Best Selling Books by Annie Dillard

"For nonwriters, it is a glimpse into the trials and satisfactions of a life spent with words. For writers, it is a warm, rambling, conversation with a stimulating and extraordinarily talented colleague." — Chicago Tribune From Pulitzer Prize-winning Annie Dillard, a collection that illuminates the dedication and daring that characterizes a writer''s life. In these short essays, Annie Dillard—the author of Pilgrim at Tinker Creek and An American Childhood—illuminates the dedication, absurdity, and daring that characterize the existence of a writer. A moving account of Dillard’s own experiences while writing her works, The Writing Life offers deep insight into one of the most mysterious professions.

This winner of the Pulitzer Prize in 1975, and listed by the New York Times as one of the best 100 non-fiction books of the century, gives timeless reflections on solitude, writing and faith amid the beautiful though sometimes brutal world of nature on the author''s doorstep in Virginia''s Blue Ridge Mountains.

"An American Childhood more than takes the reader''s breath away. It consumes you as you consume it, so that, when you have put down this book, you''re a different person, one who has virtually experienced another childhood." — Chicago Tribune 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 and 60s. Dedicated to her parents—from whom she learned a love of language and the importance of following your deepest passions—Dillard''s brilliant memoir will resonate with anyone who has ever recalled with longing playing baseball on an endless summer afternoon, caring for a pristine rock collection, or knowing in your heart that a book was written just for you.

National Bestseller "Beautifully written and delightfully strange...as earthy as it is sublime...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 remains tantalizingly and troublingly beyond our understanding. "Stimulating, humbling, original--. [Dillard] illuminate[s] the human perspective of the world, past, present and future, and the individual''s relatively inconsequential but ever so unique place in it."--Rocky Mountain News

"Everyone who timidly, bombastically, reverently, scholastically--even fraudulently--essays to ''live the life of the mind'' should read this book. It''s elegant and classy, like caviar and champagne, and like these two items, it''s over much too soon." — Los Angeles Times Pulitzer Prize-winning author Annie Dillard''s classic work of literary criticism Living by Fiction is written for—and dedicated to—people who love literature. Dealing with writers such as Nabokov, Barth, Coover, Pynchon, Borges, García Márquez, Beckett, and Calvino, Annie Dillard shows how contemporary fiction works and why traditional fiction will always move us. Like Joyce Cary''s Art and Reality, this is a book by a writer on the issues raised by the art of literature. Readers of Pilgrim at Tinker Creek and Holy the Firm will recognize Dillard''s vivid writing, her humor, and the lively way she tackles the urgent questions of meaning in experience itself.

"Found poems are to their poet what no-fault insurance is to beneficiaries: payoffs waiting to happen where everyone wins and no one is blamed. Dillard culls about 40 such happy accidents from sources as diverse as a The American Boys Handy Book (1882) and the letters of Van Gogh. . . . the poet aims for a lucky, loaded symbolism that catapults the reader into an epiphany never imagined by the original authors." — Publishers Weekly In Mornings Like This, beloved author Annie Dillard has given us a witty and moving collection of poems in a wholly original form, sure to charm her fans, both old and new. Extracting and rearranging sentences from old and odd books—From D.C. Beard''s "The American Boys Handy Book" in 1882 to Van Gogh''s letters to David Greyson''s "The Countryman''s Year" in 1936—Dillard has composed poems on poetry’s most heartfelt themes of love, nature, nostalgia, and death. A unique, clever, and original collection, Dillard’s characteristic voice sounds throughout the pages.

