Book cover: A Field Guide to Getting Lost by Rebecca Solnit

A Field Guide to Getting Lost

Rebecca Solnit

Nine essays arguing that being lost is a skill worth practising rather than a condition to escape.

Nine essays circling the idea of being lost as something to be sought rather than escaped. Solnit moves between the blue of distance, captivity narratives, a punk youth in San Francisco, country music, and the desert, and lets the connections accumulate rather than argues them. The recurring instruction, borrowed from a friend of Thoreau’s, is to deliberately get lost often enough to learn what it teaches.

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Cal Flyn

Author and Journalist

Getting lost or surrendering oneself in the way Solnit is talking about can be achieved much closer to home.

Interview · July 2026

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