The Wind's Twelve Quarters & Compass Rose by Ursula K. Le Guin

Grand Master Ursula K. Le Guin has been recognised for almost fifty years as one of the most important writers in the SF field - and is likewise feted beyond the confines of the genre. The Wind's Twelve Quarters was her first collection and it brings together some of finest short fiction, including the Hugo Award-winning The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas, the Nebula Award-winning The Day Before the Revolution, and the Hugo-nominated Winter's King, which gave readers their first glimpse of the world later made famous in her Hugo- and Nebula-winning masterpiece The Left Hand of Darkness.