Pulitzer Prize-Winning Author In recognition of her long and lauded career as a master essayist, a landmark collection including her most beloved pieces and some rarely seen work, rigorously curated by the author herself “Annie Dillard’s books are like comets, like celestial events that remind us that the reality we inhabit is itself a celestial event.”—Marilynne Robinson, Washington Post Book World “Annie Dillard is, was, and will always be the very best at describing the landscapes in which we find ourselves.”—Minneapolis Star Tribune “Annie Dillard is a writer of unusual range, generosity, and ambition. . . . Her prose is bracingly intelligent, lovely, and human. ”—Margot Livesey, Boston Globe “A writer who never seems tired, who has never plodded her way through a page or sentence, Dillard can only be enjoyed by a wide-awake reader,” warns Geoff Dyer in his introduction to this stellar collection. Carefully culled from her past work, The Abundance is quintessential Annie Dillard, delivered in her fierce and undeniably singular voice, filled with fascinating detail and metaphysical fact. The pieces within will exhilarate both admiring fans and a new generation of readers, having been “re-framed and re-hung,” with fresh editing and reordering by the author, to situate these now seminal works within her larger canon. The Abundance reminds us that Dillard’s brand of “novelized nonfiction” pioneered the form long before it came to be widely appreciated. Intense, vivid, and fearless, her work endows the true and seemingly ordinary aspects of life—a commuter chases snowball-throwing children through neighborhood streets, a teenager memorizes Rimbaud’s poetry—with beauty and irony, inviting readers onto sweeping landscapes, to join her in exploring the complexities of time and death, with a sense of humor: on one page, an eagle falls from the sky with a weasel attached to its throat; on another, a man walks into a bar. Reminding us of the indelible contributions of this formative figure in contemporary nonfiction, The Abundance exquisitely showcases Annie Dillard’s enigmatic, enduring genius, as Dillard herself wishes it to be marked.

"[This] is a book of great richness, beauty and power and thus very difficult to do justice to in a brief review. . . . The violence is sometimes unbearable, the language rarely less than superb. Dillard''s description of the moth''s death makes Virginia Woolf''s go dim and Edwardian. . . . Nature seen so clear and hard that the eyes tear. . . . A rare and precious book." — Frederick Buechner, New York Times Book Review A profound book about the natural world—both its beauty and its cruelty—from Pulitzer Prize-winning author Annie Dillard In 1975 Dillard took up residence on an island in Puget Sound, in a wooden 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. Here is a lyrical gift to any reader who has ever wondered how best to live with grace and wonder in the natural world.

Celebrate re-publication of this Pulitzer Prize-winning author''s first book.

"A collection of meditations like polished stones--painstakingly worded, tough-minded, yet partial to mystery, and peerless when it comes to injecting larger resonances into the natural world." — Kirkus Reviews Here, in this compelling assembly of writings, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Annie Dillard explores the world of natural facts and human meanings. Veering away from the long, meditative studies of Pilgrim at Tinker Creek or Holy the Firm, Annie Dillard explores and celebrates moments of spirituality, dipping into descriptions of encounters with flora and fauna, stars, and more, from Ecuador to Miami.

“Remarkable. . . . A deftly woven narrative saturated with violence, hardship, and triumph. Readers will be richly rewarded, for by the end of this deeply felt novel it is hard to let the frontier town and its people go.” — San Francisco Chronicle This New York Times bestselling novel by Pulitzer Prize-winning author Annie Dillard is a mesmerizing evocation of pioneer life navigated by European settlers and Lummi natives in the Pacific Northwest during the last decades of the 19th century. The Living is a tale full of gold minors, friendly railroad speculators, doe-eyed sweethearts, shifty card players, and 19th century adventures that will stay with you long after you close the book.

