Dillard, Annie

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Read this book if you want to think
a review by a 7th grader
Unique and Scientific
For the Nature Lover
Unique and Interesting

Pilgrim at Tinker Creek
Annie Dillard
Manufacturer: Harper Perennial Modern Classics
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0060953020

Book Description

An exhilarating meditation on nature and its seasons-a personal narrative highlighting one year's exploration on foot in the author's own neighborhood in Tinker Creek, Virginia. In the summer, Dillard stalks muskrats in the creek and contemplates wave mechanics; in the fall she watches a monarch butterfly migration and dreams of Arctic caribou. She tries to con a coot; she collects pond water and examines it under a microscope. She unties a snake skin, witnesses a flood, and plays -King of the Meadow' with a field of grasshoppers.

Customer Reviews:

Read this book if you want to think.......2007-06-01

When I started this book for my 7th grade Humanities class, I didn't really know what to expect. I started it a week later than my classmates, and kept hearing conflicting opinions. It was really long, it was fairly short, it was hard to pay attention to and hard to understand, it sucked you in and made sure you got the message. Now that I've read it, I've come to agree with the last opinion. For me, Tinker Creek was like looking through someone else's eyes at the world. Once I started reading, it was hard to stop.
The only problem I think is that it jumps around a lot, and even though some trains of thought she follows up on later in the book, most are left hanging when you wanted to know more about them. However, I still thought it was a great book, if a tad heavy on metaphors.

a review by a 7th grader.......2007-06-01

I found this book very confusing, but interesting. She (the author) is a very descriptive writer, but it is hard to decipher her meaning through the complexity. She rarely talks about other people, but instead she talks about her own experiences. If you can get past the way it is written, it holds interesting concepts.
"When I was quite young, I fondly imagined that all forighn languages were codes for English" is the start of one of her curious topics. If this book only had one Eternel Alsacien (l')

Eternel Alsacien (l')

Eternel Alsacien (l')
Authors: Huguette Dreikaus
Catalog: Book
Media: Broché
Release Date: 26 April, 2004
Publisher: Le Verger
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Book Description

Here, in this compelling assembly of writings, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Annie Dillard explores the world of natural facts and human meanings.

Customer Reviews:

teaching a stone to talk.......2007-04-30

Tis is some of the worst prose i've ever tried to read. It reminds me of those old Dick and Jane primers in which everything is repeated. Every paragraph could have been condensed effectively into a single sentence. I struggled to finish the first essay but then gave up. It didn't seem to be going anywhere. Sorry I wasted my penny on it.

Teaching a Stone to Talk - Good Read.......2006-03-12

Annie Dillard's work is most certainly her best with the exception of her Thoreau-esque first work. Her writing style and personality are captivating as she engages with a myriad of environments, from local lakes to the Galopagos Islands. As a naturalist writer, she explores the interaction between environments and individuals--the ways in which humanity and ecology play off one another. Fans of Joan Didion will also enjoy the personal feel of Dillard's work as well as the playful use of time and metaphor to capture the dynamism and eccentricity of everyday life. This work is a must-have for any lover/enthusiast of nature and everyone who appreciates flowing prose and lyrical description.

Everyone knows that stones can't talk..........2005-02-15

Poetry is poetry and prose is prose. In my opinion, the extent to which they are mixed is the extent to which the quality of each, with some exceptions, deteriorates. The problem I have with Dillard's writing is that she so freely mixes the two that one is left with either pretty, but obscure prose or overly structured narrative poetry. The problem isn't that Dillard is a poor writer, its rather that she doesn't have a clear vision of what her artful constructions mean. The book is all wings and no roots. It ends up being an excersise in sophistry that, one feels, sweeps the author along in its grand illusions as readily as it does the sensitive reader. I almost feel guilty pointing out the emptiness of it all.

From The Mundane To The Infinite ... And Back Again.......2004-10-05

This book truly is a well crafted and literary set of short stories; all or most of them being autobiographical. But the author does something special in this book. Her stories all center around the physical, mixed with the spiritual, mixed with the metaphysical, both alone and in concert, and finally, in the way they seem to co-exist, at least to her perception and observation.

The substance of her plot is more a substance of a progression of human feelings, than events. The events just happen, the reasons, she tells us, are personal, and mostly uncontrollable. But they ARE. They exist temporally, spiritually, physically, and metaphysically all at the same time. How each of us sees these things is a bit like Albert Einstein's General and Special Theories of Relativity. It all depends on how you come to the words of Annie Dillard, and how we interpret what she is saying. Whether you can relate to it out of your own experience, or whether you can live it vicariously through Dillard's writing matters not, what matters is the attitude and state of mind that one brings to the stories.

