of Darkness (1969) and The Dispossessed (1974), both winners of the Hugo and Nebula Awards. Start with A Wizard of Earthsea; the guide below gives the order of both series and where her later books fit.
Where to Start with Ursula K. Le Guin
If you want fantasy
→ A Wizard of Earthsea (1968) — the first Earthsea novel, short and self-contained.
If you want science fiction
→ The Left Hand of Darkness (1969) — the envoy, the ice and the people without fixed sex.
If you want political fiction
→ The Dispossessed (1974) — an anarchist world and a capitalist one, side by side.
If you want a single story first
→ The Wind’s Twelve Quarters (1975) — it includes “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas”.
14 Ursula K. Le Guin Books, in Order
A Wizard of Earthsea
A boy from the island of Gont, Ged, called Sparrowhawk, goes to the school for wizards on Roke and, out of pride, lets loose a shadow that hunts him across the archipelago until he turns and hunts it. Published by Parnassus Press as a book for young readers, it won the Boston Globe–Horn Book Award in 1969.
The Left Hand of Darkness
Genly Ai, a male envoy of the interplanetary Ekumen, comes to the icy planet Gethen to persuade its nations to join. Gethenians are neither male nor female for most of each month, and take on one sex only during a short phase called kemmer. Distrusted in Karhide and imprisoned in Orgoreyn, Ai is rescued by the exiled politician Estraven, and the two cross the ice together. Le Guin was the first woman to win both the Hugo and the Nebula for Best Novel with it.
The Tombs of Atuan
Taken from her family as a child, Tenar becomes Arha, “the Eaten One”, priestess of the nameless powers whose dark tombs she guards in the Kargish lands. Ged arrives to steal the Ring of Erreth-Akbe hidden in the labyrinth, and she has to choose between her duty and the wider world he describes. It was a Newbery Honor book in 1972.
The Lathe of Heaven
In Portland, Oregon, in 2002, a draftsman named George Orr has dreams that change reality, and only he remembers the world as it was. His psychiatrist, Dr. William Haber, uses a machine to steer the dreams towards a better world, and every improvement makes things worse. It won the Locus Award and was a Hugo and Nebula finalist; PBS adapted it in 1980 with Le Guin closely involved.
The Farthest Shore
Magic is draining out of the world, and songs and spells are being forgotten. Ged, now Archmage, sails with young Arren, Prince of Enlad, to the far west to find the cause: the wizard Cob, who has opened a breach between life and death to escape dying. Closing it costs Ged all his power, and Arren comes home to be crowned. It won the National Book Award for Children’s Books in 1973.
The Word for World Is Forest
Terran loggers have turned the forest planet Athshe into a military colony and enslaved its small, green-furred, peaceful people. After Captain Davidson rapes and kills his wife, the Athshean Selver leads an uprising that drives the colonists out, at the cost of teaching his people to kill. First published in the 1972 anthology Again, Dangerous Visions and as a book in 1976, it was shaped by Le Guin’s opposition to the Vietnam War and won the Hugo for Best Novella.
The Dispossessed
Shevek, a physicist from the anarchist moon-world Anarres, travels to its rich, divided twin planet Urras to finish a theory that could make instant communication across space possible, and finds his work wanted as a weapon. The chapters alternate between the two worlds and two periods of his life. It won the Hugo, Nebula and Locus Awards.
The Wind’s Twelve Quarters
Her first collection: seventeen stories, each with a short introduction by Le Guin. It includes “Semley’s Necklace”, “Nine Lives”, the Hugo-winning “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas”, about a happy city whose happiness depends on one suffering child, and the Nebula-winning “The Day Before the Revolution”, set before The Dispossessed. It won the Locus Award for Best Collection.
Always Coming Home
A record of the Kesh, a people living in a far-future Northern California long after modern civilisation has collapsed, in a valley modelled on the Napa Valley. Stories, poems, recipes, maps and 100 illustrations by Margaret Chodos surround the life story of a woman called Stone Telling; early boxed editions came with a cassette of Kesh music by Todd Barton. It won the Janet Heidinger Kafka Prize and was a runner-up for the National Book Award.
Tehanu
Seventeen years after The Farthest Shore, Tenar, now a widow on Gont, takes in Therru, a badly burned child, and Ged comes home with no power left. The book turns from wizards’ quests to the lives of women and the old, and critics read it as a feminist reworking of the first trilogy. It won the Nebula, her third for Best Novel, and the Locus Award.
The Telling
Sutty, an Earth-born observer for the Ekumen, is sent to the planet Aka, where a corporate state has outlawed the old beliefs and customs. Travelling upriver, she finds the banned tradition of storytelling, the Telling, still practised in secret. Le Guin modelled Aka’s history on China’s Cultural Revolution. It was her last Hainish novel and won the Locus Award.
The Other Wind
Alder, a village sorcerer who mends things, dreams every night of his dead wife calling to him from the stone wall at the edge of the land of the dead. His dreams bring him to Ged, to King Lebannen and to Orm Irian, a dragon in human form, and to the truth about how wizards first took the dead’s land from the dragons. The last Earthsea novel, it won the World Fantasy Award.
