Customer Reviews: Read 211 more reviews...
 Utterly pointless October 19, 2008
I found this book on Amazon.com. I am an avid Barbara Kingsolver fan and thought I would try one of the books that was linked to Kingsolver's books. I chose this book for the bookclub I am hosting for twelve members this coming month.
The book is utterly pointless. The writing is sometimes interesting and there are a few good thoughts, but mostly it is the disjointed and uneducated thoughts of a crazy person living on the edge of society.
I have not finished the book and wish I had not subjected the other readers in my club to the "story". I cannot recommend this book.
 Loved it! October 17, 2008
Don Miller mentions it as one of those books that you read a paragraph of and then put away and ponder. Intense writing and thinking. Stream of consciousness type of stuff. Makes me want to spend more time outdoors watching and thinking.
 pilgrim at tinker creek August 2, 2008
I found this book boring...I KNOW it was a Pulitzer prize winner. But, to
me, oh, so boring...
Annie Dillard is an excellent writer of course, and I loved her little
book, The Writing Life.
 The result of relentless observation January 25, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I first read this book in High School. I was impressed but 8 years later re-read the book to my younger sister for a class she was taking. She wasn't getting much from the book. But as I read it to her, I realized how supreme this book is among American Lit.
Dillard's book is the result of relentless observation. Chapter by chapter she radiates a worshipful view of the natural world. Those who miss the point will complain there is "too much description" all the while missing her acute observation and beautiful prose. I have read that she wrote 15 hours a day. It seems likely since the book seems to reflect an obsessed mind.
Also great is An American Childhood. I think she is the second greatest American writer ever after Cather.
 An ode to nature better appreciated in small doses December 30, 2007
Annie Dillard was way ahead of her time in the spend-time-doing-something-interesting-and-then-write-about-it genre en vogue these days due to its use by Elizabeth Gilbert (Eat, Pray, Love) and Barbara Kingsolver (Animal, Vegetable, Miracle). The place Dillard writes about is the backcountry near Roanoke, Virginia, with its many wonders of nature, especially insects, birds, fish, and small mammals. She sets out on daily pilgrimages, a predator stalking prey (for observational purposes only) wandering in the wilderness, where she observes plants and wildlife. Back inside, she reads and reflects (and writes). Pilgrim at Tinker Creek is filled with the details of her outdoor experiences, enhanced by famous quotes as well as thoughts and facts on religion, philosophy, and even evolution. The writing is really good: flowery, descriptive and detailed. But you can have too much of a good thing. It only took a few chapters for me to consider relegating the book, with its prolifically poetic prose, to the "Do Not Finish" pile. The thought of learning more about on an egg-laying praying mantis, the quest for a muskrat, or the water bug that ate the frog was enough (though barely) incentive to continue. Great stuff, but reading Pilgrim at Tinker Creek is liable to cause fancy prose overload, so is better taken in small doses. Similarly good: The Good Rain by Timothy Egan, Silent Spring by Rachel Carlson (both preachy, but fact-filled), The Highest Tide by Jim Lynch and Gilead by Marilynne Robinson.
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