For readers interested in a mind expanding vision of reality, and non-reality, this book is beautifully written to take you to all these places. And it takes you through feelings, that almost every reader can relate to. It is worth every minute spent on it.

From as high as eagles.......2004-09-10

Annie Dillard is one of the most satisfying essayists I know. Although I am not, generally, a reader of nature studies, Dillard's essays seem just perfect to me. If I had a single criticism, it would be that she generally ties in a theme or moral to her story to the extent that it would almost seems forced , but the language is so beautifully descriptive and the resolutions so elegant, that I am willing to forgive her for it.

In "Total Eclipse" she manages to describe the experience of witnessing a total solar eclipse in ways that are otherworldly and profoundly beautiful (and even slightly terrifying). Nothing has made me want to experience a solar eclipse myself more than Dillard's essay. In the title essay, she begins by describing "...a man in his thirties who lives alone with a stone he is trying to teach to talk." From this, the essay expands eventually into a commentary on cosmology and theology and the palos santos trees on the Galapagos Islands, and yet it all seems to be a natural evolution. This is the way with all of her essays.

Dillard's studies almost feel like free association, though like a perfect jazz solo, what seemed random and disconnected finds its way back home again as naturally as if it were scored.

Jeremy W. Forstadt

Average customer rating:

One writer's practice and wisdom
Good to have a cup of tea with once in a while
Hollow inspiration
Less Than Writing
More than writing

The Writing Life
Annie Dillard
Manufacturer: Harper Perennial
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Binding: Paperback

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Lexique Humouristique et Footeux Alsacien

Lexique Humouristique et Footeux Alsacien
Authors: Claude Fuchs
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Release Date: 26 April, 2004
Publisher: Le Verger
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ringtone88.com Atwood, entitled, "Negotiating with the Dead: A Writer on Writing".

Hollow inspiration.......2006-08-12

While this book is sometimes inspiration, as I would hope it to be, it also wanders off subject in ways that are only distracting. Any book on the craft of writing is liable to have lofty portions that make great analogies between the craft and other things, but Dillard stretches things much too far while spending much too much time on it. Hearing the details of a writer's life, their quirks and struggles, is heartening and it is in this that Dillard enlightens, but I also expect a book on craft to spend more time on craft. While I want to hear how hard it was to find time to write and how priorities shift when in the throes of creative vision, but I also want to consider the details. I want to hear what other writers think about the use of first person, on whether or not one must like or at least sympathize with a protagonist. The Writing Life did none of these things. It left me feeling pretty hollow. At least it is a thin little book.

Less Than Writing.......2006-05-16

The book is beautifully written but--if you are looking for practical advice to improve your writing--go elsewhere. If you are looking for insight into how Annie creates her magic on the page, you won't find much of it. The book is little more than a series of well crafted journal entries on a series of barely related topics. I smiled once or twice, but the book was a lot less than I expected.

More than writing.......2005-12-28

Ostensibly about writing, I found The Writing Life to be profound on many levels and applicable to any pursuit of art. The honesty and profoundly moving turns of phrase are compelling. This is one of those books that when it first came out went to call my read-aholic friends that year...and now they've discovered Dillard's other, wonderous works. A book to be re-read every once in a while...and given away and enjoyed.

Three by Annie Dillard: The Writing Life, An American Childhood, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek

Average customer rating:

American classics. Read them.
Classic Dillard
Nature in a Different View
Unparalleled imagery and use of language
Dillard's images smell of nature.

Three by Annie Dillard: The Writing Life, An American Childhood, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek
Annie Dillard
Manufacturer: Harper Perennial
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Annie Dillard Reader, An

ASIN: 0060920645

Book Description

A stunning collection of Annie Dillard's most popular books in one volume.

Customer Reviews:

American classics. Read them........2002-04-15

That's about it. Everyone who loves books knows about Annie Dillard. She's probably going to rank up there with Thoreau. That's a comparison I'll bet--though I haven't checked--must be a cliche by now, in comments on Dillard, and if so I'd further suspect that the author herself would be tired of it. Still, that's probably handy as a rough indication of which literary landscape is her natural habitat. If you really enjoy reading--real reading, where verbal skill, style, and breadth of imagination count as much as the subject matter--then you owe it to yourself to be acquainted with this work.

Classic Dillard.......2001-09-06

If you don't know Annie Dillard, this is a good place to start. She has a wonderful writing voice, and constantly says things both surprising and true. After reading the entire collection, which is essentially three very different memoirs, I feel I know her very well - and yet, I know almost nothing about her.

