The Writing Life, by Annie Dillard, is a book describing the life of a writer from her perspective. She describes her life as well as gives suggestions as to help new writers do their work more effectively. Her stories throughout are what give this book its unconventional feel. These examples personify her personality and the affects of this life. Dillard weaves her advice into her book in between her stories and experiences. She gives a variety of advice that would help a new writer to do the best work that they can.
The Writing Life talks mostly about how a person must adjust their life in order to write. "Putting a book together is interesting and exhilarating. It is sufficiently difficult and complex that it engages all your intelligence. It is life at its most free. Your freedom as a writer is not freedom of expressions in the sense of wild blurting; you may not let rip. It is life at its most free, if you are fortunate enough to be able to try it, because you select your materials, invent your task, and pace yourself." Dillard has her own views on the life of a writer. She describes her various work places such as a one-room log cabin and a non-insulated prefabricated tool shed. Annie Dillard's life is affected in many ways due to the writer's lifestyle.

In "The Writing Life," Annie Dillard reflects on the writer's craft and calling. This short book takes the form of an extended essay that is divided into several chapters. Dillard writes about the physical places in which she has actually written her work. Other topics include the relationship of the writer's vision to the actual fruits of her labor ("this changeling, this bastard"); the question of whether to write "one big book" or a series of short pieces; and a writer's relationship to the work of preceding writers. Along the way Dillard invokes the names of many other writers: Henry James, Octavio Paz, Helen Keller, Jack London, Emily Dickinson, Willa Cather, Ralph Ellison, Walt Whitman, Gertrude Stein, etc.

The final chapters deal with two people she has known: one a painter, one a stunt pilot; their crafts could be seen as metaphors for writing. I enjoyed "The Writing Life." Although at times I found Dillard's prose a bit self-indulgent, overall I found the book to be a thoughtful and well-written meditation.

Annie Dillard's The Writing Life, for me, was like having a relaxing conversation with a friend about the pains and joys of writing. I identified with every sentence -- from starting over again on a writing project, to disliking the beginning of a work but loving the middle, to growing in this craft, etc... It is an addiction, and addictions are not easy to explain, so I understand the negative reviews of this book as well. Writing is an unexplainable yet enjoyable frustration. Annie Dillard's metaphores trying to explain the positive and negative aspects of writing -- from painting, to reeling in a log and fighting the forces of nature, to flying -- they are clear-cut, percise views of what writing is all about. This book is great for writers who just enjoy what writng is: annoying, aggrevating, frustrating, soul-searching, creative, self-understanding fun. Read this book. Relax. Enjoy The Writing Life.

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 strong interest in the power of God. This subject and nature really brings about energy for the audience that is unusual in most authors. Annie Dillard writes exceptionally strong in Pilgrim at Tinker Creek. She mentions exceedingly sturdy statements, which justify her thoughts, but she is concerned and caring for the things around her. Her details throughout help make readers more involved in the book. They feel like they lived with her during the past five years. Religion has a large impact on Dillard's view of nature. She feels that very day should be appreciated and welcomed.

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.

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.

My book club also read this one. While one cannot dispute that Annie Dillard is a wonderful craftsman of words and prose, I didn't feel that she exacted the necessary character attachments and drama for this to be a successful novel. Perhaps we would have been better served had she stayed with her forte: non-fiction.

On the plus side, I have not read a more beautiful or perfectly written final paragraph in recent memory, which endeared the book to me more so than it would have otherwise.

Annie Dillard has one of the clearest, most attractive writing voices I have ever read. It's almost always an eye-opening joy to read her, just for the way she puts words and sentences together. This novel is no exception, although it's not her best work.

The plot here - about the settlement of the Pacific Northwest, and some characters in and around Bellingham, Washington - is fairly interesting, although not compelling.

After about 100 pages, I started to find the title ironic: I felt it should be called "The Dead and Dying." One gets a real taste of how difficult life was in the 19th century, when the frontier was still being opened.

But Dillard's style does not mesh well with the demands of a novel. She is far better at conveying her innermost thoughts; her memoirs and essays are what make her so good. If you have the choice, read those rather than this.

