I very much enjoyed the Earthsea series, and very greatly disliked The Dispossessed. I can understand why other people like it, but it's very much not for me.
I remember thinking The Left Hand of Darkness was an enjoyable read, but kind of tough to get through. That was maybe 10 years ago, though.
I'd maybe start with the first Earthsea book since they're a bit more digestible. She's worth a read if you're curious!
Her big there are The Left Hand of Darkenss (about gender), The Disposed ( capitalism vs anarchism), The Lathe of Heaven (Dreams alter reality).
They are all good but I wouldn't describe them as easy or fun reads. I didn't enjoy any of them but after reading them I a lot of depth of thought on the topic.
I recently read and really enjoyed The Left Hand of Darkness. It's crazy that she wrote such a book back then. Now I'm longing for more books like this.
Today, I'm on (a rare) vacation (yay!). I'm reading through her Earthsea books. When they ended sooner than I expected, I realized they were intended as young adult books. It's not as in depth as other fantasy, but I've enjoyed them nonetheless.
If you were only going to read one or two, then sure, go for The Left Hand of Darkness (for sci-fi) or A Wizard of Earthsea (for fantasy), though there are some loose sequels to each of those you might end up wanting to pursue. But personally I've always been most fond of Always Coming Home.
LeGuin is one of my favorite authors. I've read a lot, but not all of LeGuin's novels. She has 2 main multibook series that I've read, the Earthsea books and the Hainish cycle.
Earthsea is sort of YA fantasy, but grows up throughout the series. The first 3 are a self contained trilogy, and my favorite is Tombs of Atuan which is book 2, I think would be okay as a standalone title. My other favorite is Tales from Earthsea which is book 5, and is a collection of short stories set in the setting. You'd be missing a little context only reading Tales, but this could also be a standalone.
The Hainish cycle is scifi, and are only loosely connected by the setting and don't have a too firmly established chronology, or any shared main characters. My favorite from the Hainish Cycle is The Left Hand of Darkness and my 2nd favorite is The Dispossessed.
The classic is a wizard of earthsea/left hand of darkness and they are always worth repeating. If you do just two, those are them. It's almost criminal how these are kinda slipping beneath view these days.
I got a steady diet of her short stories and children's books growing up. I remember sur specifically, but generally they were less fantasy oriented from what I can remember.
(Edit:huzzah autocorrect)
Fantasy books, stories, ＆c
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