Nature in a Different View.......2000-04-23

After reading Pilgrim at Tinker Creek by Annie Dillard, you will never look at nature the same way again. Her details are never ending and are so unique you feel like you are sitting in a field listening to her talk about her experiences. Her sense of care is much more deep than most people. Many citizens are uninterested about your life, but Dillard is over excited about these adventures. She is very honest throughout the book, and really justifies her thoughts well. Her feelings about religion are also a large part of the book. She believes in God, but wonders sometimes what he really does mean. Doesn't everyone do that? Her details are never-ending in that they explain everything from every dusty corner to things that you never would think about, or want to hear: "I scraped away the smooth snow. Hand fashioned of red clay, and now frozen, the bump was about six inches high and eighteen inches across. The slope, such as it was, was gentle; tread marks stitched to the clay."

This example from page 50, first full paragraph, is a wonderful illustration of how thorough she is in her writing. Instead of saying the bump was small and sloping, she decides to write with more action and feeling in the sentences. This helps the reader feel like she is actually there and enjoying the nature around her. Her interest in creatures seems to be unlimited . I have never seen anyone so interested in the concern of insects. The following passage shows this unending love of creatures: "Under the ice the bluegills and carp are still alive; this far south the ice never stays on the water long enough that fish metabolize all the oxygen and die. Farther north, fish sometimes die in this way and float up to the ice, which thickens around their bodies and holds them fast, open-eyed, until the thaw."

This section from page 48, first full paragraph, demonstrates care in that she knows so much information about fish and their habitats. This illustrates care and concern for so many in not just fish in general, but animals as a whole. So many times people ask us why, but we never really do have an answer, but it seems not to be the case for Dillard. She can justify anything with a credible answer. This passage shows her talent in answering questions to her full capability: "Is our birthright and heritage to be, like Jacob's cattle on which the life of a nation was founded, "ring-streaked, speckled and spotted" not with the spangling marks of a grace like beauty rained down from eternity, but with the blotched assaults and quarryings of time?"

This passage from Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, page 242, continued paragraph, is an example of her justification. Even though she may have the story's background confused from the Bible, she does relate to "Jacob's cattle" several times. This gives the book strength and depth in that she knows her information. Religion is a big factor throughout the book. Dillard states what she thinks is equitable. Many of her statements speak that she is a believer, but she does ask what He means several times. Page 90, third paragraph, shows a great deal of Dillard's feelings: "I have never understood why so many mystics of all creeds experience the presence of God on mountaintops. Aren't they afraid of being blown away? God said to Moses on Sinai that even the priests, who have access to the Lord must hallow themselves, for fear that the Lord may break out against them. This is the fear. It often feels best to lay low, inconspicuous, instead of waving your spirit around from high places like a lightning rod. For if God is in one sense the igniter, a fireball that spins over the ground of continents, God is also in another sense the destroyer, lightening, blind power, impartial as the atmosphere. Or God is one 'G.' You get a comforting sense, in a curved hollow place, of being vulnerable to only a relatively narrow column of God as air."

The passage is extremely strong throughout and makes the reader reread the section. It is very deep and thoughtful. Dillard seems to have a awfully st Los intrepidos : CM1, niveau 1, pour la classe (CD audio)

Los intrepidos : CM1, niveau 1, pour la classe (CD audio)

Los intrepidos : CM1, niveau 1, pour la classe (CD audio)
Authors: Fernando Marin Arrese, Alfredo Morales Galvez
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Release Date: 26 April, 2004
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ringtone88.com Ralph Wahlstrom-author of The Tao of Writing.......2006-12-28

I ordered this book sight-unseen for a new course I'm offering in the spring. I wasn't disappointed. The writing is varied, often challenging and always compelling. I recommend this to anyone who wonders what creative nonfiction is all about.

GREAT TEXTS... GREAT CHOICES... GREAT BOOK!!!.......2006-08-17

This book is one of best compilation titles I ever found.
Perfect if you want to read some of the best nonfiction pieces around.

The subjects multiply of these 25 great essays... from wolves and hunters... to a woman with deseases... to a man fascinated with people named like him... to a guy who remembers his uncle's strange apartment meetings... and so on...

All of those texts are written with a unique style and a rare passion who raised my interest everytime I took the book and started to read.

In fact, while some of the essays here didn't have a subjecto who'd speak to me on a personal level, the thing is... they are all so well written that I just kept on reading. And I did found more to this genre than I used to see.

I recomend this book to writers, readers and just anybody in for a great reading ride.

Mr. Gutkind did a marvelous job collecting theses texts. That must be said.

The introduction (notes for young writers) is also an awesome way to introduce the wonders of this genre.

Highly recomended.

Impossible to put down and short pieces whice can be browsed through at will.......2006-03-29

For those unfamiliar with Lee Gutkind, she was instrumental in working on an creating one of my favorite literary publications, Creative Nonfiction. Each issue was devoted to a particular subject, from Family to Intimate Matters or Surviving Crisis.

