The Annie Dillard Log

New book

2006-05-29T21:17:00.002-05:00

Annie Dillard's new novel, The Maytrees, was released on June 12, 2007. It may be the last book she writes.

You can listen to Dillard read an excerpt here, listen to her discuss the novel with Scott Simon on Weekend Edition here, and find an interview with her on the book by clicking here.

The "only in-depth interview for this book" was published in The Washington Post.

Purpose

2004-07-18T02:29:00.132-05:00

This website is intended to provide readers and scholars of Annie Dillard with bibliographical information, blurbs, links, and other resources. It was created in July of 2004 and is updated regularly (last updated on January 12, 2012). Although it takes advantage of Blogger's convenient template, it is by no means a blog; rather, it collects scattered information from hundreds of sources and presents it in an organized fashion, taking a comprehensive approach toward the study of an author, à la The Melville Log. The information here is taken from all over: Dillard's official website, newspaper archives, library archives, scholarly articles, books, the web, etc. I have put this together so that others will have a solid foundation for their research of the mind and art of this pillar of contemporary literature.

Public appearances

2004-07-17T14:20:00.033-05:00

Most of the events listed here were readings followed by a question and answer session. It is not comprehensive, and additions are welcomed.

February 26, 1975, 8 p.m. - International Poetry Forum (Pittsburgh, Carnegie Lecture Hall)

July 12, 1975, morning - Thoreau Society Annual Meeting (Concord, MA) [speech canceled]

June 9, 1978 - Fairhaven College graduation address

June 14-21, 1978 - Fiction International Writers' Conference, St. Lawrence University (Saranac Lake, NY)

April 9, 1981, 8 p.m. - List Auditorium (Brown University)

September 1982 - Chinese writers conference (UCLA)

November 19, 1982 - The Boston Globe Book Festival

March 16, 1983, 8 p.m. - Writer’s Workshop portion of the Fine Arts Festival (Memorial Hall, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill)

March 21, 1983, 3:45 p.m. - 113 Tompkins Hall (North Carolina State University, Raleigh)

April 7-9, 1983 - The Association of Writers and Writing Programs, nonfiction panel and keynote address (Marriott Pavilion Hotel, St Louis)

June 7, 1983 - delivered an address (a chapter of Encounters with Chinese Writers) at the Phi Beta Kappa literary commencement exercises (Harvard/Radcliffe)

October 22, 1984 - Hilles Library Cinema (Harvard; sponsored by the Woodberry Poetry Room)

December 3, 1984, 8 p.m. - Coolidge Auditorium, Library of Congress (First Street and Independence Avenue SE)

February 5, 1985 - Donnell Library (New York)

March 30, 1985, 7:30 p.m. - University of Pittsburgh Writers Conference

March 31, 1985, 2-4 p.m. - "David McCullough/Annie Dillard: One on One" (moderated by Mary Briscoe), University of Pittsburgh Writers Conference

February 25, 1986, 6 p.m. - The Art and Craft of Memoir (New York Public Library, room 206)

October 24, 1986, 8 p.m. - International Festival of Authors (Toronto)

October 25, 1986, 5:30 p.m. - International Festival of Authors, "Boundaries Of Fiction" (Toronto)

June 28 - July 25, 1987 - Bennington Writing Workshops [read from An American Childhood one day]

November 16, 1987, 6 p.m. - Boston Globe Book Festival (Boston Public Library at Copley Square)

December 4, 1987, 8 p.m. - PEN/Faulkner Reading (Folger Shakespeare Library, 201 East Capitol St. SE )

October 25, 1988, 6:30 p.m. - The New-York Historical Society (in conjunction with the retrospective exhibition "Arnold Newman: Five Decades")

January 13, 1989, 10:30 a.m. - Colorado College Symposium on intimacy (Packard Hall)

March 29. 1989 - On Art & Politics series (City Arts & Lectures, San Francisco)

March 30, 1989 - Portland Arts & Lectures series (First Congregational Church)

May 1, 1989, 8 p.m. - Manhattan Theatre Club (City Center, 131 W. 55th St.)

September 26, 1989, 4 p.m. - Brigham Young University

October 30, 1989 - PEN/Faulkner award celebration (Washington, D.C., Folger Shakespeare Library); one of seventeen authors to speak about their beginnings as writers

December 4, 1989, 8 p.m. - Poetry Center of the 92nd Street Y (New York)

March 8, 1991, 7:30 p.m. - "An Evening with Annie Dillard: Selected Readings and Discussion," Falmouth Forum Series (Lillie Auditorium, Marine Biological Laboratory, MBL Street, Woods Hole, MA)

September 16, 1991, 7 p.m. - Three Rivers Lecture Series (Fulton Theatre, Pittsburgh); also called the Drue Heinz Lectures

April 25, 1992 - Pacifica Graduate Institute conference (Miramar Hotel, Santa Monica)

April 28 1992, 7:30 p.m. - Seattle Arts & Lectures (First United Methodist Chruch)

April 30, 1992 - City Arts & Lectures (Herbst Theatre, 401 Van Ness Ave., San Francisco)

May 4, 1992, 7:30 p.m. - Portland Arts & Lectures series (First Congregational Church)

May 13, 1992, 6:30 p.m. - The New-York Historical Society

Saturday October 24, 1992, 9 p.m. - International Festival (Toronto, Premiere Dance Theatre)

November 18, 1992, 6 p.m. - Voices Louder Than Words (Sanders Theatre, Harvard Square)

October 9, 1993, 7:30 p.m. - San Antonio Inter-American Bookfair and Literary Festival (San Antonio, Guadalupe Theater)

March 29, 1994, 8. p.m. - Stieren Arts Enrichment Series, Trinity University (San Antonio, Laurie Auditorium)

November 2, 1994, 8 p.m. - Other Voices / Literary Evenings Series (Columbia University, Miller Theatre)

November 11, 1994, 8 p.m. - "Spanning the Gap," Writing and Arts Festival (Wichita, Milton Center)

February 1, 1995, 7:30 p.m. - Morgan Writer-in-Residence Program (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Memorial Hall)

November 13, 1995, 8 p.m. - 92nd Street Y (New York)

January 11, 1996, 7:30 p.m. - "John Hersey Memorial Lecture," American Writers and the Natural World: Key West Literary Seminar

April 13, 1996, 7:30 p.m. - "Personal Readings," the Wiersma Memorial Lecture in Heritage Hall at the Calvin College Conference on Faith & Writing

September 15, 1996, 8 p.m. - Lowell Lectures (Boston College, Robsham Theater)

October 3, 1996, 4:30 p.m. - featured guest at a tea (Yale, the Calhoun College master's house, 434 College St.)

February 7, 1997, 7 p.m. - New York University (D'Agostino Hall, 108 West Third Street, Greenwich Village)

late spring 1997 - ground-breaking ceremony for Wyndham Robertson Library (Hollins College)

October 10, 1997, 6:30 p.m. - University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Friends of the Library (Grand Ballroom, Carolina Inn)

March 10, 1998, 8 p.m. - Flinn Foundation Centennial Lecture (Arizona State University, Armstrong Hall at the College of Law)

April 4, 1998, 4 p.m. - North Carolina Literary Festival: A Celebration of Southern Writers and Readers (Hamilton 100)

April 25, 1998, 4 p.m. - Center for the Arts Cinema, Wesleyan University

April 29, 1999, 8 p.m. - City Arts & Lectures (Herbst Theatre, 401 Van Ness Ave., San Francisco)

May 10, 1999, 8 p.m. - 92nd Street Y (New York)

October 28, 1999, 7 p.m. - International Festival of Authors (Toronto, Lakeside Terrace)

October 29, 1999 - International Festival of Authors (Toronto, Brigantine Room)

May 25, 2000 - Harper's Magazine 150th Anniversary (The New School Auditorium, New York)

October 24, 2000, 7:30 p.m. - An Evening With Great Writers (Hillsborough's Orange High School Auditorium)

February 20, 2001, 8 p.m. - The Margarett Root Brown Houston Reading Series, sponsored by Inprint Inc. and the University of Houston Creative Writing Program (Moores Opera House, University of Houston)

September 29, 2001, 7:30 p.m. - Fall Arts Festival (Provincetown)

November 4, 2001, 10-11 a.m. - Chicago Tribune Lecture (Armour Stage, Symphony Center, 220 S. Michigan)

August 12, 2005, 8 p.m. - Fine Arts Work Center (Provincetown)

October 4, 2006 - Eugene Lang College The New School for Liberal Arts, Wollman Hall

January 18, 2008, 11:05–11:30 a.m. - In Conversation with Jake Silverstein: Key West Literary Seminar. (She introduced him.)

Reading recommendations

2004-07-16T21:03:00.080-05:00

This list of works Annie Dillard has recommended or praised is compiled from dozens of sources, listed at the bottom.

Abbey, Edward: Desert Solitaire: A Season in the Wilderness (memoir)

"[...] an angry and eloquent writer" ("Tales of Grandeur, Tales of Risk," 122). In her afterword to Modern American Memoirs, she includes this book in the bibliography (441). Also included in "Natural History: An Annotated Booklist" (318).

Achebe, Chinua: No Longer at Ease (memoir)

In her afterword to Modern American Memoirs, she includes this book in the bibliography (441).

Adams, Henry: The Education of Henry Adams (memoir)

"I like its vigorous thought and its assumption that an account of one's intellectual life is indeed an account of one's life" (bibliography from Inventing the Truth: The Art and Craft of Memoir, 155). In her introduction to Modern American Memoirs, where an excerpt from this book is reprinted (433-440), she says, "Irony about onseself, at any age, becomes the memoirist better. Henry Adams is steadily ironic. His Education of Henry Adams scants a lifetime of extraordinary achievement; he claims to be puzzled throughout, and 'trying to get an education' " (x). Also included in "My New England Bookshelf" (66).

Agee, James (fiction)

In her introduction to Modern American Memoirs, she includes his novels in a list of the twentieth century's "finest works of fiction [that] have strongly autobiographical elements" (xi).

Agee, James: "A Mother's Tale" (fiction)

In her introduction to this story, she writes, "When you finish, you can scarcely believe anyone could write such a grand thing. [...] It's not Christian allegory, this story, it's good old-timey existentialism" (1).

Aiken, Conrad (poetry)

In an interview, she says she finds his poems "very powerful" ("Drawing the Curtains," 96).

Angelou, Maya: I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (memoir)

In her afterword to Modern American Memoirs, she includes this book in the bibliography (441).

Asher, Don: Shoot the Piano Player (memoir)

Excerpted in Modern American Memoirs (205-21).

Ashton, Dore: The Unknown Shore (aesthetics)

One of "the best of the many analyses and histories of abstract and Abstract Expressionist art I've read lately" ("Critic's Christmas Choices," 694).

Austin, Mary: Earth Horizon and Land of Little Rain (memoir)

In her afterword to Modern American Memoirs, she includes these books in the bibliography (441). That latter is included in "Natural History: An Annotated Booklist" (315).

Bacon, George: Booming and Panicking in Puget Sound

"[...] a wonderful, wonderful book [...] I must have read it 15 to 20 times" ("A Pilgrim's Progress").

Bakeless, John: The Eyes of Discovery (nonfiction)

Included in "Natural History: An Annotated Booklist" (317). She calls it a "wonderful book" in "First Taste of America" (26).

Baker, Russell: Growing Up (memoir)

Calls it "vivid and genial," and says that, like, "Most of the best memoirs," it "refrain[s] from examining the self at all" (Bibliography from Inventing the Truth: The Art and Craft of Memoir, 156). Excerpted in Modern American Memoirs (49-67).

Baldwin, James: Notes of a Native Son (memoir)

Excerpted in Modern American Memoirs (248-68).

Ballard, J. G.: Empire of the Sun (fiction)

In her introduction to Modern American Memoirs, she includes this in a list of the twentieth century's "finest works of fiction [that] have strongly autobiographical elements" (xi).

Barfield, Owen: Saving the Appearances: A Study in Idolatry

In "Reading for Work and Pleasure," she says it "stimulated my thinking" (66).

Barks, Coleman: New Worlds (poetry)

Included in "Critic's Christmas Choices" (694).

Barnes, Kim: In The Wilderness (memoir)

In her afterword to Modern American Memoirs, she includes this book in the bibliography (441).

Barrington, Judith: “Initiation" (memoir)

In her afterword to Modern American Memoirs, she includes this chapter in the bibliography (441).

Bartram, William: Travels (nonfiction)

Included in "Natural History: An Annotated Booklist" (316).

Bate, Walter Jackson: Samuel Johnson and John Keats (biography)

Included in "Critic's Christmas Choices" (694).

Bates, Henry Walter: The Naturalist on the River Amazon (nonfiction)

Included in "Natural History: An Annotated Booklist" (316).

Bateson, Mary Catherine: With a Daughter’s Eye (memoir)

In her afterword to Modern American Memoirs, she includes this book in the bibliography (441).

Bernays, Anne: The Address Book (fiction)

Mentioned in "Reading for Work and Pleasure" (66).

Bernstein, Leonard: Unanswered Questions (aesthetics)

Included in "Critic's Christmas Choices" (694).

Beston, Henry: The Outermost House (memoir)

"This Cape Cod masterpiece is broad and simple" (Bibliography from Inventing the Truth: The Art and Craft of Memoir, 157). Also included in "Natural History: An Annotated Booklist" (321) and "Tales of Grandeur, Tales of Risk" (122).

Bishop, Elizabeth: “Memories of Uncle Neddy”

In her afterword to Modern American Memoirs, she includes this story in the bibliography (441).

Bloomfield, Leonard: Language

In her author's note, she calls it "excellent (if antiquated)" ("Language for Everyone," 488).

Blythe, Ronald: Akenfield (nonfiction)

Included in "Natural History: An Annotated Booklist" (319).

Bogan, Louise: Journey Around My Room (memoir)

In her afterword to Modern American Memoirs, she includes this book in the bibliography (441).

Booth, Philip: Available Light (poetry)

Included in "Critic's Christmas Choices" (694).

Bourke-White, Margaret: Portrait of Myself (memoir)

In her afterword to Modern American Memoirs, she includes this book in the bibliography (441).

Brinnin, John Malcolm: Dear Heart, Dear Buddy; Dylan Thomas in America; and Sextet (memoir)

In her afterword to Modern American Memoirs, she includes these books in the bibliography (441).

Brown, Rosellen: Tender Memories (fiction) and Cora Fry (poetry)

Both included in "Critic's Christmas Choices" (694).

Broyard, Anatole: Kakfa Was the Rage (memoir)

In her afterword to Modern American Memoirs, she includes this book in the bibliography (441).

Buber, Martin: Tales of the Hasidim, Volumes 1 & 2

"My approach to spirituality is intellectual, in the Neoplatonic tradition. That's why I'm also attracted to Christian mysticism, American transcendentalism [...], and Hasidism" ("The Good Books: Writer's Choices," 80). At Calvin College Festival of Faith & Writing, she said she started studying the Hasids by reading these books and "really, really, really liked them."

Buechner, Frederick: The Alphabet of Grace (theology)

"This is a perfectly structured work of art, a well-made exemplum of grace" ("Critic's Christmas Choices," 694).

Buechner, Frederick: Son of Laughter; The Book of Bebb; and Godric (fiction)

"The writing reaches wildly exalted pitches and sustains them. Often it displays that distinctively rhythmic, impassioned, controlled originality that has marked inspired writing through the ages--writing that sounds as though the writer is holding onto a lightning bolt. [... He] has always excelled at making complex characters, often comic ones, live on the page. [...] Buechner's literary reputation rests securely on the Bebb tetralogy [...] Leo Bebb is one of the handful of truly enlarged and indelible characters in American literature [... Godric] is the intensely real story of an 11th-century English hermit and saint. [...] What reader can forget discovering, in adolescence, that the classic canonical books are also the best ones--the most enjoyable? With profound intelligence, Buechner's novel does what the finest, most appealing literature does: It displays and illuminates the seemingly unrelated mysteries of human character and ultimate ideas" ("The Ancient Story of Jacob, Retold in a Passionate, Exalted Pitch," A15).

Buechner, Frederick: The Sacred Journey (memoir)

Excerpted in Modern American Memoirs (80-90).

Burn, June: Living High (memoir)

In her afterword to Modern American Memoirs, she includes this book in the bibliography (441).

Burroughs, Franklin: Billy Watson’s Croker Sack (memoir)

In her afterword to Modern American Memoirs, she includes this book in the bibliography (441).

Byrd, Richard E.: Alone (memoir)

"[...] I couldn't catch my breath for a week" ("Tales of Grandeur, Tales of Risk," 122).

Cantwell, Mary: An American Girl (memoir)

In her afterword to Modern American Memoirs, she includes this book in the bibliography (441).

Carey, Johnny, Cort Conley, and Ace Barton: Snake River of Hells Canyon (history)

"[...] beautifully written history [...]" ("Critic's Christmas Choices," 694).

Carr, Tim and Pauline: Antarctic Oasis: Under the Spell of South Georgia

"I'll be first in line to buy it" ("Antarctica").

Carson, Rachel: The Sea Around Us; The Edge of the Sea; and Under the Sea Wind (nonfiction trilogy)

Included in "Natural History: An Annotated Booklist" (320).

Castedo, Elena: Paradise (fiction)

In her introduction to Modern American Memoirs, she includes this in a list of the twentieth century's "finest works of fiction [that] have strongly autobiographical elements" (xi).

Cather, Willa: Death Comes for the Archbishop; O Pioneers!; and My Antonia (fiction)

Included in "Natural History: An Annotated Booklist" (315). In "Reading Between the Lines," she singles out O Pioneers! as Cather's best, saying it should have been included in "the Modern Classics roster of the 100 best English-language novels of the 20th century" (A1).

Chadwick, John: The Decipherment of Linear B (history)

Included in "Critic's Christmas Choices" (694).

Chappell, Fred: I Am One of You Forever (fiction)

In her introduction to Modern American Memoirs, she includes this in a list of the twentieth century's "finest works of fiction [that] have strongly autobiographical elements" (xi).

Chappell, Fred: It is Time, Lord (fiction)

"Annie Dillard recommends any novel by Fred Chappell saying he is a 'great American writer of intellectual, emotional, gothic power [...]' " (Writer’s Choice: A Library of Rediscoveries, 24).

Chappell, Fred: Moments of Light (fiction)

In her foreword to Moments of Light, she says "These are living, vivid narratives whose rich actions lodge in the imagination [...]" (xv).

Chappell, Fred: River; Bloodfire; and Wind Mountain (poetry)

Included in "Critic's Christmas Choices" (694). In her foreword to Chappell's Moments of Light, she says of the first two volumes (the third hadn't been published yet, and the fourth hadn't been published when the "Critic's Christmas Choices" was published), "Both alone and together they are masterpieces, as successful as they are ambitious" (ix). Later, Earthsleep was published. These four make up Midquest, a multi-part, book-length poem.

Chatwin, Bruce: In Patagonia (nonfiction)

Included in the original version of "Natural History: An Annotated Booklist" (Antaeus, no. 57 (1986): 286), but not in the updated version in The Nature Reader anthology.

Chesnut, Mary: A Diary from Dixie (memoir)

In her afterword to Modern American Memoirs, she includes this book in the bibliography (441).

Coetzee, J. M. (fiction)

"Man, is he good" ("A Writer's Writer on Her Work").

Coggeshall, Rosanne: Hymn for Drum (poetry)

Included in "Critic's Christmas Choices" (694).

Colebrook, Joan: A House of Trees (memoir)

In her afterword to Modern American Memoirs, she includes this book in the bibliography (441). Also included in "Natural History: An Annotated Booklist" (319).

Connell, Evan S., Jr.: Notes from a Bottle Found on the Beach at Carmel and Points for a Compass Rose (poetry)

"These poems are masterpieces. You could bend a lifetime of energy to their study, and have lived well. The fabric of their meaning is seamless, inexhaustible. ... their language is steely and bladelike; from both of its surfaces flickering lights gleam. Each page sheds insight on every other page; understanding snaps back and forth, tacking like a sloop up the long fjord of mystery" ("Winter Melons," 90). At the Calvin College Festival of Faith & Writing, she said that "it's my favorite book in the whole world."

Conrad, Joseph: The Mirror of the Sea (memoir)

In her afterword to Modern American Memoirs, she includes this book in the bibliography (441), where she calls it one of the books "[r]eaders might especially enjoy" (446). Also included in "Natural History: An Annotated Booklist" (315).

Conrad, Joseph: Lord Jim (fiction)

"I read Lord Jim again recently and was just astounded" ("Metaphysical Graffiti").

Conroy, Frank: Stop-Time (memoir)

"Conroy masters a narrative, dramatic, novelistic handling of scenes" (bibliography from Inventing the Truth: The Art and Craft of Memoir, 157). Excerpted in Modern American Memoirs (132-41).

Conway, Jill Ker: The Road from Coorain (memoir)

In her afterword to Modern American Memoirs, she includes this book in the bibliography (441), where she calls it one of the books "[r]eaders might especially enjoy" (446). Also included in "Natural History: An Annotated Booklist" (319).

Cooper, Bernard: Maps to Anywhere (memoir)

In her introduction to Modern American Memoirs, she calls this book "grand" (xi). In her afterword to Memoirs, she includes it in the bibliography (441).

Crews, Harry: A Childhood: The Biography of a Place (memoir)

Included in "Natural History: An Annotated Booklist" (319). Excerpted in Modern American Memoirs (1-18).

Crowther, Hal: Unarmed But Dangerous

In her foreword to the book, she says, "It is a rare man who possesses both a passionate conscience and a brilliant wit. [...] Hal Crowther is a wit who never lapses into cynicism or relativism [...] Again and again, Crowther’s brilliant jeremiads rise to a pitch of outraged eloquence" (xi-xii).

