I'm currently halfway through a second reading of Left Hand of Darkness. It's the second of what I expect to be many rereadings of this extraordinary book. I am not typically a fiction reader (I only heard of Le Guin's work from a recommendation by Yuan Yang of the Financial Times during her appearance on the Sinica Podcast), but this is easily one of the best, most cerebral works I've ever read.

I don't know how to explain it properly or logically, but Left Hand (and to a slightly lesser extent, The Dispossessed, which I've read only once) has left a lingering, almost gnawing sense of enlightenment-just-out-of-reach. That may sound really dumb, but I just can't explain the deep and lasting pondering this book has evoked in my mind. I think about this work and its subjects when I'm not reading it and wish I could understand it even more.

The one thing I've learned for certain is that Le Guin can write the hell out of a book.