“Brilliant. . . . A shimmering meditation on the ebb and flow of love.” — New York Times “In her elegant, sophisticated prose, Dillard tells a tale of intimacy, loss and extraordinary friendship and maturity against a background of nature in its glorious color and caprice. The Maytrees is an intelligent, exquisite novel.” — The Washington Times Toby Maytree first sees Lou Bigelow on her bicycle in postwar Provincetown, Massachusetts. Her laughter and loveliness catch his breath. Maytree is a Provincetown native, an educated poet of thirty. As he courts Lou, just out of college, her stillness draws him. He hides his serious wooing, and idly shows her his poems. In spare, elegant prose, Dillard traces the Maytrees'' decades of loving and longing. They live cheaply among the nonconformist artists and writers that the bare tip of Cape Cod attracts. When their son Petie appears, their innocent Bohemian friend Deary helps care for him. But years later it is Deary who causes the town to talk. In this moving novel, Dillard intimately depicts willed bonds of loyalty, friendship, and abiding love. She presents nature''s vastness and nearness. Warm and hopeful, The Maytrees is the surprising capstone of Dillard''s original body of work.

Chinese and U.S. writers try to bridge the culture gap in this “splendid little book” from the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Pilgrim at Tinker Creek (The Washington Post Book World). Winner of the New England Book Show Award It’s been a pilgrimage for Annie Dillard: from Tinker Creek to the Galapagos Islands, the high Arctic, the Pacific Northwest, the Amazon Jungle—and now, China. This informative narrative is full of fascinating people: Chinese people, mostly writers, who encounter American writers in various bizarre circumstances in both China and the U.S. There is a toasting scene at a Chinese banquet; a portrait of a bitter, flirtatious diplomat at a dance hall; a formal meeting with Chinese writers; a conversation with an American businessman in a hotel lobby; an evening with long-suffering Chinese intellectuals in their house; a scene in the Beijing foreigners’ compound with an excited European journalist; and a scene of unwarranted hilarity at the Beijing Library. In the U.S., there is Allen Ginsberg having a bewildering conversation in Disneyland with a Chinese journalist; there is the lovely and controversial writer Zhang Jie suiting abrupt mood changes to a variety of actions; and there is the fiercely spirited Jiange Zilong singing in a Connecticut dining room, eyes closed. These are real stories told with a warm and lively humor, with a keen eye for paradox, and with fresh insight into the human drama. “Engrossing and thought-provoking.” —Irving Yucheng Lo, author of Sunflower Splendor ‘Keenly observed, often comic encounters.” —The New York Times Book Review “Dillard distills her encounters in lively anecdotes, sketches and vignettes. Her charm lies in the simplicity of her storytelling.” —Publishers Weekly

“One of the most distinctive voices in American letters today” (Boston Globe) collects her favorite writing selections in The Annie Dillard Reader. This collection of stories, novel excerpts, essays, poetry and more demonstrates the depth and resonance of the writing of Pulitzer Prize-winning author Annie Dillard. Includes chapters from the novel Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, and An American Childhood, the revised Holy the Firm in its entirety, the revised short story “The Living”, essays from Teaching a Stone to Talk and more. “She has a strange and wonderful mind, and the ability to speak it with enduring grace.” —The New Yorker “A stand up ecstatic . . . Like all great writers, she is fresh, jarring, passionately dedicated to her subject.” —Threepenny Review “This sort of sampler approach works well for a writer whose prose-fiction and non-fiction-often reads like a journal; it also suits readers who like to browse. Dillard moves easily from the specific and physical to the theoretical and metaphysical, blending thought-provoking generalizations with images and descriptions of visceral sensuality. Sure to appeal to Dillard devotees, this collection serves admirably as an introduction to the uninitiated.” —Publishers Weekly “This selection of writings, chosen by Dillard herself, provides a perfect sampling of her incisive, versatile, and impeccable achievements.” —Booklist

"[In] this anthology of well-chosen excerpts by a satisfyingly diverse group of writers....the truth of their lives shines from every beautifully, often courageously composed page."— Booklist “Packed with superb writing.” — New York Newsday Modern American Memoirs is a sampling from 35 quintessential 20th century memoirs, including contributions from Margaret Mead, Malcolm X, Maxine Hong Kingston, Loren Eisely, and Zora Neale Hurston. Supremely written and excellent examples of the art of biography, these excerpts present a beautifully wide range of American life.