Dahlberg, Edward: Because I Was Flesh (memoir)

In her afterword to Modern American Memoirs, she includes this book in the bibliography (442).

Dana, Richard Henry: Two Years Before the Mast (memoir)

In her afterword to Modern American Memoirs, she includes this book in the bibliography (442). Also included in "Tales of Grandeur, Tales of Risk" (122), "Natural History: An Annotated Booklist" (316), and the bibliography from Inventing the Truth: The Art and Craft of Memoir (156).

Darwin, Charles: The Voyage of the Beagle (nonfiction)

Recommended despite its "tedium"; she says, "the breadth of the young scientist's information and the vigor of his curiosity are admirable" ("Natural History: An Annotated Booklist," 316).

Davison, Peter: Half Remembered (memoir)

In her afterword to Modern American Memoirs, she includes this book in the bibliography (442).

Day, Clarence: Life with Father (memoir)

In her afterword to Modern American Memoirs, she includes this book in the bibliography (442).

Day, Dorothy: The Long Loneliness (memoir)

In her afterword to Modern American Memoirs, she includes this book in the bibliography (442).

deBuys, William: River of Traps

In her afterword to Modern American Memoirs, she includes this book in the bibliography (441). Also included in "Natural History: An Annotated Booklist" (319).

Delany, Sarah L. and A. Elizabeth Delany with Amy Hill Hearth: Having Our Say (memoir)

In her afterword to Modern American Memoirs, she includes this book in the bibliography (442).

Delbanco, Nicholas: Possession; Sherbrookes; and Stillness (fiction trilogy)

She calls him a "more recent favorite [...] whose Sherbrookes trilogy [...] answers Emerson's call for originality" ("My New England Bookshelf," 66).

Delbanco, Nicholas: Running in Place: Scenes from the South of France (memoir)

In her afterword to Modern American Memoirs, she includes this book in the bibliography (442).

Dickinson, Emily (poetry)

She says this poet "never stales because you've never got her" ("My New England Bookshelf," 66).

Digges, Deborah: Fugitive Spring (memoir)

In her afterword to Modern American Memoirs, she includes this book in the bibliography (442). Also included in "Natural History: An Annotated Booklist" (319).

Dinesen, Isak: Out of Africa (memoir)

"[...] magnificent English prose" ("Tales of Grandeur, Tales of Risk," 122). In her afterword to Modern American Memoirs, she includes this book in the bibliography (442), where she calls it one of the books "[r]eaders might especially enjoy" (446). Also included in "Natural History: An Annotated Booklist" (315).

Dobbs, Kildare: Running to Paradise (memoir)

Included in the bibliography from Inventing the Truth: The Art and Craft of Memoir (158).

Doig, Ivan: This House of Sky and Heart Earth (memoir)

In her afterword to Modern American Memoirs, she includes these books in the bibliography (442).

Douglass, Frederick: Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass (memoir)

In her afterword to Modern American Memoirs, she includes this book in the bibliography (442).

Douglas, Mary: Natural Symbols and Purity and Danger (anthropology)

"These books play with ideas--new ideas--and excite me about ideas in the way that great literary criticism does" ("Critic's Christmas Choices," 694).

Dubus, Andre: Broken Vessels (memoir)

In her afterword to Modern American Memoirs, she includes this book in the bibliography (442).

Dubus, Andre: "The Eternal Supper" (Portland autumn 1993)

"I liked Andre Dubus’s piece about the Eucharist [...] very, very much. It stunned me" (“Eucharistic Celebration,” 2).

Dunham, Katherine: A Touch of Innocence (memoir)

In her afterword to Modern American Memoirs, she includes this book in the bibliography (442).

Durrell, Gerald: My Family and Other Animals (memoir)

"[T]he most beautifully written of all his hysterically funny books" ("Tales of Grandeur, Tales of Risk," 122). In her afterword to Modern American Memoirs, she includes this book in the bibliography (442).

Durrell, Gerald: The Whispering Land (nonfiction)

Included in "Natural History: An Annotated Booklist" (321).

Durrell, Lawrence: Bitter Lemons (memoir)

In her afterword to Modern American Memoirs, she includes this book in the bibliography (442).

Eastman, Charles A.: Indian Boyhood (memoir)

In her afterword to Modern American Memoirs, she includes this book in the bibliography (442).

Eddington, Sir Arthur Stanley: The Nature of the Physical World (nonfiction)

Included in "Natural History: An Annotated Booklist" (317).

Ehrlich, Gretel: The Solace of Open Spaces (nonfiction)

In her afterword to Modern American Memoirs, she includes this book in the bibliography (442). Also included in "Natural History: An Annotated Booklist" (320).

Eiseley, Loren: "The Star Thrower" (nonfiction)

Included in "Natural History: An Annotated Booklist" (320). Excerpted in Modern American Memoirs (416-32).

Eliot, George: Middlemarch (fiction)

Listed as one of her favorite historical novels in "My Favorite Historical Novel" (87).

Eliot, T. S.

"If this century could claim no other poets than Eliot, Yeats, and Stevens, this would still be the century of English poetry's greatest achievement" ("The Purfication of Poetry--Right Out of the Ballpark," 293).

Ellison, Ralph: Going to the Territory (memoir)

Excerpted in Modern American Memoirs (280-87).

Emerson, Ralph Waldo: Essays; "Nature"; "The American Scholar"; etc. (nonfiction)

"What radical conclusion could I reach, what revolutionary course could I preach, that I couldn't find in Emerson? How did this dizzying poseur and corrupter of youth get wrapped up as a fuddy-duddy and thrown away? He calls each of us to the same impossible task: forging an original relationship with the universe" ("My New England Bookshelf," 66). "My approach to spirituality is intellectual, in the Neoplatonic tradition. That's why I'm also attracted to Christian mysticism, American transcendentalism [...], and Hasidism" ("The Good Books: Writer's Choices," 80). Also included in "Natural History: An Annotated Booklist" (316).

Engels, John: Blood Mountain (poetry)

She says his poems are "full of that mixture of topographical spareness and intellectual richness that has characterized this region's writers" ("My New England Bookshelf," 68). Also included in "Critic's Christmas Choices" (694).

Ernaux, Annie: A Man’s Place and A Woman’s Story (memoir)

In her afterword to Modern American Memoirs, she includes these books in the bibliography (442).

Evans, Howard Ensign: Life on a Little-Known Planet (nonfiction)

Included in "Natural History: An Annotated Booklist" (319).

Fabre, J. Henri: Souvenirs entomologiques and The Insect World of J. Henri Fabre (nonfiction)

"This is beautiful, knowledgeable prose" ("Natural History: An Annotated Booklist," 317).

Facey, A. B.: A Fortunate Life (memoir)

In her afterword to Modern American Memoirs, she includes this book in the bibliography (442).

Fairey, Wendy W.: One of the Family (memoir)

In her afterword to Modern American Memoirs, she includes this book in the bibliography (442).

Faulkner, William: Absalom, Absalom! (fiction)

Listed as one of her favorite historical novels in "My Favorite Historical Novel") (87). He is also mentioned as a favorite non-New England writer in "My New England Bookshelf" (66).

Finch, Robert: The Primal Place and The Common Ground (nonfiction)

Included in "Natural History: An Annotated Booklist" (320).

Finney, Jack: Time and Again (fiction)

Calls it a "wonderful little book about New York in 1882" ("A Pilgrim's Progress").

Fishman, Steve: A Bomb in the Brain (memoir)

Said she was impressed by this book in "What writers are reading on summer vacation" (53). In her afterword to Modern American Memoirs, she includes this book in the bibliography (442).

Fitzgerald, F. Scott

"His great form was the sentence. He truly understood the beauty and possibilities of the sentence in English" (F. Scott Fitzgerald: 24 September 1896 to 21 December 1940; 24 September 1996 Centenary Celebration). However, according to "Ideas are tough; irony is easy," she thinks he "deal[s] too much in social issues."

Fitzgerald, Robert: The Third Kind of Knowledge (memoir)

In her afterword to Modern American Memoirs, she includes this book in the bibliography (442).

Fletcher, Colin: The Complete Walker (nonfiction) and The Man Who Walked Through Time (memoir)

Included in "Tales of Grandeur, Tales of Risk" (122).

Ford, Ford Madox: The Good Soldier (fiction)

Says she loves it in "Into the Yellow Wood" (162).

Ford, Ford Madox: Your Mirror to My Times (memoir)

In her afterword to Modern American Memoirs, she includes this book in the bibliography (442).

Franklin, Benjamin: Autobiography (memoir)

In her afterword to Modern American Memoirs, she includes this book in the bibliography (442).

Freuchen, Peter: Adventures in the Arctic: My Life in the Frozen North (memoir) and Book of the Eskimos (anthropology)

Regarding the latter: "Everything about Eskimo culture is fascinating [...]" Both included in "Tales of Grandeur, Tales of Risk" (122); the latter included in "Natural History: An Annotated Booklist" (318).

Fuentes, Carlos (fiction)

Included in "Critic's Christmas Choices" (693).

Gallagher, Nora: Things Seen and Unseen: A Year Lived in Faith (memoir)

"I cried twice in the course of reading this short book, and I laughed about 120 times out loud. It's the best book I've read recently about living as a Christian in the real world in the church" ("Natural Wonders: an interview with Annie Dillard," 33).

Galvin, James: The Meadow (fiction)

In her afterword to Modern American Memoirs, she includes this book in the bibliography (442). Also included in "Natural History: An Annotated Booklist" (319).

Garland, Hamlin: A Son of the Middle Border (memoir)

Excerpted in Modern American Memoirs (116-31).

Garrett, George: Death of the Fox; The Succession; and Entered from the Sun (fiction)

She says this "Elizabethan cycle [...] gives a complete, complex world" in "My Favorite Historical Novel" (87), where it is listed as one of her favorite works of historical fiction. The Succession is also mentioned in "Reading for Work and Pleasure" (66).

Garrett, George: Do, Lord, Remember Me (fiction)

She says it is "a study of [a] Southern fundamentalist preacher who wrestles with God. Good characters" (Writer’s Choice: A Library of Rediscoveries, 41).

Garrett, George: "My Two One-Eyed Coaches" (memoir)

In her afterword to Modern American Memoirs, she includes this essay in the bibliography (442).

Gates, Henry Louis, Jr.: Colored People (memoir)

In her afterword to Modern American Memoirs, she includes this book in the bibliography (442).

Gibbings, Robert: Over the Reefs

Included in "Natural History: An Annotated Booklist" (318).

Glasgow, Ellen: The Woman Within (memoir)

In her introduction to Modern American Memoirs, she calls the author "excellent" (x). In her afterword to the same book, she includes this memoir in the bibliography (442).

Goldbarth, Albert: A Sympathy of Souls and Great Topics of the World

In her introduction to Modern American Memoirs, she says the prose pieces in these books are "perfectly structured" (xi). In her afterword to Memoirs, she includes the first book in the bibliography (442).

Golden, Marita: Migrations of the Heart (memoir)

In her afterword to Modern American Memoirs, she includes this book in the bibliography (442).

Goldsmith, Joel

"I confess a fond and enduring weakness" for his books (For the Time Being 89).

Gombrich, E. H.: Art and Illusion (aesthetics)

Included in "Critic's Christmas Choices" (694).

Gonzalez, Ray: Memory Fever (memoir)

In her afterword to Modern American Memoirs, she includes this book in the bibliography (442).

Gordon, Mary: Final Payments (fiction)

Included in "Critic's Christmas Choices" (694).

Gorky, Maxim: My Childhood; My Apprenticeship; and My Universities (a memoir trilogy)

In her afterword to Modern American Memoirs, she includes these books in the bibliography (442), where she calls them books "[r]eaders might especially enjoy" (446). Also included in the bibliography from Inventing the Truth: The Art and Craft of Memoir (159).

Gornick, Vivian: Fierce Attachments (memoir)

Excerpted in Modern American Memoirs (91-99).

Graham, Stephen: The Gentle Art of Tramping (nonfiction)

Described as "elegant" in Pilgrim at Tinker Creek. Included in "Natural History: An Annotated Booklist" (320).

Grant, Ulysses S.: Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant (memoir)

In her afterword to Modern American Memoirs, she includes this book in the bibliography (442).

Graves, John: Goodbye to a River and From a Limestone Ledge (nonfiction)

Included in "Natural History: An Annotated Booklist" (320). In her afterword to Modern American Memoirs, she includes the first book in the bibliography (442).

Graves, Robert: Good-bye to All That (memoir)

In her afterword to Modern American Memoirs, she includes this book in the bibliography (442).

Grealy, Lucy: Autobiography of a Face (memoir)

In her afterword to Modern American Memoirs, she includes this book in the bibliography (442).

Green, Henry: Pack My Bag (memoir)

In her afterword to Modern American Memoirs, she includes this book in the bibliography (443).

Greene, Graham: A Sort of Life and Ways of Escape (memoir)

In her afterword to Modern American Memoirs, she includes these books in the bibliography (443). She calls the first book "An austere, intelligent autobiography" in the bibliography from Inventing the Truth: The Art and Craft of Memoir (159).

Greenstein, George: Frozen Star (nonfiction)

Included in "Natural History: An Annotated Booklist" (320).

Grumbach, Doris: Coming into the End Zone and Extra Innings (memoir)

In her afterword to Modern American Memoirs, she includes these books in the bibliography (443).

Guinness, Alec: Blessings in Disguise (memoir)

In her afterword to Modern American Memoirs, she includes this book in the bibliography (443).

Hall, Donald: Kicking the Leaves (poetry)

Included in "Critic's Christmas Choices" (694).

Hall, Donald: String Too Short to Be Saved; Their Ancient Glitt’ring Eyes; and Life Work (memoir)

In her afterword to Modern American Memoirs, she includes these books in the bibliography (443).

Hall, Edward T.: An Anthropology of Everyday Life (memoir)

In her afterword to Modern American Memoirs, she includes this book in the bibliography (443).

Hampl, Patricia: A Romantic Education and Virgin Time (memoir)

In her afterword to Modern American Memoirs, she includes these books in the bibliography (443).

Hardy, Thomas: Return of the Native and Tess of the d'Urbevilles (fiction)

Included in "Natural History: An Annotated Booklist" (315). And according to interviewer Grace Suh, Hardy is one of Dillard's "all-time favorite fiction writers" ("Ideas are tough; irony is easy").

Harnack, Curtis: We Have All Gone Away and The Attic (memoir)

In her afterword to Modern American Memoirs, she includes these books in the bibliography (443).

Hart, Moss: Act One (memoir)

In her afterword to Modern American Memoirs, she includes this book in the bibliography (443).

Hay, John: Nature's Year

She says it is the "best nature writing since Thoreau" (Writer’s Choice: A Library of Rediscoveries, 235). Also included in "Natural History: An Annotated Booklist" (320).

Hecht, Ben: A Child of the Century (memoir)

In her afterword to Modern American Memoirs, she includes this book in the bibliography (443).

Heilman, Samuel: The Gate Behind the Wall (memoir)

In her afterword to Modern American Memoirs, she includes this book in the bibliography (443).

Hellman, Lillian: Pentimento and An Unfinished Woman (memoir)

In her afterword to Modern American Memoirs, she includes these books in the bibliography (443).

Hemingway, Ernest: For Whom the Bell Tolls (fiction)

"I loved it!" ("Metaphysical Graffiti").

Hemingway, Ernest: Green Hills of Africa (nonfiction)

In her afterword to Modern American Memoirs, she includes this book in the bibliography (443). Also included in "Natural History: An Annotated Booklist" (318). And according to interviewer Grace Suh, Hemingway is one of Dillard's "all-time favorite fiction writers" ("Ideas are tough; irony is easy").

Herr, Michael: Dispatches (memoir)

In her afterword to Modern American Memoirs, she includes this book in the bibliography (443).

Hersey, John: Here to Stay (nonfiction)

Included in "Tales of Grandeur, Tales of Risk" (122).

Heschel, Abraham

One interviewer says Dillard "calls [him] the great religious thinker of the [20th] century" ("A Pilgrim's Progress"). "My approach to spirituality is intellectual, in the Neoplatonic tradition. That's why I'm also attracted to Christian mysticism, American transcendentalism [...], and Hasidism" ("The Good Books: Writer's Choices," 80).

Hoagland, Edward: Red Wolves and Black Bears; Walking the Dead Diamond River; The Tugman’s Passage; and Balancing Act (nonfiction)

The first two are included in "Natural History: An Annotated Booklist" (320). In her afterword to Modern American Memoirs, she includes the last three books in the bibliography (443).

Hongo, Garrett: Volcano (memoir)

In her afterword to Modern American Memoirs, she includes this book in the bibliography (443).

Hopes, David Brendan: The Glacier's Daughters (poetry)

She says his poems are "[...] full of that mixture of topographical spareness and intellectual richness that has characterized this region's writers" ("My New England Bookshelf," 68).

Horgan, Paul: Things As They Are; Everything to Live For; and The Thin Mountain Air (fiction trilogy)

Included in "Critic's Christmas Choices" (693).

Horgan, Paul: Great River: The Rio Grande in North American History and Tracings: A Book of Partial Portraits (nonfiction)

The first book is included in "Natural History: An Annotated Booklist" (320). In her afterword to Modern American Memoirs, she includes the second book in the bibliography (443).

Howard, Maureen: Facts of Life (memoir)

Included in the bibliography from Inventing the Truth: The Art and Craft of Memoir (157). Excerpted in Modern American Memoirs (68-79).

Hudson, W. H.: The Purple Land; A Naturalist in La Plata; Far Away and Long Ago; and The Book of a Naturalist (nonfiction)

"[...] tells wonderful stories of the Argentina of his boyhood" ("Natural History: An Annotated Booklist," 317). In her afterword to Modern American Memoirs, she includes the first and third books in the bibliography (443).

Hughes, Langston: The Big Sea (memoir)

In her afterword to Modern American Memoirs, she includes this book in the bibliography (443). Also included in "Natural History: An Annotated Booklist" (315).

Hull, John: Touching the Rock (memoir)

In her afterword to Modern American Memoirs, she includes this book in the bibliography (443).

Hunter-Gault, Charlayne: In My Place (memoir)

In her afterword to Modern American Memoirs, she includes this book in the bibliography (443).

Hurston, Zora Neale: Dust Tracks on a Road (memoir)

Excerpted in Modern American Memoirs (390-95).

Huxley, Elspeth: The Flames of Thika (memoir)

In her afterword to Modern American Memoirs, she includes this book in the bibliography (443).

Jacobs, Harriet: Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl (memoir)

In her afterword to Modern American Memoirs, she includes this book in the bibliography (443).

James, Henry (fiction)

According to interviewer Grace Suh, James is one of Dillard's "all-time favorite fiction writers" ("Ideas are tough; irony is easy").

James, Henry: A Small Boy and Others and Notes of a Son and Brother (memoir)

In her afterword to Modern American Memoirs, she includes these books in the bibliography (443).

James, William: A Pluralistic Universe

"[...] he chats not at all and thinks sustainedly, if eccentrically, and his enthusiasm for thinking itself is vigorous" ("My New England Bookshelf," 66).

Jeans, Sir James: The Mysterious Universe (nonfiction)

Included in "Natural History: An Annotated Booklist" (317).

Jenkins, Dan: Baja Oklahoma

Mentioned in "Antarctica."

Johnson, James Weldon: Along This Way (memoir)

In her afterword to Modern American Memoirs, she includes this book in the bibliography (443).

Jordan, Teresa: Riding the White Horse Home (memoir)

In her afterword to Modern American Memoirs, she includes this book in the bibliography (443).

Kaplan, Alice: French Lessons (memoir)

In her afterword to Modern American Memoirs, she includes this book in the bibliography (443).

Kastner, Joseph: A Species of Eternity (nonfiction)

"America's first naturalists describe the new world" ("Natural History: An Annotated Booklist," 317).

Kaysen, Susanna: Girl, Interrupted (memoir)

In her afterword to Modern American Memoirs, she includes this book in the bibliography (443).

Kazantzakis, Nikos: Report to Greco (memoir)

In her afterword to Modern American Memoirs, she includes this book in the bibliography (443), where she calls it one of the books "[r]eaders might especially enjoy" (446). Also included in the bibliography from Inventing the Truth: The Art and Craft of Memoir (159).

Kazin, Alfred: A Walker in the City (memoir)

"This stirringly illustrates a paradox on which, I think, the finest autobiographical literature depends [...] that the life of the spirit [...] enters the child through the senses. I have read this book over and over again" (bibliography from Inventing the Truth: The Art and Craft of Memoir, 156). In her introduction to Modern American Memoirs, she calls it "beautiful" (x). In her afterword to the same book, she includes this memoir in the bibliography (443).

Keillor, Garrison: Lake Wobegon Days (memoir)

In her afterword to Modern American Memoirs, she includes this book in the bibliography (443).

Keller, Helen: The World I Live In and The Story of My Life (memoir)

When she found the first book, she "read it at once; it surprised me by its strong and original prose" (The Writing Life, 30). In her afterword to Modern American Memoirs, she includes the second book in the bibliography (443).

Kent, Rockwell: N by E (nonfiction)

Included in "Natural History: An Annotated Booklist" (318).

Kerouac, Jack: The Dharma Bums

In her afterword to Modern American Memoirs, she includes this book in the bibliography (443). Also included in "Natural History: An Annotated Booklist," (315).

Kilgo, James: Deep Enough for Ivorybills (memoir)

In her afterword to Modern American Memoirs, she includes this book in the bibliography (443). Also included in "Natural History: An Annotated Booklist" (319).

Kingston, Maxine Hong: The Woman Warrior (memoir)

"There is a long story in here about a Chinese aunt that is one of the funniest stories I've seen in print" (bibliography from Inventing the Truth: The Art and Craft of Memoir, 157-58). Excerpted in Modern American Memoirs (231-47).

Kittredge, William: Owning it All

Included in "Natural History: An Annotated Booklist" (319).