This is a dreadful, exhausting book. But I've read it three times! Annie Dillard is an unflinching, straightforward writer who has a firm grasp on the strengths and frailties of human nature. She accurately captures the feel of NW Washington "high woods" and the people who settled the area. By the time you finish this novel you will not just feel like you know the characters, you'll feel like you're related to each one of them and have greived their passing. I highly recommend it to anyone who is from this area of the United States - you will recognize the landscape, the attitudes, and certainly the weather. A character states, after a looong spell of rain and overcast skies, "We live in a lidded pot."

As a high school student, I found this book much more difficult to read than other assigned reading titles. Dillard's lack of transitions and seemingly unrelated facts and statisitics made absolutlely no sense to me. I asked myself several times, "What IS her point?" However, as I read on, not only did I find an underlying philosophy beyond Dillard's words, but I also came to realize how gifted of a writer she must be to express herself in such a unique writing style (disconnected, random thoughts about birth defects, her trips to Israel and China, and clouds). Although I often found myself confused during my reading, it was not only because I couldn't grasp Dillard's meaning; it was also because Dillard's thoughts and questions provoked me to evaluate my own philosphies of life, death, and God. As Dillard says in the book, "...inquire, hollering at God the compassionate, the all-merciful, WHAT'S with all the bird-headed dwarfs [a reference to an earlier discussion regarding birth defects]?" Throughout the book, Dillard goes on a journey of sorts, simaltaneouslyly sending the reader on one also.

For the Time Being by Annie Dillard is an oddity as far as modern literature is concerned. In a day when the only rule is there are no rules, Dillard takes every advantage of that in her book. Probing, asking, and speculating about God, death, and life is what the book is all about, but in an often obscure way. Without warning Dillard will spit out a random fact or change the subject on hand to something more jadded than the one before. None of this seems to make any sense until her final chapter where it all comes together with one natural motive. Dillard brings her points into perspective through examples of the unnoticed, such as the short lives of clouds, or tragic and strange birth defects, never ceasing to illude her underlying theme that now is our time for being. By examining her own experiences and the sometimes odd experiences of others, Dillard constructs an awe inspiring book digging into some of the deepest questions of man about life and death, and the existence of God. I believe this book to be a treat for anyone who reads it and I recomend it to everyone and anyone. If I were to describe Dillard's work in one word the most appropriate word would be melting-pot. Dillard combines several ingredients (none of which seem to have anything in common with the other) and creates a delicious and enlightening peice of literature, surely filling to any reader.

Annie Dillard has a style unique to herself. She is able to change direction of her book's subjects drastically but continue to hold the readers attention with odd, unconventional listing of thoughts and facts. Dillard takes the subjects Birth, Sand, China, Clouds, Numbers, Isreal, Encounters, Thinker, Evil, and Now; and embarks on a spiritual journey into the questions of God's omnipotance, the importance of the individual, and the innevitablility of death. The book seems to circle after a while, like having a converstation with 10 different people who each have a wealth of knowledge and statistics about their own subject. But this is a power of Dillard's style: being able to pull seperate unrelated factors all together, like a mosaic, only comprehesible as a whole work of art from a distance. I liked this book from the beginning of Dillard's description of a few children's deformation from birth. Her knowledge is impressive, expecially that of French paleontologist and theologian Teilhard de Chardin, who battles with questions of God in midst of finding ancient human remains. Dillard incorporates quotes from near and far to weave this quilt of human question and answers that remain to be enshrouded in clouds of mystery, shifting with each generation. She uses a countless number of successive statistics that will drive any reader into a deep tunnel of thought. The end will challenge anyone to continue on their own encounter with the meaning of existance.

This is good poetry, but not excellent. The concept is novel, the themes are universal, but most fail to affect. Either I didn't "get" enough of the works, or there wasn't a lot to "get" in the first place.

In the introductory author's note to "Mornings Like These: Found Poems," Annie Dillard states of the book, "Excepting only some titles and subtitles, I did not write a word of it." Basically the book consists of "bits of broken text" taken from other authors' prose books and rearranged on the page as poetry. Dillard's sources include "The American Boys Handy Book" (1892), an 1853 maritime conference report, a 1926 junior high school English text, van Gogh's letters, and more.

Dillard admits that half of the poems in this book "are just jokes." Some of them are quite clever and thought-provoking; in some of them she really seems to change the original author's intent. Dillard thus, in a broader sense, makes us question the very nature of the written text and the nature of its relationship to potential readers.

