Annie Dillard

An excellent sampling of earlier memoirs. Admittedly a bit dated only because the folks that were focused on were all from the 20th century, a time now fading away, along with the Baby Boom generation and our collective experiences. For me it was an important find as it introduced me to a number of memoirists that I had not come across previously. These authors and their works are a part of the basis for the modern memoir form, and are a bit more formal but often still experimental in their time. I hope that makes sense to whoever is reading this.… (mer)

This is a tough one because I expected to like it, since the other books I have read by Annie Dillard, especially An American Childhood, were really good. But I was never able to figure out where this was going. It seemed to come from a young mind struggling for comprehension about what life is supposed to be, a critique of nature with philosophical and religious overtones. Densely packed, with lots of obscure references and words that sent me scrambling to Google to unlock, but when I did I rarely found a word or a phrase that added to the story - it would turn out to be just a word or just a phrase that adding nothing clever or insightful. I believe that this could lose a third of its pages and nothing would change. And it won a Pulitzer Prize - no idea how that happened. Probably 2.5 stars, if that was allowed. And yes, I read it to the very end.… (mer)