Kittredge, William: Who Owns the West? (memoir)

Excerpted in Modern American Memoirs (355-71).

Kroeber, Theodora: Ishi in Two Worlds (anthropology)

"This is a wonderful story [...]" ("Tales of Grandeur, Tales of Risk," 122).

Lansing, Alfred: Endurance (memoir)

She says it is, "of the many expedition books I've read, the most vivid and stirring. [...] I return to this book as a lab rat pushes its bar for hits of endorphins. Its intensity never fails" ("Antarctica"). "I buy every copy I see; so do all my friends" (Writer’s Choice: A Library of Rediscoveries, 223). Also listed as one of her two favorite selections in "Tales of Grandeur, Tales of Risk" (122).

Larsen, Jeanne: Silk Road: A Novel of Eighth-Century China

She calls it "a Buddhist bodice-ripper" in "What writers are reading on summer vacation" (53).

Lavender, David: One Man’s West (memoir)

In her afterword to Modern American Memoirs, she includes this book in the bibliography (443).

Lawrence, T. E.: Seven Pillars of Wisdom (memoir)

In her afterword to Modern American Memoirs, she includes this book in the bibliography (444).

Laxness, Halldor: Independent People (fiction)

Says that it "is as funny as Beckett--and for the same reason: 'The soul refuses to give up the struggle.' [...] Iceland grips Mr. Laxness. Northern open lands beyond tree line, over which vast skies change, inspire scenes of metaphysical simplicity. [...] it is one of the hundred or so best [books ever]" ("Hard Times in Ultima Thule," 35).

Left Handed: Left Handed, Son of Old Man Hat: A Navaho Autobiography (memoir)

Excerpted in Modern American Memoirs (315-20).

Leibowitz, Herbert A.: Fabricating Lives

Recommends it "[f]or an intelligent consideration of classic American memoirs" (afterword to Modern American Memoirs, 446).

Levi, Primo: Survival in Auschwitz and The Reawakening (memoir)

In her afterword to Modern American Memoirs, she includes these books in the bibliography (444), where she calls it one of the books "[r]eaders might especially enjoy" (446).

Levin, Harry: Memories of the Moderns (memoir)

In her afterword to Modern American Memoirs, she includes this book in the bibliography (444).

Levi-Strauss, Claude: Tristes Tropiques (memoir)

In her afterword to Modern American Memoirs, she includes this book in the bibliography (444), where she calls it one of the books "[r]eaders might especially enjoy" (446). Also included in "Natural History: An Annotated Booklist" (315).

Lewis, C. S.: Surprised by Joy (memoir)

In her afterword to Modern American Memoirs, she includes this book in the bibliography (444). Also included in the bibliography from Inventing the Truth: The Art and Craft of Memoir (159).

Lightman, Alan P.: Time Travel and Papa Joe's Pipe (nonfiction)

Included in "Natural History: An Annotated Booklist" (320).

Logan, William Bryant: Dirt: The Ecstatic Skin of the Earth

In For the Time Being, calls it an "excellent book" (125).

Lopez, Barry: Desert Notes and Arctic Dreams (nonfiction)

Included in "Natural History: An Annotated Booklist" (320).

Lopez, Barry: "Replacing Memory" (memoir)

Excerpted in Modern American Memoirs (372-89).

Lorenz, Konrad: King Solomon's Ring (nonfiction)

Included in "Natural History: An Annotated Booklist" (321).

Lusseyran, Jacques: And There Was Light (memoir)

In her afterword to Modern American Memoirs, she includes this book in the bibliography (444).

MacLean, Norman: A River Runs Through It

Included in the bibliography from Inventing the Truth: The Art and Craft of Memoir (157). In her introduction to Modern American Memoirs, she includes this in a list of the twentieth century's "finest works of fiction [that] have strongly autobiographical elements" (xi).

MacNeil, Robert: Wordstruck (memoir)

In her afterword to Modern American Memoirs, she includes this book in the bibliography (444).

Malcolm, Norman: Memory and the Mind (philosophy)

"A sober and witty treatment of the problem of memory [...]" ("Critic's Christmas Choices," 694).

Malouf, David

"He's just a knockout--he's just fabulous!" ("A Writer's Writer on Her Work").

Manchester, William: “Okinawa: The Bloodiest Battle of All” (memoir)

In her afterword to Modern American Memoirs, she includes this essay in the bibliography (444).

Mason, Robert: Chickenhawk (memoir)

In her afterword to Modern American Memoirs, she includes this book in the bibliography (444).

Masters, Hilary: Last Stands (memoir)

In her afterword to Modern American Memoirs, she includes this book in the bibliography (444).

Mathabane, Mark: Kaffir Boy (memoir)

In her afterword to Modern American Memoirs, she includes this book in the bibliography (444).

Matthiessen, Peter

She recommends "anything" by him in "Natural History: An Annotated Booklist" (319).

Maugham, Somerset: Of Human Bondage (fiction)

In her introduction to Modern American Memoirs, she includes this in a list of the twentieth century's "finest works of fiction [that] have strongly autobiographical elements" (xi).

Maxwell, Gavin: Ring of Bright Water (memoir)

In her afterword to Modern American Memoirs, she includes this book in the bibliography (444). Also included in "Tales of Grandeur, Tales of Risk" (122) and "Natural History: An Annotated Booklist" (318).

Maxwell, William: Billie Dyer and Other Stories (fiction)

In her introduction to Modern American Memoirs, she includes this in a list of the twentieth century's "finest works of fiction [that] have strongly autobiographical elements" (xi).

Maxwell, William: Ancestors (memoir)

In her afterword to Modern American Memoirs, she includes this book in the bibliography (444).

McCarthy, Cormac: Blood Meridian, or The Evening Redness in the West (fiction)

Listed as one of her favorite historical novels in "My Favorite Historical Novel" (87).

McConkey, James: Court of Memory (memoir)

"This memoir is a treasure because of its extraordinary depth of feeling. The thoughtfulness he brings to bear on his life, his modesty, and his rare literary ability to push events through to meanings, make this memoir a rich find for people who love literature" ("What They're Reading"). "[...] I admire its structural integrity and literary intelligence" (bibliography from Inventing the Truth: The Art and Craft of Memoir, 156). Also included in "Natural History: An Annotated Booklist" (321). Excerpted in Modern American Memoirs (345-54).

McKain, David: Spellbound (memoir)

In her afterword to Modern American Memoirs, she includes this book in the bibliography (444).

McKay, Jean: Gone to Grass (memoir)

In her afterword to Modern American Memoirs, she includes this book in the bibliography (444).

McKenna, Rollie: Rollie McKenna: A Life in Photography (memoir)

In her afterword to Modern American Memoirs, she includes this book in the bibliography (444).

McLaurin, Tim: Keeper of the Moon (memoir)

In her afterword to Modern American Memoirs, she includes this book in the bibliography (444).

McMurtry, Larry: Lonesome Dove (fiction)

Listed as one of her favorite historical novels in "My Favorite Historical Novel" (87). In "At Home with Annie Dillard," she calls him "about the only man I've met who understands women" (H2).

McPhee, John: Basin and Range and Annals of the Former World (nonfiction)

Included in "Natural History: An Annotated Booklist" (320).

Mead, Margaret: Blackberry Winter (memoir)

Excerpted in Modern American Memoirs (396-406).

Mehta, Ved: Vedi (memoir)

"In beautiful, formal, vivid language, the writer describes his blind, vigorous boyhood in India" (bibliography from Inventing the Truth: The Art and Craft of Memoir, 158). In her afterword to Modern American Memoirs, she includes this book in the bibliography (444). Also mentioned in "Reading for Work and Pleasure" (66).

Melville, Herman: Moby-Dick and "The Encantadas" (fiction)

Regarding the former: "[...] Moby-Dick is the greatest novel [...] [Melville is] our greatest artist. [...] I admire especially Melville's willing that it should all mean (all of it, even the facts), his all-or-nothing stab at greatness in the novel, his urgency and power, his book's splendor and scale" ("My New England Bookshelf," 66-67). "The best book ever written about nature" ("Natural History: An Annotated Booklist," 316). The latter is included in "Natural History: An Annotated Booklist" (315) as well.

Merrill, James: A Different Person (memoir)

In her afterword to Modern American Memoirs, she includes this book in the bibliography (444).

Merton, Thomas: The Seven Storey Mountain (memoir)

In her afterword to Modern American Memoirs, she includes this book in the bibliography (444). Also included in the bibliography from Inventing the Truth: The Art and Craft of Memoir (158).

Middleton, Harry: The Earth Is Enough (memoir)

In July 1989, she called it the best work she had read so far that summer ("What writers are reading on summer vacation" 53). Excerpted in Modern American Memoirs (158-71).

Miller, Henry (fiction)

In her introduction to Modern American Memoirs, she includes "much of [his] fiction" in a list of the twentieth century's "finest works of fiction [that] have strongly autobiographical elements" (xi).

Millman, Lawrence: Our Like Will Not Be There Again: Notes from the West of Ireland (nonfiction)

Included in "Natural History: An Annotated Booklist" (318).

Milton, John: Samson Agonistes

Listed it as her second favorite book at "The Art and Craft of Memoir" lecture series.

Mitchell, John Hanson: Living at the End of Time

In her afterword to Modern American Memoirs, she includes this book in the bibliography (444). Also included in "Natural History: An Annotated Booklist" (319).

Mitchell, Joseph: McSorley’s Wonderful Saloon (memoir)

In her afterword to Modern American Memoirs, she includes this book in the bibliography (444).

Mitchell, Susan: “Dreaming in Public” (memoir) [most easily found in The Best American Essays 1988‎, edited by Dillard]

In her afterword to Modern American Memoirs, she includes this essay in the bibliography (444).

Momaday, N. Scott: The Way to Rainy Mountain and The Names (memoir)

In her afterword to Modern American Memoirs, she includes these books in the bibliography (444).

Monette, Paul: On Becoming a Man (memoir)

In her afterword to Modern American Memoirs, she includes this book in the bibliography (444).

Moodie, Susanna: Roughing It in the Bush

In her afterword to Modern American Memoirs, she includes this book in the bibliography (444), where she calls it one of the books "[r]eaders might especially enjoy" (446). Included in "Natural History: An Annotated Booklist" (315).

Moody, Anne: Coming of Age in Mississippi (memoir)

Excerpted in Modern American Memoirs (321-44).

Morris, Wright: Will’s Boy (memoir)

Excerpted in Modern American Memoirs (222-30).

Mowat, Farley: People of the Deer (memoir)

Included in "Tales of Grandeur, Tales of Risk" (122).

Muir, Edwin: An Autobiography (memoir)

"A beautiful evocation of the timelessness of early childhood, in the Orkney Islands" (bibliography from Inventing the Truth: The Art and Craft of Memoir, 158). In her afterword to Modern American Memoirs, she includes this book in the bibliography (444), where she calls it one of the books "[r]eaders might especially enjoy" (446). Also included in "Natural History: An Annotated Booklist" (315).

Muir, John: My First Summer in the Sierra; Travels in Alaska; and The Story of My Boyhood and Youth (memoir)

In her afterword to Modern American Memoirs, she includes these books in the bibliography (444). She includes the first two in "Tales of Grandeur, Tales of Risk," saying, "He is one of the finest prose writers in English, and his spiritual energy is awesome and exhilarating" (122). She also includes the first two in "Natural History: An Annotated Booklist," saying, "Muir's vivid prose rich in tropes, and his pluck and piety, make him the best writer of the 'sublime' school" (317).

Munro, Eleanor: Memoir of a Modernist's Daughter (memoir)

Excerpted in Modern American Memoirs (19-23).

Murray, Pauli: Song in a Weary Throat and Proud Shoes (memoir)

In her afterword to Modern American Memoirs, she includes these books in the bibliography (444).

Murray-Smith, Stephen: Sitting on Penguins

Calls it an "Australian classic [...] a title I find right up there with Dan Jenkin's Baja Oklahoma" ("Antarctica").

Nabhan, Gary

She recommends "anything" by him in "Natural History: An Annotated Booklist" (319).

Nabokov, Vladimir: Pale Fire (fiction)

She proclaimed her love for it in the interview "Drawing the Curtains" (36).

Nabokov, Vladimir: Speak, Memory (memoir)

"Nabokov's memoir of old Russia is pure description, emotional in its spareness" (bibliography from Inventing the Truth: The Art and Craft of Memoir, 159). In her afterword to Modern American Memoirs, she includes this book in the bibliography (444), where she calls it one of the books "[r]eaders might especially enjoy" (446).

Naipaul, V. S.: Finding the Center and The Enigma of Arrival (memoir)

In her afterword to Modern American Memoirs, she includes these books in the bibliography and particularly recommends the latter (444).

Naipaul, V. S.: A Way in the World (fiction)

In her introduction to Modern American Memoirs, she includes this in a list of the twentieth century's "finest works of fiction [that] have strongly autobiographical elements" (xi).

Nelson, Richard K.: The Island Within; Hunters of the Northern Ice; and Make Prayers to the Raven: A Koyukon View of the Northern Forest (nonfiction)

"Richard K. Nelson is a very great, if not the greatest, nature writer we have. [...] Anyone can see stuff and learn facts; it's what you make of it. His rhetorical pitch was as wild as Thoreau's on Katahdin, transporting as Shakespeare pushing art into the realms that ennoble the reader. I finished The Island Within out of breath. [...]" ("The Nature Writer's Nature Writer," 56). Also included in "Natural History: An Annotated Booklist" (315). In her afterword to Modern American Memoirs, she includes the first book in the bibliography (444).

Neruda, Pablo: Memoirs (memoir)

"The poet writes a muscular prose [...]" (bibliography from Inventing the Truth: The Art and Craft of Memoir (159).

Newby, Eric: Love and War in the Apennines (memoir)

In her afterword to Modern American Memoirs, she includes this book in the bibliography (444).

Offutt, Chris: The Same River Twice (memoir)

Excerpted in Modern American Memoirs (297-314).

Ogburn, Charlton, Jr.: The Winter Beach (nonfiction)

Included in "Natural History: An Annotated Booklist" (318).

Olson, Sigurd F.: Open Horizons, the Lonely Land, and Runes of the North (memoir)

Included in "Tales of Grandeur, Tales of Risk" (122).

Ondaatje, Michael: Running in the Family (memoir)

In her afterword to Modern American Memoirs, she includes this book in the bibliography (444).

Orlen, Steve: Permission to Speak (poetry)

Included in "Critic's Christmas Choices" (694).

Ortner, Sherry B.: Sherpas Through Their Rituals (anthropology)

"A very witty monograph" ("Critic's Christmas Choices," 694).

Owens, William: This Stubborn Soil (memoir)

Excerpted in Modern American Memoirs (269-79).

Ozick, Cynthia: Art and Ardor (memoir)

Excerpted in Modern American Memoirs (108-15).

Pasternak, Boris: Doctor Zhivago (fiction)

"Pasternak's sense of the world's beauty illumines every Moscow alley, every kilometer of railroad track buried in snow" ("Antarctica"). Also mentioned in "Metaphysical Graffiti".

Pemberton, Gayle: The Hottest Water in Chicago (memoir)

In her afterword to Modern American Memoirs, she includes this book in the bibliography (444).

Pfeiffer, John: The Emergence of Man (anthropology)

"This general work inspired me to read dozens of studies in prehistory; of all of them, this one remains the most interesting" ("Critic's Christmas Choices," 694). In For the Time Being, she refers to him as "the ever fine writer" (99).

Phibbs, Brendan: The Other Side of Time (memoir)

In her afterword to Modern American Memoirs, she includes this book in the bibliography (444).

Phillips, Jayne Anne: Black Tickets (fiction)

Included in "Critic's Christmas Choices" (694).

Pinion: Wind on the Sand: The Hidden Life of an Anchoress

In her foreword, she says it "is a fascinating book, which I enjoyed reading immensely. [...] My favorite aspect of the book, and of the anchoress' life, is the running paradox involved in leading a life that partakes of the eternal, right here in funny old time" (v).

Platt, Rutherford: The Great American Forest (nonfiction)

In Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, she calls it "one of the most interesting books ever written" (166). Included in "Natural History: An Annotated Booklist" (321).

Pliny: Natural History (the Philemon Holland translation)

She says he wrote "when science and poetry blurred" ("Natural History: An Annotated Booklist," 316).

Ponce, Mary Helen: Hoyt Street (memoir)

In her afterword to Modern American Memoirs, she includes this book in the bibliography (444).

Powell, Anthony: A Dance to the Music of Time

Included in "Critic's Christmas Choices" (693). Listed it as her third-favorite book at "The Art and Craft of Memoir" lecture series, where she said, "at the moment I’m very enamored with this twelve-volume series."

Powys, John Cowper: A Glastonbury Romance; Wolf Solent; and Maiden Castle (fiction)

She calls the first a "long, very strange novel," and the author "a fine neglected genius" (Writer’s Choice: A Library of Rediscoveries, 95).

Powys, John Cowper: Autobiography (memoir)

"The oddest of this great writer's many odd books" (bibliography from Inventing the Truth: The Art and Craft of Memoir, 158).

Price, Reynolds: Clear Pictures (memoir)

Excerpted in Modern American Memoirs (172-77).

Proust, Marcel: Remembrance of Things Past (fiction)

In her introduction to Modern American Memoirs, she includes this in a list of the twentieth century's "finest works of fiction [that] have strongly autobiographical elements" (xi).

Puleston, Dennis: Blue Water Vagabond (memoir)

In her afterword to Modern American Memoirs, she includes this book in the bibliography (445).

Quammen, David: Natural Acts ("or anything") (nonfiction)

Included in "Natural History: An Annotated Booklist" (320).

Rawlings, Marjorie Kinnan: Cross Creek (memoir)

She praises "its broad-spirited re-creation of energetic and hospitable decades among friends" (bibliography from Inventing the Truth: The Art and Craft of Memoir, 156-57). In her afterword to Modern American Memoirs, she includes this book in the bibliography (445). Also included in "Natural History: An Annotated Booklist" (320).

Read, Piers Paul: Alive: The Story of the Andes Survivors (nonfiction)

"The boys who went with the Uruguayan rugby team were upper-class Catholics; now they are first-class mystics" ("Tales of Grandeur, Tales of Risk," 122).

Reed, Kit: Cry of the Daughter (fiction)

She says it portrays "The old South, beautifully" in "My Favorite Historical Novel" (87), where it is listed as one of her favorite historical novels.

Reed, Kit: The Ballad of T. Rantula and The Better Part (fiction)

Included in "Critic's Christmas Choices" (693).

Rhodes, Richard: A Hole in the World (memoir)

In her afterword to Modern American Memoirs, she includes this book in the bibliography (445).

Richardson, Robert D.: Henry Thoreau: A Life of the Mind

She called it the "best biography I've ever read in my whole life [...] It's all interior. It's like being married to somebody. [...] It's intimate. It's why I read biography: because you only get to live once, and this way you get to experience, from the inside, someone else's life' " ("Annie Dillard: Pilgrim's Progress," D3).

Robinson, Marilynne: Housekeeping (fiction)

Journalist Mary K. Feeney says that if Dillard "had voted on her choices" for "the Modern Classics roster of the 100 best English-language novels of the 20th century," she would have included, among others, this book ("Reading Between the Lines," A1). She also mentions that she likes it in Encounters with Chinese Writers (24).

Rodriguez, Richard: Hunger of Memory (memoir)

In her afterword to Modern American Memoirs, she includes this book in the bibliography (445).

Rose, Phyllis: Woman of Letters: A Life of Virginia Woolf (biography)

"This is a book of ideas, not of gossip: it deals incisively with issues intellectual, social, and artistic, and performs valuable close readings on the texts" ("Critic's Christmas Choices," 694).

Rose, Phyllis: Parallel Lives: Five Victorian Marriages

Calls it a "fascinating study" in "Reading for Work and Pleasure" (66).

Roth, Henry: Call It Sleep (fiction)

In her introduction to Modern American Memoirs, she includes this in a list of the twentieth century's "finest works of fiction [that] have strongly autobiographical elements" (xi).

Roueche, Berton: The River World and Other Explorations (nonfiction)

Included in "Natural History: An Annotated Booklist" (318).

Rubin, Louis D., Jr.: The Golden Weather (fiction)

In her introduction to Modern American Memoirs, she includes this in a list of the twentieth century's "finest works of fiction [that] have strongly autobiographical elements" (xi).

Saint-Exupery, Antoine de: Wind, Sand and Stars (memoir)

"Lyricism, mysticism, courage: this is the book the astronauts read" ("Tales of Grandeur, Tales of Risk," 122). "[...] one of the best books on any subject" ("Natural History: An Annotated Booklist," 318). In her afterword to Modern American Memoirs, she includes this book in the bibliography (445), where she calls it one of the books "[r]eaders might especially enjoy" (446). Also included in the bibliography from Inventing the Truth: The Art and Craft of Memoir (160).

Saint Pierre, Paul: Smith and Other Events (fiction)

In her introduction to Modern American Memoirs, she includes this in a list of the twentieth century's "finest works of fiction [that] have strongly autobiographical elements" (xi).

Sandoz, Mari: Old Jules (memoir)

In her afterword to Modern American Memoirs, she includes this book in the bibliography (445).

Sartre, Jean-Paul: The Words (memoir)

"Sartre's original memoir is, I think, his best, most literary work" (bibliography from Inventing the Truth: The Art and Craft of Memoir, 159-60). In her afterword to Modern American Memoirs, she includes this book in the bibliography (445), where she calls it one of the books "[r]eaders might especially enjoy" (446).

Schaefer, Jack: An American Bestiary: Notes of an American Naturalist

"This is serious mammalogy, all-American, full of fascinating stuff, all new to me, and wild" ("Books for Sale," 122).