Just last night, in fact, I read one of the pieces from one of those publications, an essay called "Shunning" which told of the loss of identity faced by a pregnant teen in the 60s, during a time when getting pregnant outside of marriage could cause everyone to turn their backs on a person.

Now I"m thrilled that Gutkind has compiled some of the best examples of Creative Nonfiction. Not only because I'm already a fan of her work but also because I love reading but am short on time. This book is perfect because it allows me to start and finish an entire piece in the book without having to set aside hours to do so. I don't HAVE to read it in a few days or one or two sittings.

I urge you to experience the joys of Creative Nonfiction, especially as compiled by someone as discerning as Gutkind.

It is great for those who have to read in fits and starts, perhaps while waiting to pick up a kid after school or while waiting in line at the drive-up window at the bank. In short, it is perfect for taking with you while on a trip, on the run or when you have a few minute in your day to sit down, have a cup or coffee (or snack) and let one of the many wonderful writers in this volume take you away from you usual routine.

An Overlooked Genre On A New & Exciting Spin! .......2006-03-18

I enjoyed this book SO much, I can't recommend it enough! Creative Nonfiction is a relatively new genre, or overlooked. But the genre has now come to the forefront, and it is DIVINE! Lee Gutkind assimilated some fantastic "creative nonfiction" authors, and the result is that of a creme brulee. (really, if you love books as much as I do, you'll understand what I mean. Some people simply assume that nonfiction books are dry, and boring. NOT. "In Fact: The Best Of Creative Nonfiction" surprised me, and basically kept me glued to the book. I finished it in one night, and for me, that is rare. But the writers that Mr. Gutkind chose for this undertaking are so perfect for this genre, and it was a highly interesting read. I can't recommend it enough! BUY IT NOW!

Average customer rating:

varied classics make good reading for the writer of nonfiction
The Art of the Personal
Absolutely imaginative and colorful composition

Modern American Memoirs

Manufacturer: Harper Perennial
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0060927631

Book Description

In Modern American Memoirs, two very discerning writers and readers have selected samples from 35 of the finest memoirs written in this century, including contributions by such diverse writers as Margaret Mead, Malcolm X, Maxine Hong Kingston, Loren Eisely, and Zora Neale Hurston. Chosen for their value as excellent examples of the art of biography as well as for their superb writing, the excerpts present a broad range of American life, and offer vivid insight into the real-life events that shaped their authors. Here, readers can learn about the time when Harry Crews, playing as a boy, fell into a vat of boiling water with a dead hog; Chris Offutt joined the circus and watched a tattooed woman swallow a fluorescent light; and Frank Conroy practiced yo-yo tricks.

Customer Reviews:

varied classics make good reading for the writer of nonfiction.......2005-09-29

Annie Dillard, the editor of this collection, is widely considered one of the foremost American writers of nonfiction. Akin to the sophisticated, peerless, but somewhat dry,"The Art of Fact, " a fabulous, though now somewhat-dated anthology for those journalists who wanted to expand their rule-driven pieces, these are only somewhat relevant as contemporary examples, mostly useful to the writer studying how the genre of creative nonfiction has evolved over the last century into modern-day anthologies, such as the "Best American Magazine Writing," or even, "Literary Journalism." The writing is, line by line, richly artistic (far too many people are misusing the word "artful" lately--my pet peeve, but maybe I should just give up and start using it to mean "full of art"). On a positive note, Dillard has carefully chosen varied forms to show the genre's possibilities. Loren Eiseley's, "The Star Thrower," depends heavily on symbolism and theme to great effect, while Chris Offutt's stunning piece is one of the more contemporary. All have heart and emotional honesty; every writer here showed great courage. Scholars and writers of creative nonfiction should have this on the shelf, and certainly there is much to learn from studying these ("study" being the operative word; all are investments of time). A better selection for the younger writer in the genre looking for a quicker fix of literary gems might be Dave Eggers new anthology, "The Best American Nonrequired Reading," (not exclusively nonfiction but a winner) for more new and exciting experimental techniques. Nevertheless, a valuable and well-chosen c Réussir le DALF, unité B2 (cassette audio)

Réussir le DALF, unité B2 (cassette audio)

Réussir le DALF, unité B2 (cassette audio)
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Release Date: 26 April, 2004
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ringtone88.com opelled me reeling back to the world." From her parents she inherited a love of language--her mother's speech was "an endlessly interesting, swerving path"--and the understanding that "you do what you do out of your private passion for the thing itself," not for anyone else's approval or desire. And one would be mistaken to call the energy Dillard exhibits in An American Childhood merely youthful; "still I break up through the skin of awareness a thousand times a day," she writes, "as dolphins burst through seas, and dive again, and rise, and dive."