Lavinia
Lavinia, who has barely a line in Virgil’s Aeneid, tells her own story: the Latin king’s daughter who marries the Trojan Aeneas, and who talks with the ghost of the dying poet who wrote her. It draws on the last six books of the Aeneid. Her last novel, it won the Locus Award for Best Fantasy Novel.
No Time to Spare
A selection from the blog she began in 2010, at 81: short pieces on getting old, on fantasy and how it is looked down on, on her cat and her daily life, and on the state of the world. Karen Joy Fowler wrote the introduction. It won the 2018 Hugo for Best Related Work, months after her death.
In What Order to Read Ursula K. Le Guin
Earthsea should be read in publication order: A Wizard of Earthsea, The Tombs of Atuan and The Farthest Shore, written between 1968 and 1972, and then Tehanu, Tales from Earthsea and The Other Wind, written from 1990 to 2001. The later books look back at the first three and change how you see them, so they work best last.
The Hainish Cycle is different: the novels share a universe and the Ekumen, but no characters, so each can be read alone. The Left Hand of Darkness and The Dispossessed are the two to read first; the three short novels of 1966–67 are early work and can wait.
A reading path
1. A Wizard of Earthsea (1968)
2. The Left Hand of Darkness (1969)
3. The Wind’s Twelve Quarters (1975)
4. The Dispossessed (1974)
5. Tehanu (1990)
Everything Else Ursula K. Le Guin Published
Beyond the 14 key books: 27 more, grouped by kind.
Open a group with the + to see every book in it.
Hainish novels and stories
6
6 books · 1966–2002
- 1966Rocannon’s Worldher first novel
- 1966Planet of Exileearly Hainish novel
- 1967City of Illusionsearly Hainish novel
- 1978The Eye of the Herona colony of pacifists; she said it may belong to the Hainish universe
- 1995Four Ways to Forgivenessfour linked novellas
- 2002The Birthday of the Worldstories
Earthsea extras
2
2 books · 2001–2018
- 2001Tales from Earthseafive stories set around the novels
- 2018The Books of Earthseathe complete illustrated edition, with art by Charles Vess
Other novels
6
6 books · 1976–2007
- 1976Very Far Away from Anywhere Elsea realist novel for teenagers
- 1979Malafrenaset in the invented European country Orsinia
- 1980The Beginning Placefantasy
- 2004GiftsAnnals of the Western Shore 1
- 2006VoicesAnnals of the Western Shore 2
- 2007PowersAnnals of the Western Shore 3; Nebula Award
Story collections
4
4 books · 1976–1996
- 1976Orsinian Talesstories of Orsinia
- 1982The Compass Rosestories
- 1991Searoadlinked stories set on the Oregon coast
- 1996Unlocking the Airstories; Pulitzer Prize finalist
Essays, craft and translation
7
7 books · 1979–2018
- 1979The Language of the Nightessays on fantasy and science fiction
- 1989Dancing at the Edge of the Worldessays
- 1997Lao Tzu: Tao Te Chingher version of the Chinese classic
- 1998Steering the Crafta handbook for writers
- 2004The Wave in the Mindessays
- 2016Words Are My Matteressays and reviews
- 2018Conversations on Writinginterviews with David Naimon
Children’s books and poetry
2
2 books · 1988–2018
- 1988Catwingsfirst of four picture books about winged cats
- 2018So Far So Goodher last book of poems
The years · 1929–2018
Quick facts about Ursula K. Le Guin
- Known for
- Inventing the islands of Earthsea and the gender-free planet of The Left Hand of Darkness, and arguing all her life that fantasy and science fiction belong in literature.
- 1929
- Born Ursula Kroeber in Berkeley, California
- 1990
- Tehanu
- 2014
- National Book Foundation Medal
- 2018
- Dies in Portland, Oregon, aged 88
- Born
- 21 October 1929, Berkeley, California
- Died
- 22 January 2018, Portland, Oregon, aged 88
- Parents
- The anthropologist Alfred L. Kroeber and the writer Theodora Kroeber
- Education
- Radcliffe College (BA, 1951); Columbia University (MA in French, 1952)
- Married
- The historian Charles Le Guin, in Paris in 1953; three children
- Honours
- Eight Hugo and six Nebula Awards; National Book Foundation Medal (2014); SFWA Grand Master
The red mark is 1969: The Left Hand of Darkness, which made her the first woman to win both the Hugo and the Nebula for Best Novel.
How Ursula K. Le Guin Writes: The Anthropologist’s Daughter
Le Guin grew up in the house of two anthropologists, and many of her books are built like field reports. The Hainish novels send an observer from the Ekumen into a society that is not their own — Genly Ai on Gethen, Sutty on Aka — and the story is what they learn and get wrong. Always Coming Home drops the plot almost entirely and presents an invented people through their songs, recipes, maps and stories.
