The Faraway Nearby is certainly about things, but just what those things are isn't so easily said.
The stories we tell ourselves and which shape our lives, most obviously - a trite subject nowadays but explored by Solnit with great deftness and grace, in cascading sections that offer their insights in part through the paths they follow to reach their conclusions.
Solnit's difficult relationship with her mother, and with herself, and how this is brought into a different light by her mother's old age and mental deterioration.
The nature of the self, and its relationship to story and physical world.
Illness.
Iceland.
It's a marvellous, beautiful book.