Book Description

A book that instantly captured the hearts of readers across the country, An American Childhood is Pulitzer Prize-winning author Annie Dillard's poignant, vivid memoir of growing up in Pittsburgh in the 1950s.

Customer Reviews:

Reliving the Years.......2007-06-01

An American Childhood by Annie Dillard makes a vivid flashback of the years every person once had and cunningly makes her childhood seem like it was your own. She expertly describes Pittsburgh and makes the reader know the town just as well as they know the town where they grew up. Many people would never imagine a place such as the coal industry of Pittsburgh as a comforting and humble place. Annie's amazing writing skills make the transformation from a hard working town to a peaceful and lovely city.
Annie becomes a curious girl from the beginning. She sees that everything in life needs investigation and everything deserves to be noticed. She seeks to learn from all of her actions and keeps all the positive lessons in her mind. Annie describes something everyone has gone through and readers will realize that their childhood experiences lead to their personalities and talents. An American Childhood leaves readers with the memories of their times of innocence.

If you know Pittsburgh, you'll love this book.......2007-05-07

Dillard does a great job of blending her very unique childhood into its context in a city with so much history and charm. Her imagery is wonderful. This was a great read that I often give as a gift to my friends who live in Pittsburgh.

Relive the past you never had.......2007-04-15

Some may think this is a book of times long gone, unrelated to the experiences of today's youth, but I read the snowball throwing excerpt to my seventh grade class, and they clung to the words to the end, and then couldn't wait to reveal their own similar experiences. At the same time, I was shown a glimpse of a past I suddenly wanted to relive. Dillard tells the events in her life in such a way that, although we haven't shared exactly the same experiences, we want to nod at her and say, "I know."

take me back.......2007-02-21

An American Childhood, will seem slow and cumbersome to some. To me, it was a recollection of my growing up years well written. It is a memory of a time irretrievable, I am sure; a time when a child could run through the neighborhood at night in complete safety while all the while thinking it a clandestine adventure. Annie Dillard perfectly captures the mundane excitement of growing up in a safe American neighborhood that unfortunately may have disappeared forever.

zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz....................2006-08-11

I had to read this book for an AP class, and it put me to sleep everytime i picked it up. The author rambles on about the same things that went on in her life throughout the whole book, and she adds the most pointless details and situations. The whole book is base don her views and opinions, so I really didn't care for it .If you don't want to go to the store to buy sleeping pills, just pick this one off the shelf and you will sleeping like a baby.

Average customer rating:

Awe-inspiring...
What a combination of topics and thoughts!
Broad and deep, but don't expect Dillard to do all the work!
Being Needs Time
shallow, rambling, pointless

For the Time Being
Annie Dillard
Manufacturer: Vintage
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Holy the Firm
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Living by Fiction

ASIN: 0375703470
Release Date: 2000-02-08

Amazon.com

Over the last three decades, Annie Dillard has written about an uncommon number of things--predators and prose, astronomy and evolution, the miraculous survival of mangroves. Yet the sheer range of her interests can be deceptive. Whatever the subject, Dillard is always (as she wrote in Living by Fiction) practicing unlicensed metaphysics in a teacup, always asking the fundamental questions about life and death. And this epistemological interrogation continues in For the Time Being. Here Dillard alternates accounts of her own travels to China and Israel with ruminations on sand, clouds, obstetrics, and Hasidic thought. She also records the wanderings of paleontologist and spade-wielding spiritualist Teilhard de Chardin, whose itinerary (geographical and philosophical) has certain similarities to her own. But as she ties together these disparate threads with truly Emersonian eloquence, it becomes clear that God's presence--or absence--is at the heart of her book.

There are, of course, facts aplenty here: the author is among our keenest living observers of the natural world (check out her soft-core account of two snails mating in chapter 7). But all roads lead Dillard back to God, who seems to be practicing a divine variant of benign neglect: <blockquote> God is no more cogitating which among us he plans to be born as bird-headed dwarfs or elephant men--or to kill by AIDS or kidney failure, heart disease, childhood leukemia, or sudden infant death syndrome--than he is pitching lightning bolts at pedestrians, triggering rock slides, or setting fires. The very least unlikely things for which God might be responsible are what insurers call "acts of God." </blockquote> Natural calamity is an old fascination of the author's, going clear back to Pilgrim at Tinker Creek and Holy the Firm. Here it allows her to make her strongest argument yet on behalf of the Almighty's laissez-faire policy--while suggesting that His immanence in fact depends on our belief.