Scherman, Katharine: Spring on an Arctic Island (memoir)

"This fine writer and observer [...] fills her personal tale with interesting lore" ("Tales of Grandeur, Tales of Risk," 122). Also included in "Natural History: An Annotated Booklist" (318).

Scholes, Robert: Structuralism in Literature (criticism)

Included in "Critic's Christmas Choices" (694).

Scott, Evelyn: Escapade (memoir)

In her afterword to Modern American Memoirs, she includes this book in the bibliography (445).

Selzer, Richard: Mortal Lessons: Notes on the Art of Surgery; Letters to a Young Doctor; and Confessions of a Knife (nonfiction)

Included in "Natural History: An Annotated Booklist" (320). The last one is excerpted in Modern American Memoirs (100-07).

Senden, Marius Von: Space and Sight (nonfiction)

"Absolutely fascinating" (Writer’s Choice: A Library of Rediscoveries, 191). In Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, she calls it "a wonderful book" (27).

Settle, Mary Lee: “London—1944” (memoir)

In her afterword to Modern American Memoirs, she includes this essay in the bibliography (445).

Shammas, Anton: Arabesques (memoir)

In her afterword to Modern American Memoirs, she includes this book in the bibliography (445).

Shapiro, Alan (poetry)

"[...] an excellent poet [...]" ("A Writer's Writer on Her Work").

Sheed, Wilfrid: Frank and Maisie; My Life as a Fan; People Will Always be Kind; and In Love with Daylight (memoir)

In her afterword to Modern American Memoirs, she includes these books in the bibliography (445). The first book is included in the bibliography from Inventing the Truth: The Art and Craft of Memoir (159).

Shen Congwen: Recollections of West Hunan (memoir)

In her afterword to Modern American Memoirs, she includes this book in the bibliography (441), where she calls it one of the books "[r]eaders might especially enjoy" (446).

Simon, Kate: Bronx Primitive (memoir)

Included in the bibliography from Inventing the Truth: The Art and Craft of Memoir (158). Excerpted in Modern American Memoirs (40-48).

Simpson, Eileen: Poets in Their Youth (memoir)

In her afterword to Modern American Memoirs, she includes this book in the bibliography (445).

Smith, Annick: Homestead

Included in "Natural History: An Annotated Booklist" (319). In her afterword to Modern American Memoirs, she includes this book in the bibliography (445).

Smith, Lee: Fair and Tender Ladies (fiction)

She says, "This is about as moving a work of literature as has ever been written" in "My Favorite Historical Novel" (87), where it is listed as one of her favorite historical novels. Journalist Mary K. Feeney says that if Dillard "had voted on her choices" for "the Modern Classics roster of the 100 best English-language novels of the 20th century," she would have included, among others, this book ("Reading Between the Lines," A1). Old Dominion University's The Courier writes that Dillard "has called [Smith] 'the best of the younger generation of Southern writers' " (5).

Smith, Lee: Fancy Strut (fiction)

She says it is an "extremely funny, well-made contemporary American novel: [a] cross between Dickens and Woody Allen. Beautifully put together, very funny characters" (Writer’s Choice: A Library of Rediscoveries, 111).

Smith, Lee: Oral History

Mentioned in "Reading for Work and Pleasure" (66).

Smith, Lillian: Killers of the Dream (memoir)

In her afterword to Modern American Memoirs, she includes this book in the bibliography (445).

Smith, William Jay: Army Brat (memoir)

In her afterword to Modern American Memoirs, she includes this book in the bibliography (445).

Soyinka, Wole: Ake (memoir)

In her afterword to Modern American Memoirs, she includes this book in the bibliography (445).

Spark, Muriel: Curriculum Vitae (memoir)

In her afterword to Modern American Memoirs, she includes this book in the bibliography (445).

Spiegelman, Art: Maus (memoir)

In her afterword to Modern American Memoirs, she includes this book in the bibliography (445).

Staples, Brent: Parallel Time (memoir)

In her afterword to Modern American Memoirs, she includes this book in the bibliography (445).

Stegner, Wallace: Angle of Repose

He "saw what could be done with Western history. [...] He had very few characters [in Angle of Repose], very little incident, and what he did was go over it, making it deeper and deeper and deeper, dealing with the woman (his main character) again and again and again until she had a mythological stature. She became figural" ("Eulogy: Friends, Students and Admirers Remember Wallace Stegner") (E1).

Stegner, Wallace: Wolf Willow (memoir)

Excerpted in Modern American Memoirs (24-39).

Stein, Gertrude: The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas (memoir)

In her afterword to Modern American Memoirs, she includes this book in the bibliography (445).

Stevens, Wallace (poetry)

"[...] Wallace Stevens is the greatest poet" ("My New England Bookshelf," 66). "If this century could claim no other poets than Eliot, Yeats, and Stevens, this would still be the century of English poetry's greatest achievement" ("The Purfication of Poetry--Right Out of the Ballpark," 293).

Stone, Robert: Damascus Gate, A Flag for Sunrise, and Dog Soldier

Journalist Mary K. Feeney says that if Dillard "had voted on her choices" for "the Modern Classics roster of the 100 best English-language novels of the 20th century," she would have included, among others, the first two books listed above ("Reading Between the Lines," A1). The interviewer Grace Suh says Dillard "greatly admires" his work ("Ideas are tough; irony is easy").

Stratton-Porter, Gene: A Girl of the Limberlost; Freckles; and Moths of the Limberlost

"She's wonnn-der-fulll. [... These books] set me onto science, and I've been on science ever since I read it in the seventh or eighth grade" ("A Pilgrim's Progress"). The last book is included in "Natural History: An Annotated Booklist" (321) and the bibliography in her afterword to Modern American Memoirs (445).

Talayesva, Don: Sun Chief (memoir)

In her afterword to Modern American Memoirs, she includes this book in the bibliography (445).

Taylor, Peter: A Summons to Memphis (fiction)

In her introduction to Modern American Memoirs, she includes this in a list of the twentieth century's "finest works of fiction [that] have strongly autobiographical elements" (xi).

Teale, Edwin Way: The American Seasons tetralogy (North with the Spring; Journey into Summer; Autumn Across America; and Wandering through Winter) (memoir)

"A tour de force [...] learn from the master where we live" ("Tales of Grandeur, Tales of Risk," 122). Also included in "Natural History: An Annotated Booklist" (321).

Teale, Edwin Way: The Strange Lives of Familiar Insects

In Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, she calls it "a book I couldn't live without" (170).

Teilhard de Chardin, Pierre: The Divine Milieu; "Mass of the World"; and "The Heart of the Matter" (nonfiction)

"I love him. Every single thing. I think that Americans have been reading the wrong books. They keep reading The Phenomenon of Man, which is just pretty much crackpot, and they don't read the wonderful things, the 'Mass of the World' and The Divine Milieu. He enters the realm as I try to enter the realm, where nothing can be said but in art, but in metaphor, but in simile--because words fail and reason fails, as everyone knows. Only art can enter those realms, however pathetically" ("Natural Wonders: An Interview with Annie Dillard"). In For the Time Being, she praises The Divine Milieu and his essays "The Mass of the World" and "The Heart of the Matter" as "intelligent, plausible, and beautiful" (103).

Terres, John K.: From Laurel Hill to Siler's Bog (nonfiction)

Included in "Natural History: An Annotated Booklist" (320).

Thesiger, Wilfred: Arabian Sands (nonfiction)

Included in "Natural History: An Annotated Booklist" (318).

Thomas, Elizabeth Marshall: The Harmless People (anthropology)

"[...] beautifully written, unsentimental" ("Natural History: An Annotated Booklist," 318). Also included in "Tales of Grandeur, Tales of Risk" (122).

Thomas, Lewis: The Youngest Science (memoir); The Lives of a Cell; The Medusa and the Snail; and Late Night Thoughts on Listening to Mahler's Ninth Symphony (nonfiction)

In her afterword to Modern American Memoirs, she includes the first book in the bibliography (445). Also included in the bibliography from Inventing the Truth: The Art and Craft of Memoir (157). The others are included in "Natural History: An Annotated Booklist" (320). In "Thinking About Language," she calls The Lives of a Cell "a wholly excellent book" (3).

Thompson, Flora Lewis: Lark Rise to Candleford (memoir)

In her afterword to Modern American Memoirs, she includes this book in the bibliography (445), where she calls it one of the books "[r]eaders might especially enjoy" (446).

Thoreau, Henry David: Walden; Cape Cod; and The Main Woods (memoir)

She praises the first book's "formal shapeliness and metaphorical, hyperbolic prose [...]" (bibliography from Inventing the Truth: The Art and Craft of Memoir, 156). Also included in "Natural History: An Annotated Booklist" (316). In her afterword to Modern American Memoirs, she includes all three books in the bibliography (445). In an interview, she mentioned him as one "of the writers I feel closest to" ("Remembrances of Things Past," 78).

Thurber, James: My Life and Hard Times (memoir)

Included in the bibliography from Inventing the Truth: The Art and Craft of Memoir (158).

Tinbergen, Niko: Curious Naturalists (nonfiction)

Included in "Natural History: An Annotated Booklist" (321).

Tolstoy, Leo: Anna Karenina (fiction)

In an interview, she said, "who would not like to have written [...] Anna Karenina?" ("Into the Yellow Wood," 161). "I often reread books. [...] Tolstoy [...] gets better and better" ("Remembrances of Things Past," 78).

Tolstoy, Leo: Childhood, Boyhood, Youth (fiction)

In her introduction to Modern American Memoirs, she includes this in a list of the twentieth century's "finest works of fiction [that] have strongly autobiographical elements" (xi).

Toth, Susan Allen: Blooming: A Small Town Girlhood and Ivy Days: Making My Way Out East (memoir)

In her afterword to Modern American Memoirs, she includes these books in the bibliography (445).

Trefil, James

She recommends "anything" by him in "Natural History: An Annotated Booklist" (319).

Trevelyan, Katharine: Through Mine Own Eyes (memoir)

In her afterword to Modern American Memoirs, she includes this book in the bibliography (445).

Trillin, Calvin: Remembering Denny (memoir)

In her afterword to Modern American Memoirs, she includes this book in the bibliography (445).

Trilling, Diana: The Beginning of the Journey (memoir)

In her afterword to Modern American Memoirs, she includes this book in the bibliography (445).

Trollope, Anthony: An Autobiography (memoir)

In her afterword to Modern American Memoirs, she includes this book in the bibliography (445).

Turgenev, Ivan: Sportsman's Sketches

Included in "Natural History: An Annotated Booklist" (315).

Turnbull, Colin M.: The Forest People (memoir)

"Turnbull is an utterly engaging anthropologist [...]" ("Tales of Grandeur, Tales of Risk," 122). Also included in "Natural History: An Annotated Booklist" (319).

Twain, Mark: Life on the Mississippi (memoir)

Included in the bibliography from Inventing the Truth: The Art and Craft of Memoir (156).

Updike, John: Pigeon Feathers; Rabbit is Rich; and early fiction (e.g. "Packed Dirt, Churchgoing, A Dying Cat, A Traded Car") (fiction)

First two books mentioned in Encounters with Chinese Writers, where she calls the latter, "A major American novel, out of the question" (24). In her introduction to Modern American Memoirs, she includes his early stories in a list of the twentieth century's "finest works of fiction [that] have strongly autobiographical elements" (xi) and in Teaching a Stone to Talk mentioned "Packed Dirt, Churchgoing, A Dying Cat, A Traded Car" as a story that "moved me" (132). In "My New England Bookshelf," she says he "continues to lead American letters in the path of righteousness [...]" (68). Also mentioned in "Critic's Christmas Choices" (693).

Updike, John: Self-Consciousness (memoir)

In her afterword to Modern American Memoirs, she includes this book in the bibliography (445).

Vallier, Dora: Abstract Art (aesthetics)

One of "the best of the many analyses and histories of abstract and Abstract Expressionist art I've read lately" ("Critic's Christmas Choices," 694).

Van der Post, Laurens: The Heart of the Hunter (nonfiction)

Included in "Natural History: An Annotated Booklist" (321).

Vorse, Mary Heaton: Time and the Town: A Provincetown Chronicle (memoir)

She praises "its broad-spirited re-creation of energetic and hospitable decades among friends" (bibliography from Inventing the Truth: The Art and Craft of Memoir, 156).

Wade-Gayles, Gloria: Pushed Back to Strength (memoir)

In her afterword to Modern American Memoirs, she includes this book in the bibliography (445).

Wallace, Alfred Russel: A Narrative of Travels on the Amazon and Rio Negro (nonfiction)

"This remains the best and liveliest book on the South American forest" ("Natural History: An Annotated Booklist," 317).

Wallace, David Foster: “The Awakening of My Interest in Annular Systems”

In her afterword to Modern American Memoirs, she includes this story in the bibliography (445).

Walton, Izaak: The Compleat Angler (nonfiction)

Included in "Natural History: An Annotated Booklist" (316).

Washington, Booker T.: Up from Slavery (memoir)

Included in the bibliography from Inventing the Truth: The Art and Craft of Memoir (157).

Waters, Ethel: His Eye is on the Sparrow (memoir)

In her afterword to Modern American Memoirs, she includes this book in the bibliography (445). Also included in the bibliography from Inventing the Truth: The Art and Craft of Memoir (158).

Weil, Simone: Waiting for God (theology/philosophy)

She says that Weil and Abraham Heschel "have everything I need" ("A Pilgrim's Progress"). "This fanaticism, this all or nothingness, both attracted and repelled me. [...] My approach to spirituality is intellectual, in the Neoplatonic tradition. That's why I'm also attracted to Christian mysticism, American transcendentalism [...], and Hasidism" ("The Good Books: Writer's Choices," 80-81).

Welty, Eudora: One Writer’s Beginnings (memoir)

In her afterword to Modern American Memoirs, she includes this book in the bibliography (445).

Wharton, Edith: A Backward Glance (memoir)

In her afterword to Modern American Memoirs, she includes this book in the bibliography (446).

White, Bailey: Mama Makes Up Her Mind (memoir)

In her afterword to Modern American Memoirs, she includes this book in the bibliography (446).

White, E. B.: “Once More to the Lake” (memoir)

In her afterword to Modern American Memoirs, she includes this essay in the bibliography (446).

White, Gilbert: The Natural History and Antiquities of Selborne (nonfiction)

"Close observation and high literary style [...]" ("Natural History: An Annotated Booklist," 316).

White, Stewart Edward: The Mountains and The Pass (nonfiction)

Included in "Natural History: An Annotated Booklist" (320).

White, William M.: All Nature is My Bride: Passages from the Journals (poetry)

In her introduction to the book, she says that "by lifting these passages from [Thoreau's] Journals, Bill White sheds light on their wholeness. [... Thoreau] knew what he was doing; he was a juggler from way back" (ix). She goes on to say that in the poems' "perfectly sensitive arrangements, nothing is lost, all is gained" (xi).

Whitman, Walt (poetry)

In an interview, she mentioned him as one "of the writers I feel closest to" ("Remembrances of Things Past," 78).

Wideman, John Edgar: Brothers and Keepers (memoir)

Excerpted in Modern American Memoirs (407-15).

Williams, Terry Tempest: Refuge

In her afterword to Modern American Memoirs, she includes this book in the bibliography (446). Also included in "Natural History: An Annotated Booklist" (319).

Williams, William Carlos: Autobiography (memoir)

In her afterword to Modern American Memoirs, she includes this book in the bibliography (446).

Wilson, Edward O.: Naturalist

In her afterword to Modern American Memoirs, she includes this book in the bibliography (446). Also included in "Natural History: An Annotated Booklist" (319).

Wolff, Geoffrey: The Duke of Deception

In her introduction to Modern American Memoirs, where an excerpt from this book is reprinted (288-296), she calls it one of the "great memoirs in which the narrator is not the object of all attention" (x).

Wolff, Tobias: This Boy’s Life (memoir)

Excerpted in Modern American Memoirs (193-204).

Wozencraft, Kim: Notes from the Country Club (fiction)

In her afterword to Modern American Memoirs, she includes this book in the bibliography (446).

Wright, Richard: Black Boy (memoir)

Excerpted in Modern American Memoirs (178-92).

X, Malcolm: The Autobiography of Malolm X (memoir)

Included in the bibliography from Inventing the Truth: The Art and Craft of Memoir (157). Excerpted in Modern American Memoirs (142-57).

Yeats, William Butler (poetry)

In "A Writer's Writer on Her Work," she mentions him as one of the poets that inspire her. "If this century could claim no other poets than Eliot, Yeats, and Stevens, this would still be the century of English poetry's greatest achievement" ("The Purfication of Poetry--Right Out of the Ballpark," 293).

Zimmer, Paul: The Zimmer Poems (poetry)

Included in "Critic's Christmas Choices" (694).

Sources (written by Dillard, unless otherwise indicated):

"The Ancient Story of Jacob, Retold in a Passionate, Exalted Pitch," Boston Globe, 30 May 1993: A15.

"Annie Dillard: Pilgrim's Progress" by Charles Trueheart. Washington Post, 28 October 1987: sec. D, 1-3.

"Antarctica," Mungo Park (website), January 1998.

"The Art and Craft of Memoir," New York Public Library lecture series. February 25, 1986.

"At Home with Annie Dillard" by Mary Grauerholz. Boston Globe, 5 December 2002, H2.

Bibliography from Inventing the Truth: The Art and Craft of Memoir: 155-60. She says, "These are some first-person narratives I dearly love."

"Books for Sale" by L.S.B. Harper's Magazine, Vol. 252, No. 1510 (March 1976): 122.

"A City of Words: The 13th Annual Literary Festival." Old Dominion University's The Courier, 21 September, 1990, 5.

"Critic's Christmas Choices," Commonweal, Vol. CVI, No. 22 (7 December 1979): 693-94.

"Drawing the Curtains: An Interview with Annie Dillard" by Karla M. Hammond. Bennington Review 10 (April 1981): 30-38.

Encounters with Chinese Writers. Middletown, Conn.: Wesleyan University Press, 1984.

Entry in F. Scott Fitzgerald: 24 September 1896 to 21 December 1940; 24 September 1996 Centenary Celebration. Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina, 1996: 21.

“Eucharistic Celebration” (letter to editor). Portland 13.3 (autumn 1994): 2.

"Eulogy: Friends, Students and Admirers Remember Wallace Stegner" by Bob Sipchen. Los Angeles Times, 16 April 1993, E1.

"Foreword" to Moments of Light by Fred Chappell. Newport Beach, California: New South Press, 1980. ix-xvii.

"Foreword" to Unarmed But Dangerous by Hal Crowther. Atlanta: Longstreet Press, 1995. xi-xii.

"Foreword" to Wind on the Sand: The Hidden Life of an Anchoress by Pinion. Ramsey, NJ: Paulist Press, 1981. v-vi.

For the Time Being. New York: Knopf, 1999.

"The Good Books: Writer's Choices," edited by Karen Fitzgerald. Ms., December 1985: 80-81.

"Hard Times in Ultima Thule," New York Times Book Review, 20 April 1997: Bookends (back page).

"Ideas are tough; irony is easy," an interview by Grace Suh. The Yale Herald, 4 October 1996.

"Into the Yellow Wood: An Interview with Annie Dillard" by George Myers, Jr. Onthebus, Vol. 15/16 (Fall/Winter 1999): 158-162.

"Introduction" to All Nature is My Bride: Passages from the Journals. Old Greenwich, CT : Chatham Press, 1975. ix-xi.

"Introduction" to "A Mother's Tale" (a story by James Agee). You've Got to Read This: Contemporary American Writers Introduce Stories that Held Them in Awe, edited by Ron Hansen and Jim Shepard. Perennial, 1994. 1.

"Language for Everyone." Southwest Review vol. 71 (1986): 488-92.

"Metaphysical Graffiti," an interview conducted by James Marcus. Web only. 1999.

Modern American Memoirs. Edited with Cort Conley. New York: HarperCollins, 1995.

"My Favorite Historical Novel," American Heritage Magazine, Volume 43, Issue 6 (October 1992): 87.

"My New England Bookshelf," New England Monthly (November 1985), p. 66-68. She says, "Of all the world's literature, I find that of New England most moving. [...] New England thinkers plunge [into the metaphysical] as cheerfully and, apparently, as comfortably as into the old neighborhood swimming hole. [...] Their subject was being."

"Natural History: An Annotated Booklist," The Nature Reader, edited by Daniel Halpern and Dan Frank. Hopewell, New Jersey: Ecco, 1996. 315-321.

"Natural Wonders: an interview with Annie Dillard" by Maureen Abood. U. S. Catholic, Vol. 64 (November 1999): 30-33.

Pilgrim at Tinker Creek. New York: Harper's Magazine Press, 1974.

"The Nature Writer's Nature Writer," Outside (January 2003): 56.

"A Pilgrim's Progress," an interview by Mary Cantwell. The New York Times 26 April, 1992.

"The Purfication of Poetry--Right Out of the Ballpark," Parnassus, Vol. 11, No. 2 (Fall/Winter 1984): 287-301.

"Reading Between the Lines: Best-Novels List Stirs Debate on Literary Merit" by Mary K. Feeney. The Hartford Courant 21 July 1998: A1.

"Reading for Work and Pleasure," New York Times Book Review 4 December 1983: 66.

"Remembrances of Things Past," an interview with Alvin P. Sanoff. U. S. News and World Report 16 November 1987: 78.

"Tales of Grandeur, Tales of Risk," Harper's, Vol. 249, No. 1494 (November 1974), p. 122. Dillard says, "I beg you to choose from among these books; they're the pick of eight years' reading."

Teaching a Stone to Talk: Expeditions and Encounters. New York: Harper and Row, 1982.

"Thinking About Language," The Living Wilderness (Autumn 1974): 2-3.

"What writers are reading on summer vacation" by Charles E. Claffey. Boston Globe 26 July 1989, 53.

"What They’re Reading" by Brian Knowlton. International Herald Tribune 4 April 1994.

