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    The Annie Dillard Reader
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    The Annie Dillard Reader
    Unavailable
    The Annie Dillard Reader
    Ebook530 pages8 hours

    The Annie Dillard Reader

    By Annie Dillard

    4.5/5

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    Currently unavailable

    About this ebook

    Annie Dillard -- "one of the most distinctive voices in American letters today" (Boston Globe) -- collects her favorite selections from her own writings in this compact volume. A perfect introduction to one of America's most acclaimed and bestselling authors.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperCollins
    Release dateOct 13, 2009
    ISBN9780061856945
    Unavailable
    The Annie Dillard Reader
    Author

    Annie Dillard

    Annie Dillard is the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, An American Childhood, The Writing Life, The Living and The Maytrees. She is a member of the Academy of Arts and Letters and has received fellowship grants from the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts.

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    Reviews for The Annie Dillard Reader

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    • 5/5
      In my Annie Dillard Reader, Kindle edition, I've read her Poems and The Book of Luke (1989)which made wonderful Advent reading. Kindle location 3899 "It is a fault of infinity to be too small to find. It is a fault of eternity to be crowded out by time." 3922 "This Bible, this ubiquitous, persistent black chunk of a best seller, is a chink--often the only chink--through which winds howl. It is a singularity, a black hole into which our rich and multiple world strays and vanishes. We crack open its pages at our peril." 3925 "...it is the book that kidnaps the children, and hooks them." The author writes about her experiences in Christian summer camp and Sunday School and offers insightful commentary on the Gospel text, concluding with these selected quotes: 4095 "What a pity, that so hard on the heels of Christ come the Christians.... flawed to the core, full of wild ideas and hurried self-importance.... They are smug and busy, just like us, and who could believe in them? ...Who could believe that salvation is for these rogues?" "Unless, of course-- Unless Christ's washing the disciples' feet, their dirty toes, means what it could, possibly mean: that it is all right to be human." 4109 "If they were just like us, then Christ's words to them are addressed to us, in full and merciful knowledge--and we are lost. There is no place to hide." Annie Dillard's lovely meditative prose, her keen observations, and the way her mind interweaves everything make her one of my favorite authors.I'm continuing the Annie Dillard Reader and have just finished the excerpts from Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, perhaps my favorite work of mysticism. kl 4236 "that which isn't flint is tinder, and the whole world sparks and flames." kl 4270 "An infant who has just learned to hold his head up has a frank and forthright way of gazing about him in bewilderment. He hasn't the faintest clue where he is, and he aims to learn. In a couple of years, what he will have learned is how to fake it..." kl 4567 "But although the pearl may be found, it may not be sought. The literature of illumination reveals this above all: although it comes to those who wait for it, it is always, even to the most practiced and adept, a gift and a total surprise... I cannot cause light; the most I can do is try to put myself in the path of its beam." Annie Dillard is an author to read and re-read and take to heart. This book features many well-remembered selections and is a great survey of Dillard's work.
    • 5/5
      Total Eclipse - A haunting and evocative description of a total eclipse of the sun and the odd behavior this relatively rare celestial occurrence has upon its observers.An Expedition to the Pole - A fascinating essay that blends facts about various arctic expeditions and the author's experience of modern organized religion. An unlikely pairing, perhaps, but one that seems oddly apt.Contemporary Prose Styles - An essay on contemporary writing styles. Very thoughtful and evocative.The Living - In a remote rural town in Washington state, a local deadbeat decides to threaten a man's life as a psychological experiment. He hopes that the imminent prospect of losing his life will break the man's spirit and leave him in a permanent state of fear. Much to his disappointment, the opposite seems to happen. Confronted with mortality, the man learns to live more in the present and understand the beauty of daily life. In fact, he realizes that death has always been with him and it is a bigger threat than this one violent man. Someday he will die, and this knowledge frees him in unexpected ways. A beautiful and haunting story about the act of living.The Deer at Providencia - The author recounts her experience of pain and suffering when she witnesses a strangling dear in a remote jungle village. A thoughtful essay examining the inevitability of great pain and the effect on the psyche.Living Like Weasels - An essay about the bite strength and tenacity of weasels.From An American Childhood - The author recounts some of her most formative childhood memories while creating a lush portrait of her hometown and family structure.Poems - A collection of thoughtful and wondering poems. Several of them have been constructed from the writings of others. The author calls these "found poems". Memory and remembering are recurring themes.The Book of Luke - A thoughtful meditation upon the subversive nature of the Bible and the unthinking way it is taught to children. The author considers in particular the book of Luke, large parts of which she memorized at summer time Bible schools. Her opinion, is that if the adults in her life had read it, they would have hid it from her. It is full of terrible, wild commands to sell all earthly possessions and give to the poor. In its pages, she learned about the stark hypocrisy of all the seemingly righteous people around her. This essay also considers the beauty of both the language and the cadence of the gospel. From Pilgrims at Tinker Creek - The author muses upon her bucolic life living alone alongside a creek. She is obsessed with nature, especially bizarre insects. Her thoughts are consumed with the wonder and variety of the created world and pondering about what it says about the Creator. She muses upon various religious texts and other famous writers. She is full of wonder and passion and existential fear. It's perhaps the most dense and beautiful writing I've ever come across. She is able to communicate her fascination to the reader, even if the facts she is sharing are repulsive. Nature is full of death, hideous, fantastic death. One can look away, but one cannot escape it.Holy the Firm - The author meditates upon the nature of faith, religion, and nature. She lives alone on a peninsula in Washington state. She can see islands, many of them unnamed. She considers many weighty thoughts, using the tragedy of a young girl who had her face burned off in a tragic accident. What does it mean, that a child should suffer like this.