Yet even in her earnest pursuit of holiness, Dillard tends to hit the occasional speed bump. At one point she throws up her hands in exasperation and declares: "I don't know beans about God." This is hardly the stuff of an airtight theological argument, is it? But happily, Dillard possesses the same quality she ascribes to Teilhard, "a sort of anaerobic capacity to batten and thrive on paradox." So her contradictions are worth more to the reader than her consistencies. They enrich her narrative, yanking her back from the precipice of easy (or even moderately easy) belief. And Dillard's penchant for paradox ensures that For the Time Being--which aims, after all, to encompass God and all his works--always operates on a human, heartbreaking scale. --James Marcus

Book Description

National Bestseller

"Beautifully written and delightfully strange--. As earthy as it is sublime, For the Time Being is, in the truest sense, an eye- opener."--Daily News

From Annie Dillard, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Pilgrim at Tinker Creek and one of the most compelling writers of our time, comes For the Time Being, her most profound narrative to date. With her keen eye, penchant for paradox, and yearning for truth, Dillard renews our ability to discover wonder in life's smallest--and often darkest--corners.

Why do we exist? Where did we come from? How can one person matter? Dillard searches for answers in a powerful array of images: pictures of bird-headed dwarfs in the standard reference of human birth defects; ten thousand terra-cotta figures fashioned for a Chinese emperor in place of the human court that might have followed him into death; the paleontologist and theologian Teilhard de Chardin crossing the Gobi Desert; the dizzying variety of clouds. Vivid, eloquent, haunting, For the Time Being evokes no less than the terrifying grandeur of all that r New Step In : Anglais, 3e LV1 (Transparents)

New Step In : Anglais, 3e LV1 (Transparents)

New Step In : Anglais, 3e LV1 (Transparents)
Authors: Collectif, Marie-Aude Ligozat
Catalog: Book
Media: Reliure inconnue
Release Date: 23 April, 2004
Publisher: Hatier Scolaire
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ringtone88.com aren't understood in their proper light. This book will never be made into a movie starring Tom Hanks or Cruise, so it never received the attention from the publishing community it deserved. "Good" hasn't had anything to do with "popular" in our country for a long time.

Well, so be it. The level of thought in this book is best enjoyed over a period of time, as it should be with good writing. I wrote one of the first reviews of this years ago and I must tell you that this book will become one of your best friends, if you let it. Take each page as a morsel of food at the finest restaurant to be chewed and digested slowly. This book deserves your attention for a long period of time and will give back all you give it.

You bring who you are to a work of art. As you grow and change the artwork seems to change too as you find more and more in it. This book is a work of art from one of the Thinkers of our time; spend some time with her.

I'll write back in another five years.

shallow, rambling, pointless.......2006-01-09

Lots of style, very little content. Maybe she's asking the fundamental questions about life and death, but it sounds to me more like self-indulgent rambling posing as philosophy. I always wonder, too, at the arrogance of people who, even though most of the people on earth are neither Jewish nor Christian, assume that Jews and Christians have all the answers to fundamental questions about existence. And, when you consider that all through history, religions of all sorts have caused more problems than they've solved, why would anyone look to religion for answers to serious questions anyway?

Average customer rating:

Spilling the Beans
Oh, that all writers could write like this.
A real gem.
What Is God Anyway?
Stunning

Holy the Firm
Annie Dillard
Manufacturer: Harper Perennial
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0060915439

Book Description

In 1975 Annie Dillard took up residence on an island in Puget Sound in a wooded room furnished with "one enormous window, one cat, one spider and one person." For the next two years she asked herself questions about time, reality, sacrifice death, and the will of God. In Holy the Firm she writes about a moth consumed in a candle flame, about a seven-year-old girl burned in an airplane accident, about a baptism on a cold beach. But behind the moving curtain of what she calls "the hard things -- rock mountain and salt sea," she sees, sometimes far off and sometimes as close by as a veil or air, the power play of holy fire.

This is a profound book about the natural world -- both its beauty and its cruelty -- the Pulitzer Prize-winning Dillard knows so well.

Customer Reviews:

Spilling the Beans.......2006-03-06

While attending Western Washington University I had the great good fortune to take a poetry class from Annie Dillard. My own poetry was abysmal and she gave me this advice, "writing is like prayer; you sit and listen for the still small voice." She had won the Pulitzer prize for Pilgrim at Tinker Creek and was in the process of writing Holy the Firm while at Fairhaven College at Western. She read us the bits about the moth and the flame. This is her slenderest book, but the one in which she most takes her own advice. It's prose that reads like poetry.

