The Beginning Comes After the End: Notes on a World of Change
essay-collection · First published 2026
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Author guide
Rebecca Solnit Books in Order
Rebecca Solnit is an American writer, historian, essayist, memoirist, and activist. Her wide-ranging nonfiction explores feminism, environmental and Indigenous history, art, photography, cities, walking, migration, disaster, political change, and hope. Her books include River of Shadows, A Field Guide to Getting Lost, A Paradise Built in Hell, The Faraway Nearby, Men Explain Things to Me, Recollections of My Nonexistence, and Orwell's Roses. She has received a Guggenheim Fellowship, National Book Critics Circle Award, Lannan Literary Award, and Windham-Campbell Prize.
nonfictionessaysmemoircultural historyfeminismenvironmental writingart criticismbiographycartographychildren's literature
Rebecca Solnit's Newest Book
Not sure where to begin?
Start with one of these
Men Explain Things to Me
A concise and accessible entry to Solnit's feminist criticism and essayistic voice.
Wanderlust: A History of Walking
A foundational cultural history that demonstrates her characteristic blend of research, place, and reflection.
A Field Guide to Getting Lost
A lyrical, representative collection of essays about uncertainty, identity, landscape, and imagination.
Read in order
Books by series
series · completed
City Atlas Trilogy
A collaborative trilogy of imaginative, multi-perspective atlases of San Francisco, New Orleans, and New York.
series · ongoing
City of Women Maps
Collaborative maps that reclaim urban history by naming women and nonbinary people who shaped major cities.
Outside the series
Bibliography by category
Novels (2)
Nonfiction (10)
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Secret Exhibition: Six California Artists of the Cold War EraAmazon ↗art-history · 1991
- Tracing CulturesAmazon ↗
art-history · 1995
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A Book of Migrations: Some Passages in IrelandAmazon ↗travel-writing · 1997
- Wanderlust: A History of WalkingAmazon ↗
cultural-history · 2000
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Hollow City: The Siege of San Francisco and the Crisis of American UrbanismAmazon ↗urban-history · 2000
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River of Shadows: Eadweard Muybridge and the Technological Wild WestAmazon ↗biography · 2004
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A California BestiaryAmazon ↗natural-history · 2010
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The Faraway NearbyAmazon ↗memoir · 2013
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Recollections of My Nonexistence: A MemoirAmazon ↗memoir · 2020
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Orwell's RosesAmazon ↗cultural-history · 2021
Essays and speeches (11)
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As Eve Said to the Serpent: On Landscape, Gender, and ArtAmazon ↗essay-collection · 2001
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Hope in the Dark: Untold Histories, Wild PossibilitiesAmazon ↗essay-collection · 2004
- A Field Guide to Getting LostAmazon ↗
essay-collection · 2005
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Storming the Gates of Paradise: Landscapes for PoliticsAmazon ↗essay-collection · 2007
- Men Explain Things to MeAmazon ↗
essay-collection · 2014
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The Encyclopedia of Trouble and SpaciousnessAmazon ↗essay-collection · 2014
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The Mother of All QuestionsAmazon ↗essay-collection · 2017
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Call Them by Their True Names: American Crises (and Essays)Amazon ↗essay-collection · 2018
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Whose Story Is This? Old Conflicts, New ChaptersAmazon ↗essay-collection · 2019
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No Straight Road Takes You There: Essays for Uneven TerrainAmazon ↗essay-collection · 2025
- The Beginning Comes After the End: Notes on a World of ChangeAmazon ↗
essay-collection · 2026