The author of On Writing Well presents stories and advice on the writing process from Frank McCourt, Annie Dillard, and many more. For anyone who enjoys reading memoirs—or is thinking about writing one—this collection offers a master class from nine distinguished authors: Russell Baker, Jill Ker Conway, Annie Dillard, Ian Frazier, Henry Louis Gates Jr., Alfred Kazin, Frank McCourt, Toni Morrison, and Eileen Simpson. “Annie Dillard talks of her Pittsburgh childhood and her moment of waking to the world outside. Russell Baker explains why his first draft of Growing Up was so bad that he had to start over again. Alfred Kazin finds that writing about his Brooklyn childhood connected him with the great tradition of Emerson and Whitman. Toni Morrison tells why her fiction uses not only family history but the slave narratives of her people. Lewis Thomas traces the evolution of his singular self from primeval bacteria to contemporary scientist whose drive to be useful is the most fundamental of all biological necessities. . . . Delightful and instructive.” —Library Journal

All life has new beginnings--especially natural life.

Dans ce « journal météorologique de l’esprit », Annie Dillard chronique la nature et les saisons à Tinker Creek, en Virginie. L’été, elle traque les rats musqués dans le ruisseau et contemple la mécanique des vagues ; l’automne, elle observe la migration des papillons monarques et rêve de caribous arctiques. Elle décrit ainsi certains traits de la vie des mantes religieuses, des serpents venimeux, des parasites, leurs prouesses, beautés et déchéances, la violence et la cruauté mortelle de cet univers de prédateurs qui s’entredévorent. Recluse volontaire parmi ces créatures, Annie Dillard est surtout une extraordinaire écrivaine qui lit la nature et tente de déchiffrer ses signes. Sa culture et sa curiosité immenses font de cette double exploration de la vallée Tinker et de l’esprit humain un livre unique.

With essays and poems by favorite authors and spectucular photographs and illustratins by famed artists, this charming anthology celebrates nature''s musical gift to America: wild songbirds. 52 full-color photographs and 8 color illustrations.

Though Christians the world over make yearly preparations for Lent, there''s a conspicuous lack of good books for that other great spiritual season: Advent. All the same, this four-week period leading up to Christmas is making a comeback as growing numbers reject shopping-mall frenzy and examine the deeper meaning of the season. Ecumenical in scope, these fifty devotions invite the reader to contemplate the great themes of Christmas and the significance that the coming of Jesus has for each of us - not only during Advent, but every day. Whether dipped into at leisure or used on a daily basis, Watch for the Light gives the phrase "holiday preparations" new depth and meaning. Includes writings by Christoph Friedrich Blumhardt, Sylvia Plath, J. B. Phillips, Friedrich Wilhelm Foerster, Henri Nouwen, Bernard of Clairvaux, Kathleen Norris, Meister Eckhart, St. Thomas Aquinas, Karl Rahner, Isaac Penington, Madeleine L''Engle, Alfred Delp, Loretta Ross-Gotta, William Stringfellow, J. Heinrich Arnold, Edith Stein, Philip Britts, Jane Kenyon, John Howard Yoder, Emmy Arnold, Karl Barth, Oscar Romero, William Willimon, Johann Christoph Arnold, Gail Godwin, Leonardo Boff, G. M. Hopkins, Evelyn Underhill, Dorothy Day, Brennan Manning, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Romano Guardini, Annie Dillard, Martin Luther, St. John Chrysostom, Giovanni Papini, Dorothee Soelle, C. S. Lewis, Gustavo Guti rrez, Philip Yancey, J. T. Clement, Thomas Merton, Eberhard Arnold, Ernesto Cardenal, T. S. Eliot, John Donne, Gian Carlo Menotti and J rgen Moltmann.

Pulitzer-Prize-winning author Dillard''s words are empowering and energizing, making this book the perfect gift for writers or aspiring writers or anyone undertaking a creative endeavor. This gift book features an accordion-book format and slip-cased cover.