This is a book that makes me think that everything else I've ever read was only approximate use of language to convey some idea. In this book it seems like every word is carefully chosen, as if it comes from some place of meditation, of listening to a still small voice. It's a very human book, for all the sparks of the divine. By another accident I heard her read from it at the University of Washington. The final passage seemed to rise to a climax and hang in the air. No one spoke, no one left. It was one of those magical moments. Holy the Firm is all one piece and can be read through in one sitting as one experience. It's very much a writer's book, and I see most of the reviews are by writers finding some echo in a fellow writer. Some reviewers have put much better than I what it's about. I merely suggest that Dillardians (and other readers) may enjoy this oft-overlooked book.

Oh, that all writers could write like this........2006-02-23

Prose poetry -- a literary form that seems to be missing from the experience of many readers. It is the ambrosia of forms and I know of no one better to serve it than Annie Dillard.

I envy her skill at evoking imagery and emotions through her rhythmic, metophorical language. It is a language of her own, honed through years of practice.

She has fed my spirit and my soul. She has given me a desire to reside in a world of words that is unlike any other. She has lifted me to a new dimention -- a heaven of words dancing around and above and with each other --whirling in a dervish of linquistic rapture.

If I could choose to imitate one writer who ever lived, it would be Annie Dillard.

A real gem........2006-01-25

I was attracted initially to this book based on Dillard's other works and the idea that she holed herself up in the Puget Sound area for a couple of years to think things through. Wow. Maybe more of us should stop and watch and think and write for a couple years. There is an almost imperceptible inner longing that runs throughout this book. I imagine Dillard working very hard over every word and that effort comes through to the reader in the depth of each sentence. She's not always accessible and I know people who just can't get through her books. I don't argue - she's rarely breezy and always deep but I always find her writing to be satisfying and challenging. A rare gem.

What Is God Anyway?.......2005-08-30

Annie Dillard has a special way of speaking to her readers. Her language is light and airy, yet filled with great significance and meaning. She blithely covers the most difficult and complicated of human subjects, with terrific contemplation. And what she yields is a treasure, a gem to be internalized and imbued.

In this book, Annie discusses God. She is confused by the way in which random events that hurt and injure seem to be disconnected with the way in which we would like to live. If these random and terrible events take place, without willful malice; then how could it happen that God would let such terrible things occur?

She describes a day in her life. In that day there is a young girl visiting, to whom she is attracted and vice versa. They have a chemistry that brings them within each other's spheres. This beautiful girl becomes the casualty of an airplane crash. No one else is hurt. No one is dead. But this girl for a random reason, is hit with a globule of flaming kerosene, and her face is totally burned away.

This anomaly is the framework of the book. She could have chosen 1000 other examples that set up this question. But she chose this one of the girl, one that could be personal not just to her; but also to her readers. She reminds us that there is no everyday, omnipresent God directing things. And there is no way to figure out these random events. There are only DAYS. And those days are filled with things that we do or don't do. There is no God that will directly intervene and tell us what to do, or save us. He is as ruthless as he is merciful. His form, however, is quite another story. His form is spiritual, not worldly, and not mundane. And we must remember that we control most of the things in our lives directly. We need to assume that responsibility and leave the spiritual to whatever it is we seem Tout savoir sur le tennis

Tout savoir sur le tennis

Tout savoir sur le tennis
Authors: Patrice Failliot, Petra Failliot
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Release Date: 23 April, 2004
Publisher: Ouest-France
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Livres:

ringtone88.com ttempts to interpret art, and thereby includes fiction as art, and as an interpretation. The book is well constructed and the sentences are beautifully crafted. The treatise starts by discussing in vast detail, the styles and forms of writing. Then it concentrates on "modernistic" fiction. This type of fiction takes numerous and varied forms.

Annie distinguishes between styles of writing. She does this very much by example. She uses the work of many, many authors as her examples and illustrations of the different manners in which a writer can craft a work. Specifically, she describes works of fiction. After detailing these different styles and their characteristics, she then turns to the purpose of fiction as a subcategory of art.

She posits that art is an interpretation. It is the artist's perspective on the relationship between something in the universe and a representation of that vision of the item. Her analysis inevitably leads her to state that art and religion are the modes by which people explain and interpret the unexplainable. Art produces an interpretation of a vision that is meant for others to see.

The interpretation, interestingly enough, is in fact non-existent without the reader and the critic to observe. While opining that fiction needs readers and critics to be interpreted, the interpretation is the very purpose of the creation. Without the reader and the critic, the work does not really exist. It exists in form, but not in value. The work is a creation that only carries a message if someone reads it; and more so if someone such as a critic helps us to interpret it.