"Winter Melons," Harper's, Vol. 248, No. 1484 (January 1974): 87, 89-90.

Writer’s Choice: A Library of Rediscoveries, edited by Linda Sternberg Katz and Bill Katz. Reston, Virginia: Reston Publishing Company, 1983: 24, 41, 95, 111-12, 191, 223, 235.

"A Writer's Writer on Her Work," Chicago Tribune Lecture. November 4, 2001. Web streaming: 1 hour, 15 minutes.

The Writing Life. New York: Harper and Row, 1989.

Bibliography

2004-07-13T14:41:00.266-05:00

I have aimed to make this bibliography of Annie Dillard's work as complete and up-to-date as possible. I have not included information on reprints in additional journals or anthologies. If you know of something I have not listed, please inform me. Nearly everything here can be found in or through your public or university library.

Books

An American Childhood. New York: Harper and Row, 1987.

The Annie Dillard Reader. New York: HarperCollins, 1994, 1995. Readings selected by the author, some rewritten. Dillard requests on her website that these be "use[d] for the latest (short) texts."

Encounters with Chinese Writers. Middletown, Conn.: Wesleyan University Press, 1984.

For the Time Being. New York: Knopf, 1999. Final volume of a nonfiction trilogy that began with Pilgrim at Tinker Creek" and continued with Holy the Firm.

Holy the Firm. New York: Harper and Row, 1977. Revised version printed in The Annie Dillard Reader.

The Living. New York: HarperCollins, 1992.

Living by Fiction. New York: Harper and Row, 1982.

The Maytrees. New York: HarperCollins, 2007.

Mornings Like This: Found Poems. New York: HarperCollins, 1995.

Pilgrim at Tinker Creek. New York: Harper's Magazine Press, 1974. The 1999 Harper Perennial 25th-Anniversary edition includes an afterword by Dillard. The 2007 edition includes a short second afterword.

Teaching a Stone to Talk: Expeditions and Encounters. New York: Harper and Row, 1982.

Tickets for a Prayer Wheel. Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1974.

The Writing Life. New York: Harper and Row, 1989. Revised edition published by Harper Perennial in 1998.

Editor

The Best American Essays 1988. Guest editor. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1988.

Modern American Memoirs. Edited with Cort Conley. New York: HarperCollins, 1995.

The Nature Reader. Ed. Daniel Halpern and Dan Frank. Advisory editors: Annie Dillard, Gretel Erlich, Jim Harrison, John Hay, Edward Hoagland, Barry, Lopez, David Quammen, and Terry Tempest Williams. Hopewell, New Jersey: Ecco, 1996.

Special reprints

Give It All, Give It Now: One of the Few Things I Know About Writing. Illustrated by Sam Fink. New York: Welcome Books, 2009.

The Weasel. Illustrated by Ellen Lanyon. Claremont, CA.: Rara Avis Press, 1981. Limited printing of 190.

Uncollected Nonfiction

Afterword. Modern American Memoirs. Ed. Annie Dillard and Cort Conley New York: HarperCollins, 1995. 441-46.

"The Ancient Story of Jacob, Retold in a Passionate, Exalted Pitch." Boston Globe. 30 May 1993: A15.

"Antarctica." 5-part article for the defunct website Mungo Park (Microsoft) January 1998.

"The Bats." Hollins vol. 32, no. 6 (Spring, 1982): 11.

"Bibliography" of first-person narratives. Inventing the Truth: The Art and Craft of Memoir. Ed. William Zinsser. New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1987, 1998. 211-214.

"Blood Lines: College Students Talk about Why They Do What You Always Intended To Do." Northeast: The Hartford Courant Sunday Magazine 24 November 1991: 19-20.

Commentary: one entry in Hollins: Celebrating 150 Years of Achievement, Tradition and Vision; A Photographic Portrait of Hollins College. Ed. Linda Lucas Steele. Roanoke, Virginia: Hollins College Publications Office, 1991. Not paginated.

"Couscous (or Help Libraries Couscous)." Lit a la Carte: Favorite Recipes of Famous Authors. Ed. Rex Beckham. Soquel, California: Bay Side Press, 1995: 48-49.

"Critic's Christmas Choices." Commonweal vol. 106, no. 22 (7 December 1979): 693-94.

"Dots in Blue Water." Morning Edition, January 6, 2005. Web streaming: 4 minutes. [Though the inciting incident is taken from For the Time Being, the rest of the essay is new.]

"Encounter with Buckminster Fuller." Brushes with Greatness. Ed. Russell Banks, Michael Ondaatje, and David Young. Toronto: Lpg Distribution, 1989. 29.

Entries in Writer’s Choice: A Library of Rediscoveries. Ed. Linda Sternberg Katz and Bill Katz. Reston, Virginia: Reston Publishing Company, 1983. "Chappell, Fred. It Is Time, Lord," 24; "Garrett, George. Do, Lord, Remember Me," 41; "Powys, John Cowper. A Glastonbury Romance," 95; "Smith, Lee. Fancy Strut," 111-12; "Senden, Marius von. Space and Sight," 191; "Lansing, Alfred. Endurance: Shackleton’s Incredible Voyage," 223; "Hay, John. Nature’s Year," 235.

Entry in F. Scott Fitzgerald: 24 September 1896 to 21 December 1940; 24 September 1996 Centenary Celebration. Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina, 1996: 21.

"Etruscans, Losing their Edge." The American Scholar Spring 2004: 59-62.

"Eucharistic Celebration" [letter to editor]. Portland 13.3 (autumn 1994): 2.

"The Experiment in Communism" (part of "A Backward Look..."). Haggis/Baggis Issue 27 (Spring 1990): 64.

"Fairhaven College: A Convert's View." Bellingham, WA : Fairhaven College, Western Washington University, 1979[?]. 11 p. [Second half is her commencement address at Fairhaven College, June 9, 1978.]

"Finally Over Her Shock, an Author Responds from the Other Coast" [letter]. Seattle Times 9 February 1997: L2.

"First Taste of America" (part of "A Moment in American History"). American Heritage vol. 36, no. 1 (December 1984): 26.

Foreword. Moments of Light. By Fred Chappell. Newport Beach, California: New South Press, 1980. ix-xvii.

Foreword. Wind on the Sand: The Hidden Life of an Anchoress. By Pinion. Ramsey, NJ: Paulist Press, 1981. v-vi.

Foreword. Unarmed But Dangerous. By Hal Crowther. Atlanta: Longstreet Press, 1995. xi-xii.

"Former Student Thanks Community" [letter to the editor]. Hollins Columns 7 March 1974: 2.

"Four Bits." Ploughshares vol. 10, Nos. 2 & 3 (Fall 1984): 68-73.

"The French and Indian War in Pittsburgh: A Memoir." American Heritage vol. 38, no. 5 (July/August, 1987): 49-53. [The first two pages and the last half page can be found, revised, in An American Childhood. The middle two and a half pages are uncollected.] Cross-listed under Original Publications.

"Frontier City." Literary Outtakes. Ed. Larry Dark. New York: Fawcett Books, 1990. 223-26.

"Galapagos Revisited." Signature vol. 21, no. 8 (August 1986): 82-85.

"The God of All" [letter to the editor]. The New Oxford Review vol. 60 (July-August 1993): 2.

"The Good Books: Writer's Choices." Ed. Karen Fitzgerald. Ms. vol. XIV, no. 6 (December 1985): 80-81.

"Hard Times in Ultima Thule." New York Times Book Review 20 April 1997: 35.

"The Hollins Conference on Creative Writing and Cinema." Hollins College Bulletin vol. 21, no. 2 (November 1970) 8-12.

"How I Wrote the Moth Essay--and Why." The Norton Sampler. Ed. Thomas Cooley. New York: W. W. Norton, 1986 [or '85?]. 13-21.

Introduction. Aerial Notations, a catalogue for an exhibition by Jacqueline Gourevitch at the New Britain Museum of American Art, curated by Deborah Frizzell. New Britain, CT: 1994.

Introduction. All Nature is My Bride: Passages from the Journals in which William M. White arranges sections of Thoreau's journals into poetry. Old Greenwich, CT: Chatham Press, 1975. ix-xi.

Introduction. The Best American Essays 1988. Ed. Annie Dillard. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1988. xiii-xxii.

Introduction: "Notes for Young Writers." In Fact: The Best of Creative Nonfiction. Ed. Lee Gutkind. New York: W. W. Norton, 2004. xi-xvii.

Introduction. Modern American Memoirs. Ed. Annie Dillard and Cort Conley. New York: HarperCollins, 1995. ix-xii.

Introduction to "A Mother's Tale" (a story by James Agee). You've Got to Read This: Contemporary American Writers Introduce Stories that Held Them in Awe. Ed. Ron Hansen and Jim Shepard. Perennial, 1994. 1.

Introduction. Song of the Line. By Jack G. Gilbert (poems) and Henryk Fantazos (engravings). Durham, North Carolina: Horse & Buggy Press, 2007. 9.

"Is There Really Such a Thing as Talent?" Seventeen Magazine vol. 38 (June, 1979): 86. Revised and condensed version of commencement address, Fairhaven College, June 9, 1978.

"John Moore: A Sense of Proportion, A Gracious Heart." Hollins Magazine October 1985: 8-9. Reprinted in Roanoke Times.

"Keeping it Simple." Architectural Digest vol.53 (June 1996): 36, 38, 40.

“Key West is great . . . at targeting the poor” [letter to the editor]. The Key West Citizen 16 January 2005.

"A Letter from Annie Dillard." The Review of Contemporary Fiction vol. 11 (Spring 1991): 84-85.

"Living Outside Humanity." Solares Hill 9 January 2004: 1.

"Making Contact." Yale Review vol. 77 (Summer 1988): 615-22.

"The Meaning of Life." The Meaning of Life. Ed. David Friend and the editors of Life. New York: Little Brown, 1991. 11.

"The Merchant of the Picturesque: One Pattern in Emily Dickinson's Poetry." Hollins Symposium vol. 3, no. 1 (1967): 33-42.

"My Favorite Historical Novel." American Heritage vol. 43, no. 6 (October 1992): 87.

"My New England Bookshelf." New England Monthly (November 1985): 66-68.

"The Nature Writer's Nature Writer." Outside (January 2003): 56.

"Natural History: An Annotated Booklist." The Nature Reader. Ed. Daniel Halpern and Dan Frank. Advisory editors: Annie Dillard, Gretel Erlich, Jim Harrison, John Hay, Edward Hoagland, Barry, Lopez, David Quammen, and Terry Tempest Williams. Hopewell, New Jersey: Ecco, 1996. 315-321.

"The Nazi Doctors" [letter to the editor]. The New York Times 26 October 1986: A56.

"The New Issue and the New Editor" [one of the letters to the editor listed under this heading]. The American Scholar vol. 67, no. 3 (Summer 1998): 155.

"Notebook." Antaeus: Journals, Notebooks and Diaries no. 61 (Autumn 1988): 84-87.

"On George Gordh's Retirement: An Unsolicited Testimonial." Hollins vol. 27, no. 6 (1977): 14.

"Pens and Popcorn" (part of "Small Pleasures"). Writer's Digest vol. 62 (June 1982): 30.

"Postscript on Process." The Bedford Reader. Second edition. Ed. X. J. Kennedy and Dorothy M. Kennedy. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1985. 107-11.

"Propositioning Freddy." A February 5, 2004, letter included in The Book of Buechner: A Journey through His Writings. By Dale Brown. Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2007. 371-72.

"The Purification of Poetry--Right out of the Ballpark." Parnassus vol. 11, no. 2 (Fall/Winter 1984): 287-301.

"The Reader Replies" [letter to the editor]. The American Scholar vol. 68, no. 1 (Winter 1999): 159.

"Reflections on an Island." Science 81 vol. 2, no. 3 (April 1981), 62-67.

"River Goods." Pittsburgh History vol. 77, no. 4 (Winter 1994-95): 176-78.

"The Shape of Change: Idea in Theodore Roethke's Love Poetry." The Mill Mountain Review vol. 2, no. 2 (1975): 125-35.

"Singing with the Fundamentalists." The Yale Review vol. 74, no. 2 (Winter 1985): 312-20.

"Sirens of the South Seas." Signature July 1985: 42-46, 100.

"Some Notes on the Uncertainty Principle." New Lazarus Review no. 1 (Spring 1978): 49-50.

"A Sojourner In North Yemen." New York Times 16 March 1986: SMA12.

"A Speech on Socks." The New York Times 12 December 1978: sec. A23.

One of the "Statements on PLR by American Writers" from "The Public Lending Right in America." Dictionary of Literary Biography Yearbook: 1983. Ed. Mary Bruccoli and Jean W. Ross. Detroit: Gale Research Co., 1984. 26.

"Studied Composition." Bred Any Good Rooks Lately?. Ed. James Charlton. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1986. 69.

"Taking Another Look at the Constitutional Blueprint." American Heritage vol. 38, no. 4 (May-June 1987): 67.

"Tales of Grandeur, Tales of Risk." Harper's vol. 249, no. 1494 (November 1974): 122.

"These farms witness the winds" [letter to the editor]. Boston Globe 30 August 2004: A14.

"Thinking About Language." The Living Wilderness vol. 38 (Autumn 1974): 2-3.

"This is the Life." Harper's vol. 304, no. 1825 (June 2002): 13-15.

"Those Who Have Addressed Gods: Carol Munder's Voiceless Tales." 21st: The Journal of Contemporary Photography vol. 6: Flesh & Spirit (2004): 93-97.

"To Fashion a Text." Inventing the Truth: The Art and Craft of Memoir. Ed. William Zinsser. New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1987, 1998. 53-76.

"Unsung Species Saviors" [letter to editor]. Natural History vol. 102, Issue 4 (April 1993): 4.

Untitled. To Come Up Grinning: A Tribute to George Garrett. Ed. Paul Ruffin and Stuart Wright. Huntsville, Texas: Texas Review Press, 1989. 105.

"Walden Pond and Thoreau." Unpublished master's thesis, Hollins College, 1968.

"Why I Live Where I Live." Esquire vol. 101, no. 3 (March 1984): 90-92.

"Winter Melons." Harper's vol. 248, no. 1484 (January 1974): 87, 89-90.

"A Writer's Landscapes." Impressions, a Japanese magazine. Reprinted in Wesleyan vol. 71, no. 5 (Spring 1989): 23-26.

"Writing 'God in the Doorway.' " Writing from Start to Finish. Ed. Jeffrey L. Duncan. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1985: 279.

"Yemen: The Land Nobody Knows." Signature vol. 18, Issue 5 (May, 1983), 36. Reprinted in Grand Tour, Winter 1996. 49-59.

Uncollected Fiction

"A Christmas Story." Harper's vol. 252, no. 1508 (January 1976): 58.

"The Doughnut." Antioch Review vol. 34, Nos. 1 and 2 (Fall-Winter 1975-6): 22-25.

"Ethiopian Monastery." Hollins Critic vol. 10, no. 4 (August 1973): 12.

"Five Sketches." North American Review vol. 260, no. 2 (Summer 1975): 30-31.

"At Home with Gastropods--A Nineteenth Century Interior, in Translation." North American Review vol. 263, no. 1 (Spring, 1978): 50.

"Life Class." Antaeus 36 (Winter 1980): 52-60.

"Ship in a Bottle." Harper's vol. 279, no. 1672 (September 1989): 68-69, 70-71.

"Some Easy Pieces." The Antioch Review vol. 33, no. 1 (1975). [Supposedly this exists, but it's not in this journal, where it's always listed...]

"The Stone." Chicago Review vol. 26, no. 4 (1975): 152-53.

"Stone Doctor." Epoch vol. 26, no. 1 (Fall 1976), 63.

"The Two of Them." Harper's vol. 307, no. 1842 (November 2003): 61-65.

"Utah." TriQuarterly vol. 35, no. 1 (Spring 1976): 96-98.

Uncollected Poetry

"The Affluent Beatnik." The Girl in the Black Raincoat. Ed. George Garrett. New York: Duell, Sloan, and Pearce, 1966. 340.

"The Blind Spot." Concerning Poetry 9 no. 1 (1976): 4.

"Conifers." Field 11 (Autumn 1974): 25.

"Consider, Please, Arches." Image no. 8 (Winter 1994-95): 76.

"Doggerel." Solares Hill vol. 26, no. 2 (14 January 2005): 1.

"Everyone Knows." Image no. 8 (Winter 1994-95): 76.

"The Heart." Poetry vol. 125 (February 1975): 260.

"Keep Moving." The Nantucket Review no. 1 (Spring 1974): 42.

"Love Poem Once and For All." Undated (probably 1980s). Fireweed Press. Single leaf printing.

"Lula B. on a Ladder." The Mill Mountain Review vol. 1, no. 1 (1969): 9.

"Metaphysical Model with Feathers." The Atlantic Monthly vol. 242 (October 1978): 82.

"Monarchs in the Field." Harper's vol. 253, no. 1517 (October 1976): 104.

"Quatrain of the Body's Sleep." Poetry vol. 125 (February 1975): 262.

"Soft Coral." Antigonish Review vol. 48 (1982): 5.

"Song for Singing." Tinker Press Broadside, no. 2. Hollins College: The Tinker Press, 1966.

"Weekend." Plume and Sword vol. 5, no. 2 (9 November 1964): 4.

"The Weighing of Daleville." New Orleans Review vol. 4 (1974): 204.

"The Windy Planet." Science 86 vol. 7, no. 5 (June 1986): 69.

Drawings

Cover of Hollins Critic vol. 10, no. 4 (August 1973).

Doodle. The Dandy Yankee Doodles Project. Web only.

"Historical Sketches." In Appreciation of George Garrett (a special edition of The Mill Mountain Review) vol. 1, no. 4 (1971): 14, 26, 38, 41, 238.

" 'It was a Favorite Habit of Thoreau's to Bend Over and Peer at the Landscape through His Legs...' --Walter Harding, The Days of Henry Thoreau." The Thoreau Society Bulletin: 126 (Winter 1974): 8.

"The Living," outline. Dictionary of Literary Biography Yearbook: 1980. Detroit: Gale Research Co., 1981. 188.

Manuscript page. Writers in Residence: American Authors at Home. By Glynne Robinson Betts. New York: Viking Press, 1981. 59.

Manuscript page from Pilgrim at Tinker Creek. Dictionary of Literary Biography Yearbook: 1980. Detroit: Gale Research Co., 1981. 185.

Notebook page from Holy the Firm. Fairhaven Review (1978): 86.

Reduced holograph page from An American Childhood. Erato, no. 4 (Spring 1987): 2.

She did "sketches of writers whose books were being reviewed in the Roanoke Times" (quoted in "Tinker Creek's Pilgrim Is a Latter Day Renaissance Woman" by Strat Douthat, Associated Press 22 July 1994).

"Thoreau and the Telegraph Harp." The Thoreau Society Bulletin 125 (Fall 1973): 1.

"Thoreau at His 'Daily Renewal.' " The Thoreau Society Bulletin 127 (Spring 1974): 8.

"Thoreau Contemplating the Harvest." The Thoreau Society Bulletin 130 (Winter 1975): 1.

"Thoreau's Firewood 'Warms Him Twice.' " The Thoreau Society Bulletin: 129 (Fall 1974): 1.

College publications
(publications before 5 June 1965 appear under the name Annie Doak)

“Alice.” Cargoes vol. 51, no. 1 (1963): 12.

“Baltimore Oriole.” Cargoes vol. 53, no. 1 (1965): 15-17.

Crossword. Hollins Columns 17 May 1966: 4.

"Dillard Expresses Views on Vetoes" (editorial). Hollins Columns 4 October 1966: 2, 5.

"Dillard Helps Write Movie, Space Masters Abound." Hollins Columns 28 October 1965: 5. Published as Norma Dea Plume.

Drawing. Hollins Columns 15 February 1966: 2.

Drawing. Hollins Columns 22 February 1966: 2.

Drawing. Hollins Columns 1 March 1966: 2.

“Dream Birds, Bird Skins, and Birds.” Cargoes vol. 53, no. 2 (1966): 6.

"Education be D––––d!" Hollins Columns 11 October 1966: 2.

"Euterpe on Campus." Beanstalks. Ed. Lee Smith, Jo Berson, Annie Doak, and Cindy Hardwick. Roanoke, May 1964: 9.

“For PLD.” Cargoes vol. 52, no. 2 (1965): 24.

"Hawk Man" (drawing). Cargoes vol. 53, no. 1 (1965): 5.

"The Hollins Dateline of Social Progress." Hollins Columns 19 November 1964: 4.

"Hollins Inn Greeted with Song," co-written with Anne Bradford. Hollins Columns 29 September 1966: 3.

“I Think Continually of Those Who Went Truly Ape.” Cargoes vol. 53, no. 2 (1966): 7. [Though this shares a title with a poem in Mornings Like This, they are not the same poem.]

“The Last Thing I Saw Before I Closed My Eyes.” Cargoes vol. 53, no. 2 (1966): 8.

“Monica at the Window.” Cargoes vol. 52, no. 2 (1965): 21-22.

"New Quiz Tests 'Camp' Insanity." Hollins Columns 20 September 1966: 2.

“Northern Quebec—August.” Cargoes vol. 51, no. 1 (1963): 12.

"Nurse." Cargoes vol. 52, no. 1 (1964): 23.

“Rimbaud.” Cargoes vol. 51, no. 2 (1964): 13.

"SGA Lacks Real Powers" (editorial). Hollins Columns 29 September 1966: 2.

“Song for Myself.” Cargoes vol. 53, no. 1 (1965): 17.

"Students Question System" [letter to the editor], co-written with Miffy Monroe, Jeannette Purrington, Annie Megaro, Carol McAdoo, Lansing Rowan, Stuart Macdonald, and Nancy Bryan. Hollins Columns 29 April 1965: 2.