She used her worlds to change one thing and watch what follows: no fixed sex on Gethen, no property on Anarres, a man whose dreams rewrite the world in The Lathe of Heaven. She also kept arguing with her own books. She defended, and later questioned, the use of “he” for the Gethenians, and seventeen years after The Farthest Shore she wrote Tehanu, which looks again at the male world of wizards from the side of the women in it.
Most of Earthsea’s people are brown-skinned, and the pale Kargs are the outsiders; she criticised the fantasy habit of assuming white heroes in a medieval Europe, and objected when a 2004 television version cast Ged as white. Her prose is plain and exact, and she wrote about how to write it in Steering the Craft (1998).
Watch
Ursula K. Le Guin at the National Book Awards
Le Guin accepts the National Book Foundation Medal in New York in November 2014, shares it with the fantasy and science fiction writers excluded from literature for so long, and argues that books are not just commodities.
Frequently asked questions about Ursula K. Le Guin’s books
How many books has Ursula K. Le Guin written?
More than twenty novels and more than a hundred short stories, plus poetry, essays, children’s books and a version of the Tao Te Ching. This page covers 14 key books, from A Wizard of Earthsea (1968) to No Time to Spare (2017); the rest are grouped in the list below them.
What are Ursula K. Le Guin’s books in order?
The key books are A Wizard of Earthsea (1968), The Left Hand of Darkness (1969), The Tombs of Atuan (1971), The Lathe of Heaven (1971), The Farthest Shore (1972), The Word for World Is Forest (1972), The Dispossessed (1974), The Wind’s Twelve Quarters (1975), Always Coming Home (1985), Tehanu (1990), The Telling (2000), The Other Wind (2001), Lavinia (2008) and No Time to Spare (2017).
Where should I start with Ursula K. Le Guin?
With A Wizard of Earthsea (1968): it is short, complete in itself and the start of her best-known series. If you prefer science fiction, start with The Left Hand of Darkness (1969).
What is Ursula K. Le Guin’s most famous book?
The Left Hand of Darkness (1969) and A Wizard of Earthsea (1968) are her most famous books. Her best-known short story is “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas”, collected in The Wind’s Twelve Quarters (1975).
What order should I read the Earthsea books in?
Publication order: A Wizard of Earthsea (1968), The Tombs of Atuan (1971), The Farthest Shore (1972), Tehanu (1990), Tales from Earthsea (2001) and The Other Wind (2001). All of them, with every Earthsea story, are in The Books of Earthsea (2018), illustrated by Charles Vess.
Do the Hainish novels need to be read in order?
No. They share a universe and the league of worlds called the Ekumen, but not characters or plots. The Left Hand of Darkness (1969) and The Dispossessed (1974) are the usual starting points; The Telling (2000) was the last Hainish novel.
Have Ursula K. Le Guin’s books been adapted?
The Lathe of Heaven was filmed by PBS in 1980, with Le Guin closely involved, and again by A&E in 2002 without her. Earthsea became the Sci Fi Channel miniseries Legend of Earthsea (2004) and Studio Ghibli’s Tales from Earthsea (2006), directed by Gorō Miyazaki; she called the film disappointing. BBC Radio 4 broadcast The Left Hand of Darkness in 2015.
Why did Le Guin object to the Earthsea miniseries, and to Amazon?
She objected that Legend of Earthsea (2004) cast Ged and most of the other brown-skinned characters as white, and wrote that she did not forgive the whitewashing. In 2009 she resigned from the Authors Guild over its endorsement of Google’s book digitisation settlement, and in her 2014 National Book Awards speech she criticised Amazon’s power over publishing, pointing to its dispute with Hachette.
Is Ursula K. Le Guin still alive?
No. She died at her home in Portland, Oregon, on 22 January 2018, aged 88. Her last books, including the poetry collection So Far So Good, were published that year.
What prizes did Ursula K. Le Guin win?
Eight Hugo Awards and six Nebula Awards, including Best Novel for The Left Hand of Darkness, The Dispossessed and Tehanu; the National Book Award for The Farthest Shore; the World Fantasy Award for The Other Wind; and the National Book Foundation Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters in 2014. Unlocking the Air was a Pulitzer Prize finalist in 1997.
Footnotes
- Ursula K. Le Guin — Wikipedia
- Earthsea — Wikipedia
- The Left Hand of Darkness — Wikipedia
- The Dispossessed — Wikipedia
- Selected Awards and Honors — ursulakleguin.com
- Ursula K. Le Guin’s Passionate Acceptance Speech — PBS American Masters
Bibliography last verified 9 October 2026. Where sources give different first-publication years, this page uses the year in library catalogues or the publisher’s own record.
This list was not put together by a machine.
The notes are all mine,
and the books are all his.
Lisanne x
Written by Lisanne Swart, who has curated reading lists and author guides at lisanneswart.com since 2021.
See more on her personal bookshelf.
“We will need writers who can remember freedom.”
— Ursula K. Le Guin, speech accepting the National Book Foundation Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters (2014)
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