In a fascinating "diatribe" to use her designation, she discusses the complexity of interpretation. In addition, she discusses a concept that art is the ordering of disordered and decaying existence. Basing her discussion of this concept on Newton's Second Law of Thermodynamics, which states that all things become randomly distributed, unless acted upon by some external force; Annie argues that fiction and art in general are an ordering of this theory of disorder or entropy. She in fact suggests that perhaps art, including fiction, is the purpose of man. And that this purpose is for man to make order of the universe around him. Does art create meaning or does it expose it? In essence Annie says the distinction does not really matter. What matters is that it is a depiction; which is open to anyone who wishes to interpret it. Without an observer, it carries no real meaning. It is just an object. Only through its interpretation does it gain meaning. Thus, art and fiction necessitate interpreters, and it is through these interpreters, the reader, that it gains meaning and substance.

While complex in her contentions, she is also sublime. The treatise truly is a thing of beauty, but that is not sufficient to Annie. Nor is it really sufficient to a reader or a critic. What is sufficient and valuable is that the art object presents the reader with an interpretation. And whether the reader's interpretation is in accordance with the artist's is really of no account. Its value is in its illustration of a message. That message is open to all to interpret as they see it, and as it relates to life and existence. This book is recommended to all readers of complex fiction. It is truly a picturesque look at the art of writing and also the purpose thereof.

Living with Art.......2003-04-03

In Living by Fiction, Annie Dillard begins her introduction with, ýThis is, ultimately, a book about the world.ý I canýt be sure of what youýre thinking but I wrote ýholy crapý in my margin. She later goes on to explain, ýFiction can deal with all the worldýs objects and ideas together, with the breadth of human experience in time and space; it can deal with things the limited disciplines of thought either ignore completely or destroy by methodological caution, our most pressing concerns: personality, family, death, love, time, spirit, goodness, evil, destiny, beauty, will.ý Itýs characteristic of Dillard to deliver a surprising assertion throughout her book, which peaks enough interest that the reader is able to grapple with the theory-based arguments and eventually make oneýs way to beautiful, gentle explanations that are often times hard to disagree with since she covers many perspectives. Dillardýs strength lies in her ability to intertwine theory with her own creativity in writing, making metaphors out of her arguments: ýScience works the way a tightrope walker works: by not looking at its feet. As soon as it looks at its feet, it realizes that itýs operating in midair.ý This is what we would have imagined a theory book to read like years ago, if a creative writer had written it.

Dillardýs main concerns in her book deal with modernism and its place in the contemporary world, the never-ending argument of what constitutes art, and her caution not to commit to any absolutes in the world of knowledge and intelligence. This is the closest that a reader could get to having a conversation with a theorist. At one point when Dillard is discussing the marketplace and Melvilleýs essay, The Encantadas, and how itýs always been classified as fiction, she asks as though sheýs sitting with us listening to the same discussion, ýIs it because Melville usually wrote fiction? Is it because it is a narrative? Is it because the characters are colorful? Is it because it is good? Or is it because much of it is hearsay?ý Dillard is reassuring (or disconcertingýdepending on how you view the literary world) in her text that there are no absolutes to how fiction fits in the world, how art movements change, or how meaning is made. This book probably addresses a more advanced writer in its focus on theory and non-focus on craft.

Glorious - and crucial - Dillard.......2001-02-07

I think there are few books about literature as important, erudite, witty or insightful as this one. In typical Dillard fashion, Annie Dillard begins with a rather narrow focus - an interpretation of "contemporary modernist" fiction (a term she hopes will not catch on because it is so clumsy) - the works of Nabokov, John Barth, Jorge Luis Borges, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Italo Calvino, Robbe-Grillet and Beckett - and then she proceeds to expand her inquiry to include, firstly, the finding of meaning in literature and, ultimately, the finding of meaning in the world. These questions - does the world have meaning? do we find meaning or make it up? how do we best interpret the world? - are questions which dog "Living by Fiction"; rather than gloss over them Dillard investigates them. And she comes up with some surprising - and glorious - ideas. Ultimately, she makes a challenging and vital case for the importance of literature in terms of making meaning out of the world. This is, truly, critiscm at its best. I have no doubt that Dillard's reading of the contemporary modernists will be regarded as seminal in years to come. So for anyone even remotely interested in contemporary literary critiscm, this book is crucial. But the wider scope of the book is one should fascinate anyone who cares about literature and meaning. These are burning questions that Dillard asks. If you've never read Dillard's other works - Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, Holy the Firm, etc. - this is a wonderful introduction into her particular talents and methods. If you're a Dillard fan and you haven't read this one, you are really missing out.

stimulating and thought-provoking.......1998-06-03

I thought Ms. Dillard distinguished herself with this literary piece of literary criticism. She got into some pretty deep and convoluted places with this book, but I felt that every point was well-made and well-taken. I feel the book is an education in itself. Loved it!

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