"Students Write Letters On Trimester, Behavior" [letter to the editor], co-written with Dibba McConnell. Hollins Columns 13 February 1964: 2.

"Wilson Discusses His Works." Hollins Columns 20 September 1966: 1.

Interviews

Abood, Maureen. "Natural Wonders: An Interview with Annie Dillard." U. S. Catholic vol. 64 (November 1999): 30-33.

Baker, John F. "Story Behind the Book: 'Pilgrim at Tinker Creek'." Publishers Weekly vol. 205 (18 March 1974): 28.

Bellamy, Joe David and Connie Bellamy (editors). "Interview with Annie Dillard." The Lost Saranac Interviews: Forgotten Conversations With Famous Writers. Cincinnati: Writer's Digest Books, 2007. 106-119.

Betts, Glynne Robinson. Writers in Residence: American Authors at Home. New York: Viking Press, 1981. 58-59.

Bonetti, Kay. "Annie Dillard Interview with Kay Bonetti." Columbia, MO: American Audio Prose Library, 1989. 1 sound cassette: 47 minutes. [Cross-listed under Multimedia.]

Burnett, Michael. "An Interview with Annie Dillard." Fairhaven Review (1978): 87-102.

Caldwell, Gail. "Pilgrim's Progress." Boston Globe Magazine 8 May 1983: 10-11, 32, 34, 36, 38, 40, 42, 48.

Cantwell, Mary. "A Pilgrim's Progress." The New York Times Magazine 26 April 1992: 34-36, 40, 42.

Chambers, Andrea. "Annie Dillard: Her Pilgrimage This Time is into Her Past." People, vol. 28 (19 October 1987), 99-100, 105.

Chira, Susan. "Writers Impart Skills and Styles at Wesleyan." New York Times 14 October 1983, B2.

Cobb, Nancy. Connecticut Voices. Connecticut Public Radio. May, June, or July 1993. [See Things I'm Looking For]

Cowan, Elizabeth. "Annie Dillard Talks about Writing." Readings for Writing. Glenview, IL: Scott, Foresman and Company, 1983. 424-427.

Douthat, Strat. "Tinker Creek's Pilgrim Is a Latter Day Renaissance Woman." Associated Press 22 July 1994.

Fields, Sidney. "Only Human: What's Going on Here?" Daily News (New York) 20 March 1974, 35.

Fry, Donn. "First Novel Spans Early State History." Seattle Times 28 April 1992, F2.

Grauerholz, Mary. "At Home with Annie Dillard." Boston Globe 5 December 2002, H2.

Gross, Michael Joseph. "Apparent Contradictions." The Boston Phoenix July 1999, Phoenix Literary Section 6-7.

Hammond, Karla M. "Drawing the Curtains: An Interview with Annie Dillard." Bennington Review 10 (April 1981): 30-38.

Harrison, Sue. "Author Annie Dillard Turns Attention to Painting." Wicked Local Wellfleet 24 July 2009.

Heimbuecher, Ruth. "Poetic 'Waif in Woods' a Hit in Literary Field." The Pittsburgh Press 26 February 1975: 38.

Koenig, Rhoda. "About this Issue." Harper's vol. 248, no. 1485 (February 1974): 14.

Kelleher, Ray. "Pilgrim at Planet Earth." Notre Dame Magazine vol. 27, no. 4 (Winter 1998-99): 24-26.

Krauth, Laurie. "Diving into Life with Annie Dillard." Toledo Blade 14 February 1988: sec. F1-2.

Langstaff, Peggy. "When the West was New." Book Page (web-only). April 1992. [Defunct.]

Lawrence, Malcolm. "Tete a tete: Lunch with Annie Dillard." Web-only. 30 April, 1982.

Levin, Martin: "Annie Dillard's divine comedy; the American author, known for her sombre, metaphysical explorations, likes to yuck it up." The Globe and Mail 5 February 5, 2000: D4.

Lindsey, Robert. "Annie Dillard, Far from Tinker Creek." New York Times 9 November 1977: sec. C1, 7.

Lingeman, Richard R. "Three Days on an Island." New York Times 31 July 1977: BR9.

Major, Mike. "Annie Dillard: Pilgrim of the Absolute." America vol. 138, no. 17 (6 May 1978): 363-64.

Marcus, James. "Metaphysical Graffiti." Amazon.com (web-only): 1999.

McClurg, Jocelyn. "Dillard Novel Places Reader in Untamed Nature of the Past: Dillard adored creating a world in 'The Living.' " Hartford Courant 3 May 1992: G1, 4.

McPherson, William. "A Conversation with Annie Dillard." Book-of-the-Month-Club News (April 1974): 4, 25.

Middleton, Faith. The Faith Middleton Show. Sometime in the 1990s? [See Things I'm Looking For]

Mungo Park. Web chat on that now-defunct site. January 1998. [See Things I'm Looking For]

Murphy, Meg. "Noted author 'just groping around in the dark' for answers." Cape Cod Times 4 October 2001.

Myers, George, Jr. "Writer on Literary Quest: Annie Dillard’s Advice is ... Inspire, Don’t Preach." The Columbus Dispatch 2 April 1991: D10. [Reprinted: "Into the Yellow Wood: An Interview with Annie Dillard." Onthebus, vol. 15/16 (Fall/Winter 1999): 158-162. Each version is missing one question and answer.]

Nathan, Paul S. "A Writer Arrives." Publishers Weekly vol. 204, no. 24 (10 December 1973): 22.

Nelson, Sara. "A Lesson in Killing Characters: Sara Nelson Talks with Annie Dillard." Publishers Weekly 9 April 2007: 28.

Presson, Rebekah. "Annie Dillard." New Letters on the Air. Broadcast October 2, 1987. 28 minutes. [Cross-listed under Multimedia.]

Roberts, Jimm. Portraits and interview answers in Southernmost Art and Literary Portraits: Fifty Internationally Noted Artists and Writers in the South. Macon, Georgia: Mercer UP, 2005. 22-23, 112-13, 140, 153, 168, 196.

Rose, Daniel Asa. "In Conversation . . . with Annie Dillard." The Washington Post 24 June 2007: sec. BW4.

Rose, Daniel Asa. "Legendary Writer Retires: Dillard’s Done." New York Magazine 2 July 2007.

Sachs, Sylvia. "Ex-Pittsburgher Observes Nature: 'Pilgrim' Profound, Poetic, Pixie." The Pittsburgh Press ? February 1975.

Sanoff, Alvin P. "Remembrances of Things Past." U. S. News & World Report, vol. 103 (16 November 1987): 78.

Simon, Scott. "Annie Dillard's Tale of Bohemian Love by the Sea." Weekend Edition Saturday 28 July 2007.

Sipchen, Bob. "The Writing Life." Los Angeles Times 25 May 1992: E1-2.

Suh, Grace. "Ideas are tough; irony is easy." The Yale Herald 4 October 1996.

Taylor, Robert. "A Woman at Home in the Cosmos." Boston Globe 26 December 1982: A39-40.

Trueheart, Charles. "Annie Dillard: Pilgrim's Progress." Washington Post 28 October 1987: D1-3.

Weber, Katherine. "PW Interviews: Annie Dillard." Publishers Weekly vol. 236, no. 9 (1 September 1989): 67-68.

"A Writer's Desk." Saturday Review vol. 12, no. 2 (June 1986): 23.

Yancey, Philip. "A Face Aflame: An Interview with Annie Dillard." Christianity Today vol. 22 (5 May 1978): 958-63.

Short quotes (articles and books that include original quotes from Dillard in a work usually not about her)

B., L.S. "Books for Sale." Harper's Magazine, Vol. 252, No. 1510 (March 1976): 122.

Backes, David. The A Wilderness Within: The Life of Sigurd F. Olson.. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1997. 327-28.

Barszcz, James. "An Interview with Robert D. Richardson." College Hill Review no. 4, (Fall 2009). Web only.

Bishop, Tricia. "Energy Raised to the Nth Degree; Academic: A Columbia woman raises a family, writes and piles up letters such as M.A. and Ph.D. at impressive speed." The Sun (Baltimore) 29 May 2002: A1.

Bolen, Mandy. "San Carlos Presentation Reflects One Man's Work to Save World." The Key West Citizen 12 January 2002.

Burns, Lawrence S. "Wraparound: Tools for Living." Harper’s vol. 252, no. 1510 (March 1976): 122.

Canfield, Kevin. "A Writer's Revival: Today, F. Scott Fitzgerald is Far from 'a Forgotten Man: 75 Years after 'The Great Gatsby.' " The Hartford Courant 9 April 2000: G1.

Carolina, Garrett Epps. "Learning to Write Can be Fun." The New York Times Book Review 7 August 1988: 1, 27, 29.

Claffey, Charles E. "What writers are reading on summer vacation." Boston Globe 26 July 1989, 53.

Collins, Tunstall. " 'Raincoat' Party Will Honor Authors." Hollins Columns 18 October 1966: 1.

"Comments about the Proposed Disney Development by Officers and Advisory Board Members of Protect Historic America." Capitol Hill Hearing Testimony. Federal Document Clearing House Congressional Testimony. 21 June 1994.

Convey, Eric. "Bridging Heaven and Earth—Author Brings Secular Edge to Religious Writing." Boston Herald 9 January 2000.

Eichenberger, Bill. "If You Don't Ask: Letters to Thurber House Reveal Trials, Triumphs in Wooing Writers." Columbus Dispatch 20 August 2001: B8.

Feeney, Mary K. "Reading Between the Lines: Best-Novels List Stirs Debate on Literary Merit." The Hartford Courant 21 July 1998: A1.

Fitzpatrick, Jackie. "Literary Careers Flourish in a Land of Steady Writers." New York Times 29 December 1991: CN1, 4-5.

Fraser, Doug. "Nature writer John Hay dies at 95." Cape Cod Times 2 March 2011.

Furgurson, Ernest. "A Dig at Modern Archaeology." The Sun 8 January 1992: A13.

Gates, Marjie. "I Know a Place: Escape Routes on the Celebrity Circuit." Holiday vol. 56 (September-October 1975): 60.

Gladstone, Mark. “Author Dillard Joins Fray Over Censored Test.” Los Angeles Times 11 March 1994: A23.

Gibson, Kathy. " 'Cargoes' to Appear this Week." Hollins Columns 7 February 1967: 4.

"Groups Call for an End to Altering Literature on New York State Standardized Exams." Associated Press 2 June 2002.

Heifetz, Jeanne. "Leave No Child Untested: How New York State Exams Censored Literature." Censored 2003: The Top 25 Censored Stories. Ed. Project Censored. New York: Seven Stories Press, 2003. 309.

Hodges, Betty. "A Smorgasbord of Literary Delights." The Herald-Sun 12 April 1998: E6.

Hungerford, Becky. " 'Cargoes,' 'Critic' Promote Creativity." Hollins Columns 15 November 1966: 3.

Inchausti, Robert. Thomas Merton's American Prophecy. Albany: State University of New York Press: 1998. 75-76.

Italie, Hillel. "Ralph Waldo Emerson, the 'Sage of Concord' and Leading American Thinker, was Born 200 Years Ago this Spring." Associated Press 13 May 2003.

Jenks, Tom. "Summer Reading: How Writer's Live Today." Esquire v. 104 (August 1985): 124.

Knowlton, Brian. "What They're Reading."International Herald Tribune 4 April 1994.

Lacy, John. "My Chair—A Relaxing Look at the Best Seat in the House." The Hartford Courant 24 June 1995: E1.

Long, Tom. "Paul Horgan, 91; prolific author who earned two Pulitzer Prizes." Boston Globe 9 March 1995.

Lynch, Marika. "Key West Spars Over Cruises: Popular Port Questions Quality of Its Tourism." Miami Herald 17 January 1999: A1.

Lythgoe, Dennis. "Novelist, Journalist, Travel Writer--Iyer Manages to Do It All." The Deseret News 23 February 2003: E1.

Marquard, Bryan. "Sarah Hannah, 40: Teacher, Poet Known for Incisiveness, Fervency." Boston Globe 31 May 2007: D8.

Matley, Alyson. "Panhandling Measure Squeaks By." Florida Keys Keynoter 11 January 2003: Section: News.

McGraw, Dan. "Terwilliger Bunts One for the Books." Forth Worth Weekly 25 May 2005.

Morris, Bonnie Rothman. "A Comeback for Writing, but Not Necessarily for Eloquence." New York TImes 29 March 2001: G4.

Muro, Mark. "Processed Words." Boston Globe 31 January 1992: 21.

Musante, Fred. "Personal Perspective On the Sound." New York Times. 20 July 1997: CN10.

O'Grady Fox, Susan. "Authors Come Home to Blue Ridge Where Talent was Fostered in Premiere Program." Richmond Times-Dispatch 18 November 1986: 10.

O'Hara, Timothy. "Watermark to Determine Future Look of Waterfront Depends on Wa." The Key West Citizen 22 January 2005.

"Questionnaire Contents Cause Varied Reactions." Hollins Columns 29 April 1965: 3.

"Readers Pick the Worst Intersections." Cape Cod Times 15 July 2001.

"Reading for Work and Pleasure." New York Times Book Review 4 December 1983: 66.

Rich, Eric. "Amateurs All, but They Can Sure Tell Tales." The Hartford Courant 17 December 1997: Middletown Extra 1.

Robinson, William R., ed. Seeing Beyond: Movies, Visions, and Values. New York: Golden String Press, 2001. 444.

Romano, Carlin. "His Advice to Other Writers: Come Down Out of Your Trees." The Philadelphia Inquirer 15 April 1983: D1.

Schudel, Matt. "The Woman Who Steals Souls." Sun-Sentinel 10 May 1992: 16.

Shenker, Israel. “So What’s the Bad Word?” New York Times 24 February 1977: 41. [In Shenker's 1979 Harmless Drudges: Wizards of Language—ancient, medieval and modern, he includes an expanded version of this article, with one more Dillard response.]

Sipchen, Bob. "Eulogy: Friends, Students and Admirers Remember Wallace Stegner." Los Angeles Times 16 April 1993: E1.

Tosches, Nick. "When Literary Lights Turn on the TV." New York Times 25 December 1977: 77.

Walzer, Philip. "Hollins Writing Program Kicks Out the Creative Stops." The Virginian-Pilot 21 March 1992: B1.

Weaver, Teresa K. "Southern Fiction's Father Figure--Writer Louis Rubin Mentors Literary Stars." Atlanta Journal-Constitution 29 December 2002: M1.

"Wesleyan Author Paul Horgan Dies." The Hartford Courant 8 March 1995: A1.

Wiltrout, Kate. "Some Scoffed, but Artists Flocked to Island." Savannah Morning News 30 December 2001: 9E.

Wymard, Eleanor B. "A New Existential Voice." Commonweal vol. 102 (24 October 1975): 496.

Reports on public readings (featuring quotes from the question and answer sesions)

Eichenberger, Bill. “Some Literature is Meant to do, Some Just to Be.” Columbus Dispatch 31 October 1999.

Hammond, Margo. "Writing Wild Series." St. Petersburg Times 21 January 1996: D4.

Hodges, Betty. "Prize-Winning Author Performs Odd Comic Act." The Herald-Sun 12 February 1995, G8.

Hoover, Bob. “Dillard’s Inspiration is Clearly Pittsburgh.” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette 17 September 1991: 29.

Hoover, Bob. "Literary Liaison." Pittsburgh Post-Gazette Sunday Magazine (March 7, 1993): 6.

Marchand, Philip. "Novelist More Comic than Spiritual Pundit." Toronto Star 29 October 1999.

McCain, Nina. "Put Others Above Career, Harvard Seniors are Told." Boston Globe 8 June 1983.

Pintarich, Paul. "After Halting Start, Essayist Leaves Audience as Friend." The Oregonian 31 March 1989, D1.

Pintarich, Paul. "Popular Annie Dillard Reception Warm in Portland." The Oregonian 5 May 1992.

Sachs, Sylvia. "Author's Memories of City Kick Off Series." Pittsburgh Post-Gazette 17 September 1991: B6.

Tran, Linh. "Annie Dillard, Acclaimed Memoirist and Poet, Reads at Lang." Inprint 17–30 October 2006 (Fall, Issue 4): 5-6.

Velliquette, Beth. "Writer leaves 'em laughing." The News & Observer 2 February 1995: B1.

Multimedia

"Annie Dillard." New Letters on the Air. Interview with Rebekah Presson and readings from An American Childhood at Bennington College. Broadcast 2 October 1987. 1 compact disc: 28 minutes.

"Annie Dillard Interview with Kay Bonetti." Columbia, MO: American Audio Prose Library, 1989. 1 sound cassette: 47 minutes. [Also listed under Interviews. Recorded in June 1989 at the author's summer home in Wellfleet, Mass.]

"Annie Dillard's Tale of Bohemian Love by the Sea." Weekend Edition Saturday, 28 July 2007. (Interview with Scott Simon.)

"A Beach-Shack Love Story." All Things Considered, 4 June 2007. Web streaming: 1 minute. [3:15-4:30]

Connecticut Voices. Connecticut Public Radio. May, June, or July 1993. (Interview with Nancy Cobb and a reading.)

"Dots in Blue Water." Morning Edition, 6 January 2005. Web streaming: 4 minutes.

"An Evening with Annie Dillard." City Arts & Lectures, 30 April 1992. Web streaming: 87 minutes. [Defunct.]

"An Evening with Annie Dillard." City Arts & Lectures, 29 April 1999. Web streaming: 54 minutes. [Defunct.] This was also rebroadcast on KQED-FM, 88.5, June 6 and 8 and October 31, 1999.

"Excerpt: 'The Maytrees: A Novel.' " NPR's Summer Books 2007, 4 June 2007. Web streaming: 2 minutes. [She read it "from her cabin in southwest Virginia's Blue Ridge Mountains."]

Harper's Magazine 150th Anniversary: 02/Annie Dillard. Harper's Youtube channel, 25 May 2000. Web streaming: 4 minutes. [Defunct.]

International Poetry Forum reading. 26 February 1975. Web streaming: 21 minutes.

"John Hersey Memorial Lecture," American Writers and the Natural World. Key West Literary Seminar, 11 January 1996. 1 sound cassette.

Listening for God: Contemporary Literature and the Life of Faith. Minneapolis : Augsburg Fortress, 1994. 1 videocassette: 97 minutes. "Developed in cooperation with the Institute of Sacred Music, Worship and the Arts, Yale University." This is a series of interviews with such folks as Garrison Keillor, Frederick Buechner, Alice Walker, etc. Dillard's segment is a series of clips from a reading she gave of parts of Pilgrim at Tinker Creek.

"Personal Readings," Festival of Faith & Writing. Calvin College, April 13, 1996. 1 DVD: 1 hour, 29 minutes. [Also available on compact disc.]

"Spring," a story in PEN Syndicated Fiction Project, aired on "The Sound of Writing," no. 39.

"Summer Reading." All Things Considered, 1 June 1999. Web streaming: 1.5 minutes. [8:25-9:50]

"Total Eclipse." (Reading of essay followed by an interview.) Columbia, MO: American Audio Prose Library, 1989. 1 sound cassette: 38 minutes.

"A Writer's Writer on Her Work" Chicago Tribune Lecture, November 4, 2001. Web streaming: 1 hour, 15 minutes. [Defunct.]

Original Publications of writings later included in books

"An Acquaintance in the Heavens." Ontario Review no. 39 (Fall/Winter 1993-94): 9. Reprinted in Mornings Like This.

"Acts of God." Northeast: The Hartford Courant Sunday Magazine 28 February 1999: 10-16. Reprinted in revised form in For the Time Being.

"After Noon." Cargoes vol. 53, no. 3 (1966): 32. Then in Carolina Quarterly 25, Fall 1973: 60. Reprinted in revised form in Tickets for a Prayer Wheel.

[Excerpt from] An American Childhood with author's note. Erato, no. 4 (Spring 1987): 1-2. Reprinted in part two of An American Childhood.

"Artists of the Beautiful." The Living Wilderness vol. 38 (Winter 1974-75): 62-63. Reprinted in a slightly different form in Teaching a Stone to Talk.

"Birdsong." The Living Wilderness, vol. 38 (Spring 1974): 2-3. Reprinted in a slightly different form as chapter 2 of Pilgrim at Tinker Creek.

"Blue Ridge Spring." Prose 8 Spring 1974: 73-91. Reprinted in a slightly different form as chapter 2 of Pilgrim at Tinker Creek.

"The Boston Poems of Ho Chi Minh." Cargoes vol. 53, no. 4 (1967): 13-14. Reprinted in a slightly different form as "The Boston Poems of H* Ch* M*nh" in New Orleans Review (1970): 172-73. And then in Tickets for a Prayer Wheel.

"Catching the Season." The Living Wilderness vol. 37 (Winter 1973-74): 2-3. Reprinted as Chapter 3 of Pilgrim at Tinker Creek.

"Christmas." Hollins Critic 6 (December 1969): 11. Reprinted in a slightly different form in Tickets for a Prayer Wheel.

"Class Notes on Painting and the Arts." Kenyon Review vol. 12, no. 2 (Spring, 1990): 61-64. Reprinted in significantly revised form in Mornings Like This: Found Poems. This version also includes a section subtitled "The Old Masters," printed as its own poem with minor changes in Mornings Like This: Found Poems.

"The Clearing." Cargoes vol. 53, no. 3 (1966): 32. Reprinted in Tickets for a Prayer Wheel.

"Contemporary Prose Styles." Twentieth Century Literature vol. 27, no. 3 (Fall 1981): 207-22. Reprinted as chapter 7 of Living by Fiction.

"Deathbeds." New Letters vol. 60, issue 4 (1994): 34. Reprinted in Mornings Like This: Found Poems.

"The Death of a Moth." Harper's vol. 252, no. 1512 (May 1976): 26-27. Reprinted in revised form as part 1 of Holy the Firm.

