About this title: Dillard's autobiography is an exuberant account of growing up in 1950s Pittsburgh in a wealthy and accomplished family. Dillard conveys in polished prose the sheer joy of being young, smart, and passionately observant in a world she sees as endlessly fascinating.
Note: This is a general synopsis. Each listing is described below.
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: Picador
Date Published: 1989
ISBN-13:9780330305792ISBN:0330305794
Description: 0330305794. Pages lightly tanned. Previous owner's name and date on first facing page. Cover has some wear and a 'nick' on the spine edge. Will be sent from Devon within 24 hours by first class post.; Picador Books; 272 pages. read more
Description: Acceptable. Ships from the UK. Former Library book. Shows definite wear, and perhaps considerable marking on inside. Your purchase also supports literacy charities. read more
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Harper & RowPublishers
Date Published: 1987
ISBN-13:9780060158057ISBN:0060158050
Description: Very good in good dust jacket. Sewn binding. Paper over boards. 255 p. Audience: General/trade; General/trade. Sticker residue on front of dust jacket. Price sticker on inside of dj. read more
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Harper & Row
Date Published: 1987
Description: A wonderful copy with some minor edgewear to the cover. Dust Jacket may have chips and close tears. Previous owners name inscribed inside front. Book of the Month Club Edition. -, Hard Cover, Very Good / Good. read more
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: harper and Row
Date Published: 1987
Description: A wonderful copy with some minor edgewear to the cover. Dust Jacket has some edgewear present. Book of the Month Club Edition. -, Hard Cover, Very Good / Very Good. read more
Description: Good. Dust Cover Missing. Light shelf wear and minimal interior marks. Millions of satisfied customers and climbing. Thriftbooks is the name you can trust, guaranteed. Spend Less. Read More. read more
Description: Very good. Book has appearance of light use with no easily noticeable wear. Millions of satisfied customers and climbing. Thriftbooks is the name you can trust, guaranteed. Spend Less. Read More. read more
Description: Fair. Purchasing this DVD supports the North Central Regional Library. Thriftbooks and NCRL have partnered to help raise additional funds for the library system. Library ID found on DVD and case. Ex-Library book-will contain library markings. Millions of satisfied customers and climbing. Thriftbooks is the name you can trust, guaranteed. Spend Less. Read More. read more
Description: Good. Light shelf wear and minimal interior marks. Millions of satisfied customers and climbing. Thriftbooks is the name you can trust, guaranteed. Spend Less. Read More. read more
Description: Good. Light shelf wear and minimal interior marks. Millions of satisfied customers and climbing. Thriftbooks is the name you can trust, guaranteed. Spend Less. Read More. read more
"Re-read this over the summer. Was looking for a particular quote or section and got so caught up that I ended up eventually going back to the beginning and reading the whole thing.
I first read this as a requirement for Mrs. Nacca's "20 minute speech" about a particular author. Having read The Writing Life and loved it, I chose Annie Dillard... and everyone knows she became my favorite author, with Pilgrim at Tinker Creek my favorite book. Both are still true.
As far as this book goes, perhaps it's because I've lived in Pittsburgh for 3 years now (the setting for this memoir), but I found it much more lively and enjoyable this time around."
""You must take on faith that those severed places cohered, too... You take it faith that the multiform and variously lighted latitudes and longitudes were part of one world, that you didn't drop chopped from house to house, coast to coast, life to life. But in some once comprehensible way moved there, a city block at a time, a degree of latitude and longitude at a time, carrying a fielder's mitt and penguin Rimbaud for old time's sake, and a sealed envelope, like a fetish, of untouchable stock certificates someone one hundred years ago gave your grandmother, and a comb.""
"This book is hard to pin down to a rating. On the one hand, Dillard is her exquisite writing self, choosing words like arrows from a quiver. Not one is wasted or is the wrong word. On the other hand, her recollections are often banal and lack a point. On the one hand, we see a character (her) lost in the times we know from history. On the other hand, we see a character not as well fleshed out as one should be when they are the main character and the author. On the one hand, her family (mother especially) seem flesh-and-blood realities. On the other hand, they never quite reach the stage of being likeable.
How do you read a book like that? I can now understand how she came to fashion "Pilgrim at Tinker Creek" but am even more baffled how an Easterner could leave that coast to while away the time in the Pacific Northwest.
This is a good read. I laughed in all the places she wanted me to, quoted her to anyone around who would listen, but had to endure long, tedious narratives about the mundane minutia of her life. A flawed masterpiece."
"Whenever I come across a book I love this much, it's difficult to find anything to say. Any description I could give, any metaphor I could use, any sad cliched reaction ("Oh that was breathtaking") sounds pathetic in attempting to somehow convey how brilliant this book was and deserves to be recognized as.
But, with that being said, I will try:
Dillard makes me nostalgic for something I can't even quite put my finger on. She takes what would be the mundane in any less skilled writer's hands and weaves it into this profound illustration of what it means to be a child, to grow, to become aware, to live. Her prose allow for both the 12 year old, rambling, eager, spirited, aspect of Dillard to peer through, but with the keen wisdom of her current self so fondly looking back, reminiscing, smiling. She wants the reader to come, glimpse in at her story, laugh with her, remember with her. And this I do. But more importantly, her memoir has left me in a dizzy state of remembering my own stories, my own childhood, my own memories and hardships and realizations.
It was beautiful and tragic and alarmingly poetic. And I have nothing else to say except to quote Ms. Dillard with one of my favorite lines:
"Who could ever tire of this heart-stopping transition, of this breakthrough shift between seeing and knowing you see, between being and knowing you be? It drives you to a life of concentration, it does, a life in which effort draws you down so very deep that when you surface you twist up exhilerated with a yelp and a gasp.""
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