There are some really interesting passages in this book. She mines a stunning section on pain from a prehospital emergency care book. I found the funniest piece to be a "Index of First Lines," from two poetry anthologies. Overall, an intriguing book.

What a wonderful little book of poems! Whether you are familiar with Dillard or not, familiar with the original lines she "lifted" or not, or familiar with poetry at all, you will truly enjoy this book. Annie has crafted these found poems in ways that suprise and stimulate, mixing the clever and the humorous with the deep and profound. Each one is a treasure to be explored for again and again. Dillard makes these works her own; you can hear her voice through others' words.

this book ebbs and flows like the wind of an autumn day...

This collection of literary snapshots from Dillard's childhood is made up of short passages that spotlight and explain her inner life, as well as the curious activities in which she engaged as a child. The book is filled with glorified, painstaking explanations and descriptions of the mundane. At times, it became difficult to trudge through certain parts of the book. Forced to read at least fifteen pages dedicated to rocks and minerals, I felt like a fifth grader studying a never-ending earth science assignment. Although some of her vignettes were interesting and insightful, too many were unnecessary and boringly specific.

This is one of the most beautifully written books I've ever read. I first read it about ten years ago, and did not like it. I think it takes a certain amount of maturity to understand the discovery, the examined life, and the coming into "consciousness" that Dillard writes of. It should not be required reading for high school students, who may find it dull and boring; too full of one's "interior" life, as many who wrote reviews here did. My advice to them: please read it again when you are in your late twenties or early thirties...and see how easily the book puts you under its magical spell with its reminiscences of childhood.

I can't comprehend how someone could miss the truth, insight, and charm of this book. I am fifteen years old and an aspiring writer. In the weeks before I read Dillard's chapters on adolescence, I was feeling the painful confusion of it more than I ever have before. Dillard voiced my feelings perfectly when I couldn't state them myself. Her childhood memories support the concept of entering various states of consciousness throughout one's life. This is brilliant work.

This is the only Robin Cook book that I have read so far. I found it to be very interesting and exciting. The medical stuff wasn't too deep that an ordinary person couldn't at least understand it to a certain extent. Plus there is a glossary of terms at the back of the book. But...the beef that I have with it, is the poor ending. I was getting so excited during the last third of the book, but the ending was so abrupt, it was like getting the wind knocked out of you. It left a lot of questions up in the air. Maybe he left it open for a part 2, I don't know. But I do wish we could know what happened with GenSys and the research facility in Cogo. Also, what happens to the Bonobos? What about Kevin, Melanie and Candace? So many questions left unanswered.

This is a great read . I loved the characters, especially Stapleton. The mix of the Mob and medical scenarios involving transplants kept my attention thoughout. I enjoyed this read so much that I am currently reading Contagion because the characters here were introduced in that work. I can see the possibility of a sequel because of the inevitable ending. Gene manipulation in any species could open a Pandora's box of trouble for future generations. I read one or two books a week and the only other book that I've liked this much is, Alien Rapture, by Steiger, which is also a mystery thriller. Go Cook, I can hardly wait for future novels from this medical stylist. -

I liked the book due to it's graphic content, and big words that even docters would have a hard time with. I didn't like the book, because it couldn't hold my attention for very long, and I don't appreciate falling asleep while I'm reading.I assume that Robin Cook got bored, and just jotted down a bunch of big, unexplainable words, to TRY to make it sound interesting. He failed miserably with this book. I'd recmmend this book to any poor soul who is obsessed with medical fiction, and wants to try to clone themselves so they can take over the world.I'm not a science person.If you can sit me down and make me read a horror story, and in my mind I can put myself in that situation, then you've got me interested

The small book devotes two pages each to about three dozen authors, spiritual seekers and fictional characters. One page briefly describes the person and something about their life and philosophy; the second provides a supposedly complete list of the small number of items each person lived with or took on a trip. It's thought provoking as to how much - or how little - stuff we really need to live a good life. At the same time it's a VERY brief book that can be read in about 30 minutes. Because there is a bibliography listing one or more sources for or about each person this book might best be considered an introduction/reference for those wanting to study the philosophy of simplicity. It's also a good inspirational gift for someone who wants to simplify their life. Too bad publishers don't provide little books like this for a more reasonable price.