"The Deer at Providencia." The Living Wilderness vol. 39 (Spring 1975): 46-47. Reprinted in Teaching a Stone to Talk.

"The Dominion of Trees." Carolina Quarterly vol. 23, no. 3 (Fall 1971): 76-77. Reprinted in slightly different form in Tickets for a Prayer Wheel.

"The Door to the Present." Carolina Quarterly vol. 26, no. 1 (Winter 1974): 96-100. Reprinted as beginning of Chapter 6 of Pilgrim at Tinker Creek.

"Do we count? You could fit the population of the world into Lake Windermere. Though one or two might have to sit in the boat." The Observer 8 February 1998: 005. Reprinted in For the Time Being.

"Dunesday." Utne Reader vol. 92 (March/April 1999): 39-40. Reprinted in slightly revised form in chapter five of For the Time Being.

“The Edge: A Note on Work.” Boston Review vol. 14, no. 4 (August 1989): 18. Reprinted in The Writing Life.

"Eleanor at the Office." New York Quarterly issue 9 (Winter 1972): 80. Reprinted in slightly different form in Tickets for a Prayer Wheel.

"Encounters." News from the Republic of Letters no. 5 (1998): 8-11. Includes, in slightly different form, the "Israel" section of chapter three and the "Encounters" sections of chapters one, three, four, five, six, and seven of For the Time Being.

"Eskimos." Southern Poetry Review vol. 14, no. 1 (Spring 1974): 66. Reprinted in slightly different form in Tickets for a Prayer Wheel.

"An Expedition to the Pole." Yale Literary Magazine vol. 150 (June 1982): 37-57. Reprinted with minor changes in Teaching a Stone to Talk.

"Farmer's Daughter." Contempora vol. 1, no. 6 (May-August 1971): 49. Reprinted in slightly different form in Tickets for a Prayer Wheel.

"Feast Days." The Atlantic Monthly vol. 232 (December 1973): 67. Reprinted in slightly different form in Tickets for a Prayer Wheel.

"A Field of Silence." The Atlantic Monthly vol. 241 (February 1978): 74-76. Reprinted in Teaching a Stone to Talk.

"Footfalls in a Blue Ridge Winter." Sports Illustrated vol. 40 (February 1974): 72-76, 79-80. Reprinted in slightly different form as part of chapter 3 of Pilgrim at Tinker Creek.

"The Force that Drives the Flower." The Atlantic Monthly vol. 232 (November 1973): 69-72, 74-77. Reprinted with minor changes as chapter 10 of Pilgrim at Tinker Creek.

"For the Love of China." Harvard Magazine July-August 1983: 38-44. Reprinted in revised form in Encounters with Chinese Writers.

"Free Fall." Ontario Review no. 39 (Fall/Winter 1993-94): 11. Reprinted in Mornings Like This as "Getting Started."

"The French and Indian War in Pittsburgh: A Memoir." American Heritage vol. 38, no. 5 (July/August, 1987): 49-53. [The first two pages and the last half page can be found, revised, in An American Childhood. The middle two and a half pages are uncollected.] Cross-listed under Uncollected Nonfiction.

"God in the Doorway." Potomac Magazine [The Washington Post Sunday supplement] 21 December 1975: 166. Reprinted in revised form in Teaching a Stone to Talk.

"The Graduate Student: Aspects of the Tongue." Common Knowledge vol. 3, no. 1 (Spring 1994): 114-15. Reprinted in Mornings Like This.

"Heaven and Earth in Jest." Harper's vol. 247, no. 1481 (October 1973): 73-74, 76, 78. Reprinted in a slightly different form in Pilgrim at Tinker Creek.

"How to Live." Image, vol. 32: 9/11: Psalms and Lamentations (Spring 2002): 50-52. Reprinted with slight revision as "This is the Life" in Harper's vol. 304, no. 1825 (June 2002): 13-15.

"The Hunter." Common Knowledge vol. 3, no. 1 (Spring 1994): 118-19. Reprinted in Mornings Like This.

"I Am Trying to Get at Something Utterly Heartbroken." DoubleTake vol. 1, no. 1 (Summer 1995): 92-93. Reprinted in Mornings Like This.

"I Think Continually of Those Who Went Truly Ape." Ontario Review no. 39 (Fall/Winter 1993-94): 10. Reprinted in Mornings Like This.

"Index of First Lines." The New Republic, vol. 209, no. 18 (1 November 1993): 40. Reprinted in Mornings Like This.

"Innocence in the Galapagos." Harper's vol. 250, no. 1500 (May 1975): 74, 77-82. Reprinted in a slightly revised form as "Life on the Rocks" in Teaching a Stone to Talk.

"Is Art All There Is?" Harper's vol. 261, no. 1563 (August 1980): 61-66. Reprinted as part of chapter 1 and most of chapter 3 of Living by Fiction.

"The Joys of Reading." New York Times Magazine 16 May 1982: 47, 68-69, 78-81. Incorporated into An American Childhood.

"Jungle Peace." Holiday vol. 56 (September-October 1975): 24-27, 52. Reprinted in a slightly revised form as "In the Jungle" in Teaching a Stone to Talk.

"Junior High School English." Common Knowledge vol. 3, no. 1 (Spring 1994): 115-17. Reprinted in slightly revised form in Mornings Like This.

"Language for Everyone." Southwest Review vol. 71 (Autumn 1986): 488-92. Reprinted in significantly revised form in Mornings Like This: Found Poems.

"Learning to Chop Wood." Christian Science Monitor 24 January 1979: 21. Incorporated into The Writing Life.

"The Leg in the Christmas Stocking: What We Learned from Jokes." New York Times Book Review vol. 91 (7 December 1986): 51. Incorporated into An American Childhood.

"A Letter to Theo." Common Knowledge vol. 3, no. 1 (Spring 1994): 113-14. Reprinted in Mornings Like This.

"Life Class." Carolina Quarterly vol. 24, no. 2 (Spring 1972): 23-27. Longer and thoroughly revised version in Antaeus 36 (Winter 1980): 52-60.

"Light in the Open Air." Songs from Unsung Worlds: Science in Poetry. Ed. Bonnie B. Gordon. Boston: Birkhauser, 1985. 87-89. Reprinted in slightly revised form in Mornings Like This.

"The Line of Words." TriQuarterly issue 75 (Spring/Summer 1989): 92-97. Incorporated in a slightly revised form in chapter one of The Writing Life.

"The Living." Harper's, vol. 257, no. 1542 (November 1978): 45-52, 57-64. Revised version reprinted in The Annie Dillard Reader.

"Love Aches." Self vol. 4, no. 12 (December 1982): 132-37. Adapted from "Aces and Eights" in Teaching a Stone to Talk.

"Luke." Antaeus no. 63 (Autumn 1989): 40-50. Reprinted in The Annie Dillard Reader.

"The Man Who Wishes to Feed on Mahogany." American Scholar vol. 42, no. 2 (Spring 1973): 279-80. Reprinted in Tickets for a Prayer Wheel.

"Mayakovsky in New York: A Found Poem." The Atlantic Monthly vol. 274, Issue 3 (September 1994): 64. Reprinted in Mornings Like This: Found Poems.

"The Meaning of Life." Life December 1988: 93. Reprinted in a slightly revised form in The Meaning of Life. Ed. David Friend and the editors of Life. New York: Little Brown, 1991. 11.

"Mirages." Harper's vol. 255, no. 1531 (December 1977) 84-85. Reprinted in a slightly different form in Teaching a Stone to Talk.

"Monster in a Mason Jar." Harper's vol. 247, no. 1479 (August 1973): 61-64, 66-67. Reprinted as part of chapter 3 of Pilgrim at Tinker Creek.

"Mornings Like This." The Georgia Review vol. 47, no. 3 (Fall 1993): 454. Reprinted in Mornings Like This: Found Poems.

"The Muse and the Poet." Ontario Review no. 39 (Fall/Winter 1993-94): 5-6. Reprinted in Mornings Like This.

"The Muskrat Ramble." Travel and Leisure March 1974: 26-27, 46. Reprinted in slightly different form in Pilgrim at Tinker Creek.

"Natural History: An Annotated Booklist." Antaeus no. 57 (1986): 283-88. Expanded version printed in The Nature Reader (edited by Daniel Halpern and Dan Frank).

"A Natural History of Getting Through the Year." Poetry vol. 125 (February 1975): 261. Reprinted in Mornings Like This: Found Poems.

"The Naturalist at Large on the Delaware River." Ontario Review no. 39 (Fall/Winter 1993-94): 7-8. Reprinted in Mornings Like This.

"Nature's Parasites: Survivors in a Fallen World." Cosmopolitan vol. 176 (June 1974): 214-19, 202. Reprinted in Pilgrim at Tinker Creek.

"A Note on Process." Christian Science Monitor 30 April 1979: 25. Substantially revised and incorporated into chapter one of The Writing Life.

"A Note on Process." Jeopardy vol. 15 (Spring, 1979): 8. Lightly revised and reprinted in chapter three of The Writing Life.

"Notes for Young Writers." Image no. 16 (1997): 65-68. Reprinted, with slight variation, as the introduction to In Fact: The Best of Creative Nonfiction.

"Observations and Experiments in Natural History." Kenyon Review vol. 12, no. 2 (Spring 1990): 58-61. Reprinted in Mornings Like This.

"On a Hill Far Away." Harper's vol. 251, no. 1505 (October 1975): 22, 24-25. Reprinted in revised form in Teaching a Stone to Talk.

"Overlooking Glastonbury." Cargoes 52:1 (1964): 22. Then in Transatlantic Review 22 (Autumn 1966): 60. Reprinted in revised form in Tickets for a Prayer Wheel.

"Pastoral." Antaeus no. 75/76 (Autumn 1994): 252. Reprinted in revised form Mornings Like This: Found Poems.

"The Pathfinder of the Seas." Parnassus vol. 19, Issue 2 (1994): 171-2. Reprinted in Mornings Like This: Found Poems.

"The Poetry of the Fact." The Nantucket Review no. 1 (Spring 1974): 43. Reprinted with slight changes and no title as prefatory material in Mornings Like This: Found Poems.

"Sand and Clouds." Raritan vol. 18, Issue 2 (Fall 1998): 30-40. Reprinted throughout For the Time Being.

"Sight into Insight." Harper's vol. 248, no. 1485 (February 1974): 39-40, 42, 44-46. Reprinted in revised form in Pilgrim at Tinker Creek.

"Signals at Sea." Harper's vol. 291, no. 1743 (August 1995): 32. Reprinted in Mornings Like This.

"The Sign of Your Father." Field 11 (Autumn 1974): 23-24. Reprinted in a slightly different form Mornings Like This: Found Poems.

"Sojourner." The Living Wilderness vol. 37 (Autumn 1973): 2-3. Partially incorporated into "The Present" in Pilgrim at Tinker Creek. Includes a note of self-introduction.

"Sojourner." The Living Wilderness vol. 38 (Summer 1974): 2-3. Reprinted as "Living Like Weasels" in Teaching a Stone to Talk.

"Some Notes on the Individual." Ontario Review no. 50 (Spring/Summer 1999): 45-48. Incorporated in a slightly revised form in For the Time Being.

"The State of the Art--Fiction and Its Audience." Massachusetts Review vol. 23, issue 1 (Spring 1982): 85-96. Reprinted in revised form as chapter 5 of Living by Fiction.

"Streetcars." Our Roots Grow Deeper Than We Know. Ed. Lee Gutkind. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1985. 45-47. Reprinted in An American Childhood.

"The Stunt Pilot." Esquire vol. 111, no. 1 (January 1989): 118-23. Reprinted, slightly revised, as chapter seven of The Writing Life.

"Teaching a Stone to Talk." The Atlantic Monthly vol. 247 (February 1981): 36-39. Reprinted in Teaching a Stone to Talk.

"Total Eclipse." Antaeus vol. 45/46 (Spring-Summer 1982): 43-55. Reprinted with minor changes in Teaching a Stone to Talk.

"A Trip to the Mountains." Harper's vol. 283, no. 1695 (August 1991): 48-55. Reprinted, with slight revisions, as chapters VIII, part of IX, and X of The Living.

"Tying His Tie and Whistling a Tune, Zimmer Strikes a Nostalgic Note and Invents His Past." Contempora vol. 2, no. 2 (March-July 1972): 33. Reprinted in a slightly different form in Tickets for a Prayer Wheel.

"A View of Certain Wonderful Effects." Common Knowledge vol. 3, no. 1 (Spring 1994): 117-18. Reprinted in slightly revised form in Mornings Like This.

"A Visit to the Mayo Clinic." Harvard Review no. 5 (Fall 1993): 52-54. Reprinted in Mornings Like This.

"Volcano." Ploughshares vol. 15, no. 2/3 (Fall 1989): 11-12. Reprinted as chapter four of The Writing Life.

"A Watcher of Things." Christian Science Monitor 8 April 1982: 20. Reprinted as "Lenses" in Teaching a Stone to Talk.

"Weekend." Beanstalks. Ed. Lee Smith, Jo Berson, Annie Doak, and Cindy Hardwick. Roanoke, May 1964: 14. Published under the name Norma Dee Plum. Reprinted in Plume and Sword vol. 5, no. 2 (9 November 1964): 4.

"Wish I Had Pie." Black Warrior Review vol. 8 (Spring 1982): 75-84. Reprinted in revised form as Chapter 3 of The Writing Life.

"With the Chinese at Disneyland." Harper's vol. 269, no. 1612 (September 1984): 21-22. Reprinted in Encounters with Chinese Writers.

"The Wreck of Time." Harper's vol. 296, no. 1772 (January 1998): 51-56. Reprinted (in revised form?) in For the Time Being.

"The Writing Life." Tikkun vol. 3 no. 6 (November/December 1988): 24-27. Reprinted in revised form as Chapter Five of The Writing Life.

"The Writing Life." The Writer vol. 102 no. 11 (November 9, 1989): 9-10. Reprinted in revised form as Chapter Five of The Writing Life.

"Write Till You Drop." New York Times Book Review vol. 94 (28 May 1989): sec. 7, 1, 23. Reprinted in revised form as Chapter Five of The Writing Life.

Biographical encounters

Atwood, Margaret. "Reflections on Saranac." The Lost Saranac Interviews: Forgotten Conversations With Famous Writers. Ed. Joe David Bellamy and Connie Bellamy. Cincinnati: Writer's Digest Books, 2007. 274.

Bellamy, Joe David. "Introduction." The Lost Saranac Interviews: Forgotten Conversations With Famous Writers. Ed. Joe David Bellamy and Connie Bellamy. Cincinnati: Writer's Digest Books, 2007. 15.

Bellamy, Joe David. Literary Luxuries: American Writing at the End of the Millennium. Columbia, MO: University of Missouri Press, 1995. 56, 58.

Chee, Alexander. "Annie Dillard and the Writing Life." Mentors, Muses & Monsters: 30 Writers on the People Who Changed Their Lives. Ed. Elizabeth Benedict. New York: Free Press, 2009. 59-69.

Dillard, R. H. W. The Day I Stopped Dreaming about Barbara Steele, and Other Poems. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1966. 48-58.

Graver, Elizabeth. "A Double Kind of Knowing." Passing the Word: Writers on their Mentors. Ed. Jeffrey Skinner and Lee Martin. Louisville: Sarabande Books, 2001. 127-29.

Harkness, James, quoted in How to Get Happily Published by Judith Appelbaum. New York: Harper & Row, 1978. 19-20.

Kahn, E. J., Jr. Year of Change: More about the New Yorker and Me. New York: Viking, 1988. 22-23, 149, 151-52, 173-74, 187-88, 225, 230, 234-35, 254-56, 260.

Rose, Phyllis. The Year of Reading Proust. New York: Scribner, 1997. 69, 79, 168, 174-81, 190-92, 201, 205, 228, 247, 250.

Rubin, Louis D., Jr. "Thomas Wolfe: Homage Renewed." Sewanee Review 97 (1989). 261.

Tietjen, Elaine. "Perceptions of Nature: Annie Dillard's Pilgrim at Tinker Creek." North Dakota Quarterly, vol. 56, no. 3 (Summer 1998): 101-13.

Waggoner, Martha. "Emmylou Harris finds the right words for new CD." Associated Press 25 November 2000.

Wilson, Robley. "Reflections on Saranac." The Lost Saranac Interviews: Forgotten Conversations With Famous Writers. Ed. Joe David Bellamy and Connie Bellamy. Cincinnati: Writer's Digest Books, 2007. 275.

Selected Secondary Material

Felch, Susan M. "Annie Dillard: Modern Physics in a Contemporary Mystic." Mosaic vol. 22, no. 2 (Spring, 1989): 1-14.

Goldman, Stan. "Sacrifices to the Hidden God: Annie Dillard's Pilgrim at Tinker Creek and Leviticus." Soundings vol. 74, no. 1-2 (Spring/Summer 1991): 195-213.

Johnson, Sandra Humble. The Space Between: Literary Epiphany in the Work of Annie Dillard. Kent, Ohio: Kent State UP, 1992.

Lounsberry, Barbara. "Annie Dillard." Dictionary of Literary Biography 278: American Novelists Since WWII: 91-98.

Parrish, Nancy C. Lee Smith, Annie Dillard, and the Hollins Group: A Genesis of Writers. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State UP, 1998.

Richardson, Robert D. "Biography of Annie Dillard." Annie Dillard—Official Website. June 2010.

Smith, Linda. Annie Dillard. New York: Twayne, 1991.

Warner, Mary L. "Annie Dillard." Dictionary of Literary Biography 275: Twentieth-Century American Nature Writers: Prose: 107-120.

Blurbs

2004-07-12T14:43:00.136-05:00

I list the following book blurbs and other endorsements Annie Dillard has written because they can be interesting and there is no other place they can be found collected. These are from book covers, not reviews or other articles. In the cases where the same blurb is used for an author's subsequent books, I have cited only the original source. If you find one not listed here or an extended version of one listed, please contact me.

Ascher, Barbara Lazear: Playing After Dark

"A warm, witty, very human voice that brightens any season."

Ayres, Elizabeth: Invitation to Wonder: A Journey Through the Seasons

"In life's hurly-burly, these exquisitely written reflections create space for all that is beautiful and true."

Ayres, Elizabeth: Know the Way: A Journey in Poetry and Prose

"Know the Way is a road map to those 'places of the heart' we all need to find. Highly recommended."

Baker, Will: Mountain Blood

"Strong prose writing in the tradition of A River Runs Through It--writing which does not strain to be literary, but which instead evokes a vivid world of people and events. These are the true stories of an American upbringing, Western in flavor, told with decency, integrity, and a loving respect for all sorts of people."

Bass, Rick: Oil Notes

"Rick Bass is the best young writer to come along in many years. Oil Notes is full of fascinating information and vigorous life."

Bernays, Anne: Trophy House: A Novel

"It was a continual surprise."

Berryman, Jeff: Leaving Ruin

"Jeff Berryman has taken an evangelical preacher, and turned him into the most extraordinary thing: a human being. . . . A remarkable first novel."

Bloom, Amy: Come to Me: Stories

"These are wonderfully engaging stories by a fine writer."

Bloom, Lary: The Writer Within

"Lary Bloom is a superb editor who believes that everyone has something to say and can learn to say it well. Aspiring writers should heed his advice."

Brackenbury, Rosalind: Becoming George Sand

"Becoming George Sand is a wonderful book--filled with wisdom, poetry, and imagery so brilliant I wish I could steal it. Maria is a character to love, whose loves are vivid, embracing, and revelatory. This is a treasure!"

Brazilian poetry (1950-1980) (edited by Emanuel Brasil and William Jay Smith)

"The renderings here are sure and lovely, powerful and pointed. Brazilian poetry, 1950-1980 shows how developed is the art of poetry in Brazil, how much we can learn by loving, by memorizing, these very contemporary, major poems."

Brown, Dale: The Book of Buechner: A Journey Through His Writings

"Buechner is great--boisterously physical--and it's high time someone took on his whole work in a book."

Brown, Rosellen: Tender Mercies

"Rosellen Brown's characters move me to tears. . . . Tender Mercies makes vivid and present the most real of real worlds: the one in which nothing is promised."

Buechner, Frederick: Peculiar Treasures: A Biblical Who's Who

"Frederick Buechner is one of our finest writers."

Burton, Gabrielle: Heartbreak Hotel

"Wonderfully funny."

Butler, Francelia: The Lucky Piece

"An excellent novel, vivid and wholly absorbing."

Cairns, Scott: Recovered Body

"Scott Cairns is one of the best poets alive."

Carroll, David M.: Swampwalker's Journal: A Wetlands Year

"David Carroll is a genius, a madman, a national treasure."

Casey, Dorothy: Leaving Locke Horn

". . . warm, beautifully written story of young men and women in a New England mill town . . . ordinary people, rendered in depth and with tenderness. Their moving story is unforgettable."

Chaudhuri, Amit: Freedom Song: Three Novels

"No lover of literature will fail to love these vivid novels by a master of prose."

Chee, Alexander: Edinburgh: A Novel

"Edinburgh has the force of a dream and the heft of a life. And Alexander Chee is a brilliant new writer."

Cherry, Kelly: The Lost Traveller's Dream: A Novel

"This is a vital, vivid world where men and women keep loving and losing and learning. There is Kate, who thinks about God and fixates on sex; Lindy, involved in fantastic triangles; and Nan, the controlling mind of the operation. Each is vulnerable, passionate, hard-nosed, and witty, and their world--this solid colorful ground--leads us into those fragile regions where imagination reigns, where science meets art, and where mind meets heart."

Clevidence, Carin: The House on Salt Hay Road: A Novel

"'I'd like to see this book return literature to its roots in beauty. Not sentimental, Clevidence has a keen eye for the loneliness of what is real, and for the energy of what is exultant, the white birds rising from the marsh."

Coggeshall, Rosanne: Fire or Fire: Poems

"Like Rainer Maria Rilke and like Charles Simic, Rosanne Coggeshall is a modern Metaphysical poet. Like Berryman, she makes of suffering a song. Like Donne, she explores with brainy wit the ramifications of Augustinian thought. But lordy, she writes like no one else. Some of these poems are absolutely stunning monuments. They are masterpieces."

Coggeshall, Rosanne: Traffic, With Ghosts

"These are brilliant, heart-rending poems, in a beautiful and important book. What a welcome blend of strong feeling and strong intellect! Rosanne Coggeshall is one of our very finest, most moving poets."

Cooper, Bernard: Maps to Anywhere

"Bernard Cooper is extremely gifted--one of our most exciting new writers. This book is fascinating."

Crawford, Stanley: Mayordomo: Chronicle of an Acequia in Northern New Mexico

"Walking the irrigation ditch with writer Stanley Crawford is a great pleasure. This is an evocative and absorbing account of an old and persistent way of life. He writes beautifully."

Dabney, Virginia Bell: Once There Was a Farm: A Country Childhood Remembered

"I read Virginia Bell Dabney's Once There Was a Farm . . . with the greatest pleasure. This austere memoir has understated power. Her spare prose compliments the hard lives she describes. It's a fine and strong book."

D'Agata, John: Halls of Fame

"A daring, utterly original book by a young writer of rare intelligence and artistry. In Halls of Fame, John D'Agata sniffs out the quirky corners of our culture and makes them revelatory. With wit and finesse, and writing that's as much poetry as it is prose, John D'Agata is redefining the modern American essay."

Davenport, Stephen: Saving Miss Oliver's: A Novel of Leadership, Loyalty and Change

"Some are called to serve in schools. Some are called to write. Davenport is called to both."

Davidson, James West and John Rugge: Great Heart: The History of a Labrador Adventure

"The story surprises and delights. The book is a solid joy."

De Milly, Walter: In My Father's Arms: A True Story of Incest

"An amazing memoir of incest. In a calm and beautiful voice, de Milly takes us on a horrific adventure, untwisting the wreckage of his youth. In the end, he stares down his father's soul with an honesty that heals his own. This book is unforgettable."

Doak, Frank: Something Like a Hoagie

"This is a fascinating, wonderful piece of writing--storytelling at its finest."

Doniger, Wendy: The Woman Who Pretended to Be Who She Was: Myths of Self-Imitation

"I couldn't put it down! Buy this book!"

Drexler, Rosalyn: Art Does (Not!) Exist

"Rosalyn Drexler continues to write some of the most intelligent, powerful, and winsome fiction being written today. She has written eight brilliant novels, and will go on writing brilliant novels. Recognition of her work is long overdue. I can't think of a writer more worthy of support: her fiction is infinitely valuable (I thought Bad Guy was a masterpiece), and she is committed to a lifetime struggle for excellence."

Drury, Tom: The End of Vandalism

"Brilliant, wonderfully funny . . . It's hard to think of any novel--let alone a first novel--in which you can hear the people so well. This is indeed deadpan humor, and Tom Drury is its master."

Egan, Timothy: The Worst Hard Time: The Untold Story of Those Who Survived the Great American Dust Bowl

"Here's a terrific true story--who could put it down? Egan humanizes Dust Bowl history by telling the vivid stories of the families who stayed behind. One loves the people and admires Egan's vigor and sympathy."

Ehrlich, Gretel: In the Empire of Ice: Encounters in a Changing Landscape

"A riveting story of Arctic people at the very top of the world--told with passion, precision, economy, and grace."

Ehrlich, Gretel: The Solace of Open Spaces

"Vivid, tough, and funny... Wyoming has found its Whitman... An exuberant and powerful book."

Endo, Shusaku: Deep River

"Shusaku Endo is one of the world's greatest living writers."

Farrell, Trace: The Ruins

". . . a narrative and stylistic tour de force. Combining linguistic inventiveness with a keen descriptive eye, Trace Farrell has given us a remarkable debut and a fine story."

Fence: A Biannual Journal of Poetry, Fiction, Art and Criticism

". . . our most exciting magazine."

Ferris, Timothy: Coming of Age in the Milky Way

"I think Timothy Ferris is one of our finest, most vivid writers. This book is clearly a major achievement."

Fickett, Harold: Mrs. Sunday's Problem & Other Stories

"... serious-minded stories of vivid, ordinary people ... people whose daily lives God touches. The concerns of these characters are our concerns. Harold Fickett has done a fine job of realizing their very human lives."

Finch, Robert: The Primal Place

"Robert Finch is one of our finest observers . . . I admire [his] essays very much for their strength, subtlety, and above all their geniality."

Fleck, Peter: The Blessings of Imperfection: Reflections on the Mystery of Everyday Life

"Peter Fleck's understanding of the paradoxes of life is wise and civilized. His words shine with an unusual spirit."

Flynn, Robert: Living with the Hyenas: Short Stories

"Robert Flynn is a master storyteller."

Gallagher, Nora: Changing Light

"At last, a novel about something. Nora Gallagher captures with dazzling beauty the lives of a woman and a man caught in the grip of history and our country’s shadowed past. I held my breath reading it."

Gallagher, Nora: Practicing Resurrection: A Memoir of Work, Doubt, Discernment, and Moments of Grace

"A stunning book about faith and the writing life; what I like best is that it gradually and unexpectedly turns into a love story."

Gallagher, Nora: Things Seen and Unseen: A Year Lived in Faith

"This is a wonderful book. I laughed more often than I cried, but I did both. Nora Gallagher is perfect company, both witty and deep, and she describes church life and spiritual life with absolute accuracy."

Garrett, George: The Succession: a Novel of Elizabeth and James

". . . a masterpiece of imagination and reality. Not since Chaucer has an English writer given us such powerful, vivid storytelling."

Gerber, Dan: A Last Bridge Home: New and Selected Poems

"I find it a beautiful and powerful book in every way."

Gerber, Dan: Trying to Catch the Horses

"Dan Gerber is one of our finest living poets. I’ve loved his powerful, thought-provoking poems for well over two decades, and I find his new collection, Trying to Catch the Horses, even more subtle and engaging than his previous books. There’s a penetrating and sometimes quirky sensibility at work here, handling violence and beauty with equal respect. In an unembellished language that calls our attention to the world and to its beings rather than to its own virtuosity, these poems credit the reader with intelligence and feeling and ring clear against an essential backdrop of silence."

Giardina, Denise: Saints and Villains

"A masterpiece . . . one of the handful of best books I've ever read."

Giardina, Denise: Storming Heaven

"This is the gripping story of a real conflict: coal miners and hired gunhands who fought the Battle of Blaire Mountain. Denise Giardina tells the miners' stirring story with a fierceness and passion. This is a fine, moving book."

Gibson, Graeme: Perpetual Motion

"Perpetual Motion is an important, powerful, moving novel; it is also wonderfully funny. . . . It is a vivid modern novel set in 19th century farmland.
"Graeme Gibson writes in a wholly original idiom, in a unique and engaging rhythm. His fiction is always significant, intelligent, haunting. It is high time he is much better known."

Giese, Rachel: The Donegal Pictures

"In Rachel Giese's Donegal we see nature's big, rough scale–a stony, bony landscape on which the tender people move."

God Is Love: Essays from Portland Magazine (edited by Brian Doyle)

"A great magazine, the finest spiritual magazine in the United States."

Goldbarth, Albert: A Sympathy of Souls: Essays

"Albert Goldbarth writes very well indeed. These are lively, brilliant, vivid, witty, and informed pieces about the real world."

Gonzalez, Ray: Renaming the Earth: Personal Essays

"Ray Gonzalez's essays have given me a new view of the Southwest. While delightful and full of surprises, his journey is heartbreaking as it evolves into a ritual of redemption."

Gonzalez, Ray: The Underground Heart: A Return to a Hidden Landscape : Essays

"A captivating, haunting, and beautiful work."

Guterson, David: Snow Falling on Cedars: A Novel

"Here is a grand achievement: a compelling, serious, perfectly crafted novel of Puget Sound in the 1950s. The characters and the story and the setting make a fully formed, beautiful whole. I admired Snow Falling on Cedars and I could not put it down."

Hall, Meredith: Without a Map: A Memoir

"Without A Map tells an important and perceptive story about loss, about aloneness and isolation in a time of great need, about a life slowly coming back into focus and the calm that finally emerges. Meredith Hall is a brave new writer who earns our attention."

Hamma, Robert M.: Earth's Echo: Sacred Encounters With Nature

"Earth's Echo is a sacred and awe-inspiring book that is indispensable reading for anyone on a spiritual journey."

Hannah, Sarah: Longing Distance

"This is an extremely moving work. I'm struck by her intelligence of emotion, and her unmistakable voice. These poems are at once determined, vulnerable, and fierce; she looks it all straight in the eye. Shadow and lover beware: these poems will fix you. Sarah Hannah is a true original. I love this book."

Hardison, O. B., Jr.: Disappearing Through the Skylight

"Hardison's book fascinates. It is both informative and visionary."

Harris, Jana: Oh How Can I Keep On Singing?: Voices of Pioneer Women

"In these poems, Jana Harris has written an accurate and moving account of pioneer life a hundred years ago in Washington State. The varied voices of farmers, Indian women, miners, laundresses, and school teachers tell their own harsh stories, unforgettably."

Hawkes, Judith: The Heart of a Witch

"An unsettling glimpse into the human heart . . . a compelling read."

Hawkes, Judith: Julian's House: A Novel

"This is a great ghost story, and it is more than a ghost story. The magic of a place has never been more vivid; the story unfolds with clarity and power. This house will continue to haunt you for a long time. I admire Julian's House as literature; I can't forget it. I urge you to read it."

Hay, John: In Defense of Nature

"John Hay is one of the world's handful of very great nature writers; I love his books with all my heart."

Heat-Moon, William Least: Blue Highways

"Heat-Moon is a witty, generous, sophisticated, and democratic observer. His modesty, kindly humor, and his uncanny gift of catching good people at good moments make Blue Highways a joy to read."

Heaven Is Under Our Feet: A Book for Walden Woods (edited by Don Henley and Dave Marsh)

"What a grand bunch of writers come together here! This is an amazing assembly of interesting people, a kind of ideal party in the woods."

Henderson, Carol: Losing Malcolm: A Mother's Journey Through Grief

"In this powerful and moving memoir, Carol Henderson grows from innocence, through harrowing grief, to the deep knowledge that darkness is crucial to a sense of the fullness of life."

Hoagland, Edward: Compass Points: How I Lived

"Edward Hoagland is excitingly smart. Everything he observes is interesting because his 'vivid care' enlivens. Here are wives and lovers, his rural Vermont life among hippies, his Manhattan life among writers--and Africa, North British Columbia, California forest fires, traveling with the circus, and years of temporary blindness to boot. He is a witness; he is a writer of literature."

Hoagland, Edward: Hoagland on Nature: Essays

"The best of Edward Hoagland is the best in the land."

Hoffman, Alice: Fortune's Daughter

"One of the best novels to come out of the United States in a decade."

Holleman, Marybeth: The Heart of the Sound: An Alaskan Paradise Found and Nearly Lost

“This book has it all: an original, compelling story; lyrical, evocative prose; a clear-eyed and passionate storyteller. It has true transformative power.”

Huff, Robert: Shore Guide to Flocking Names

"What a fine book. I love the way the great and ringing lines of grand poetry ('Serene as Raphaels,' 'Moonful tides,' 'watery reaches,' and 'broad, faithful wings') fit right in among those witty lines and rhymes."

Huntington, Cynthia: The Salt House: A Summer on the Dunes of Cape Cod

"Cynthia Huntington is a terrific writer, and The Salt House is a beautiful book--luminous and keenly observed."

Huntington, Cynthia: We Have Gone to the Beach

"Cynthia Huntington's poems do what the best poems do--they move us profoundly and stir our deepest longing for beauty."

Hyde, Lewis: The Gift: Creativity and the Artist in the Modern World

"Absolutely interesting and original.... An exciting book for anyone interested in the place of creativity in our culture."

IMAGE: A Journal of the Arts and Religion

"Image is a realistic, valuable, and extraordinarily interesting magazine. Its writing and artwork is simple, direct, and without pretension--like the best of all American writing. It deserves generous suppor--and applause."

International Festival of Authors

"[Harbourfront] is a grand thing--for Toronto, for Canada, and especially, for literature."

Iyer, Pico: Abandon: A Romance

"Abandon is a great love story to read for joy. It is everything that I love: a scholarly Englishman whose subject is Sufism, a vagabond California woman ... and Pico Iyer’s knockout prose."

Johnston, Wayne

“His books are beautifully written, among the funniest I’ve ever read, yet somehow at the same time among the most poignant and moving.”

Kaminsky, Peter: Pig Perfect: Encounters with Remarkable Swine and Some Great Ways to Cook Them

"I love ham and I love this book."

Kaplan, Hester: The Edge of Marriage

"The Edge of Marriage introduces a remarkable new writer."

Kaplan, Justin and Anne Bernays: The Language of Names: What We Call Ourselves and Why It Matters

"Fascinating, significant, and consistently entertaining."

Kemf, Elizabeth: Before the Harvest

"These are fine poems, strong and sure. They are a real pleasure to read."

Kenyon, Jane: The Boat of Quiet Hours

"Jane Kenyon is one of the most powerful poets writing today."

Kephart, Horace: Our Southern Highlanders: A Narrative of Adventure in the Southern Appalachians and a Study of Life Among the Mountaineers

"Our Southern Highlanders is a wonderful book. I like it especially for its color and anecdotes. It is a classic, not only for its accuracy and breadth of insights into the people of the region, but because these people themselves are so interesting and strong."

Kessler, Brad: Birds in Fall: A Novel

"Once in a blue moon a book like Birds in Fall comes along: a wise, sly, and beautifully written novel. Kessler's story, ostensibly about a plane crash, turns out to be a much deeper, much richer retelling of an ancient myth. Mysterious, oracular, this breathtaking book contains multitudes."

Kessler, Brad: Lick Creek

"Brad Kessler's first novel is crisp, clean, beautiful. He captures a whole world on the page, and embodies the heart of his young heroine as if he'd been born to her. His book about love, tragedy, and electricity is a call for exultation."

Kidder, Tracy: Mountains Beyond Mountains: The Quest of Dr. Paul Farmer, a Man Who Would Cure the World

"Here is a genuine hero alive in our times. Mountains Beyond Mountains unfolds with the force of gathering revelation. Like all Tracy Kidder's books, it is as hard to put down as any good and true story."

Kittredge, William: Hole in the Sky: A Memoir

"A grand and true story by one of our finest writers."

Ladner, Lorne: The Lost Art of Compassion: Discovering the Practice of Happiness in the Meeting of Buddhism and Psychology

"You've probably noticed you can't make yourself happy. Exercising compassion will not only get you through many a traffic jam, but it will begin building an unshakeable happiness. Dr. Ladner's written a wonderful book."

Laidlaw, Brett: Three Nights in the Heart of the Earth

"An extraordinary novel. . . The pages fairly bristle with intelligence and insight. You have to keep turning them to find out what happens to these people."

Landon, Randy Jay: Amy

"This is pure poetry, and often bares as much intellectual content, realized artistically, as one could wish."

Lapham, Lewis: Imperial Masquerade

"A vast and visionary tableau vivant of our society in all its empty splendor . . . [by] one of our most brilliant writers and thinkers."

Larsen, Deborah: The White

" 'Under the words,' Mary Jemison, the heroine of this radiant novel, says, 'are real roots and impending leaves. Under the wounds are sinews and bones.' Deborah Larsen has unwittingly descrbed her own fiction, under which must lie the clearest of eyes, the most delicate of hands. The White has both narrative drive and lyric texture. And a rare, embodied wisdom. What more could we want in American storytelling?"

Larsen, Jeanne: Silk Road: A Novel of Eighth-Century China

"Silk Road takes you into a fabulous, and very real, world. In prose that is by turns quirky or lyrical, lavish or clean as a marmot's whistle, it tells a story about the magic of the actual and the magic of the storytelling itself. And Larsen clearly knows her stuff: about Chinese literature, Chinese goddesses, even China's geologic bones. Read it for its playfulness. Read it for its epic largesse. Read it."

Laskas, Jeanne Marie: The Exact Same Moon: Fifty Acres and a Family

"Jeanne Marie Laskas is a wonderful writer, smart as they come, and a real joy to read."

Lehrer, Kate: Best Intentions

"Kate Lehrer is a fine, serious writer; she tells a fascinating, moving, and complex story. This novel marks the debut of a wonderful literary talent."

Leister, Mary: Wildlings

"Mary Leister is one of our finest nature writers and observers in the world today. . . . in these extraordinarily pleasant personal narratives, Leister details life and actions within 'her territory'--a square mile of Maryland with its typical eastern woodlands, fields, and marshes . . . there is nothing sentimental or awestruck about Leister. The writing is matter-of-fact and precise, personal without being emotional, and easily informative. For some reason knows everything I don't know and want to know. I find myself taking endless notes."

Lightman, Alan: Dance for Two: Essays

"Alan Lightman is one of our most consistently fascinating writers."

Liu Binyan: A Higher Kind of Loyalty

"Liu Binyan is one of the most interesting men alive in our generation. His vivid memoir--a journalist's brilliant account--tells his story and the inside story of these tumultuous times in China."

Maclean, Norman: Young Men and Fire

"Norman MacLean was one of our finest writers. Here the author of A River Runs Through It has given us the deep and compelling true story of Montana's Mann Gulch fire."

Mango Summers: Short Stories from the Key West Authors' Coop

"Key West has always lured writers to the dead-end of the Florida Keys chain. This collection is a testament to the newest group who continues to find creativity and inspiration among the island's back streets and alleys, moldy barrooms and marinas. It's a mix of romance and danger; it covers more emotional territory than a Florida panther in search of its next meal."

Mann, Sally: At Twelve: Portraits of Young Women

"Sally Mann is the real thing. Just look at these photographs! At Twelve is an American classic."

Mao's Harvest: Voices from China's New Generation edited by Helen F. Siu and Zelda Stern

"This is a fine, solid, fascinating volume--Jonathan Spence's lucid, valuable introduction through the poignant, patriotic stories themselves . . . I've been looking for just such a collection."

Marion, Stephen: Hollow Ground

"Stephen Marion is an astonishingly wise writer, and Hollow Ground is an impressive, mature first novel, told with such clarity and beauty that it resonates with the power of the sacred. With prose taut and spare as poetry, Hollow Ground is one of the most notable debuts in recent memory."

Martini, John

"The formidable sobriety and endurance of the material, rough edge steel, makes an interesting conjunction with the figures. Some of the figures are whimsical, whimsical man endures. Man with brain, and brain conceives, rolling along on wheels of his own devising. Man and woman arise elongate from their steel bases, as at the first day of creation, both vulnerable and durable. Clearly they are made for each other. The very blunt-contoured figures explore the conceptualization further, what is man that you art mindful of him? The measure of all things, in this work. There's also an interesting friction between nature and culture.

"The (wonderful) bird in the (wonderful) strongly-rooted tree; that's nature. Man and woman arising like thoughts from matter? Nature . . . but soon man and woman come up with culture; wheels and steel wing and levers. All the simplified human forms in the work raise every question, not least that of beauty. Why do I find these beautiful in their power? The surface execution shows ever -more-sure mastery. But I like them metaphysically. I prize a little card, from a place card, on which you drew the man's head, mouth open, lying dismembered, in profile and in a state of Beckett like post utterance . . . and next to it you or someone else wrote the words "Harold Bloom"

"Good old existentialism. (It's what I try to do)

"Why did the chicken cross the mind?" (from "Annie Dillard on John Martini" (dated March, 2001 on the Lowe Gallery site)

Matters of Life and Death: New American Stories edited by Tobias Wolff

"Wonderful stories . . . This is the sound of today's fiction."

Matthiessen, Peter: Shadow Country

"The trilogy--novel by novel, sentence by sentence--is a masterpiece of world literature. I would give it every prize and award on earth."

McConkey, James: Court of Memory

"This is a wonderful book. McConkey makes of his own life ... a thoughtful, powerful, and vivid work of art."

McConkey, James: To a Distant Island

"One of our finest writers."

McEnroe, Colin: Swimming Chickens: And Other Half-Breasted Accounts of the Animal World

"Colin McEnroe is one of the funniest people living. It's a nice, wild, educated, insane sort of humor--I can't get enough of it."

McKay, Jean: The Dragonfly Fling

[Still looking for this one.]

McPherson, Sandra

"Sandra McPherson has a miner's eye for translucent color in the earth, and a painter's eye for the 'hard catchable light' in the air. Tough-minded and precise, she has a genius of an ear."

Metz, Don: Catamount Bridge: A Novel

"These tough and passionate New England men will stay in my mind forever. Don Metz tells a powerful and fascinating story."

Middleton, Harry: The Earth is Enough

"This is a grand true story and its wonderful old men are classic American characters."

Miller, Ellen: Like Being Killed

"In this novel, Ellen Miller hurls herself, along with her readers, into a world that resonates with moral complexity, startling anecdote, humor and good humor, brutality and compassion. Her prose is uncommonly clear, compelling, unaffected, and strong. The range of her narrative concerns--from Primo Levi, Nietzsche, and dead languages to bagels and peach pies--proves that she can make anything interesting."

Millman, Lawrence: Last Places: A Journey in the North

"This is a fascinating, powerful, beautiful book. Millman's a genius."

More Than Words: Contemporary Writers on the Works That Shaped Them, edited by James Calvin Schaap

"It's such a wonderful book. . . . it's like a fine conversation."

Morgan, John

"These poems are strong and full of carefully controlled feeling. They are tender and precise evocations of the moral and sensory life of man."

Munro, Eleanor: On Glory Roads: a Pilgrim's Book about Pilgrimage

"I read with greatest pleasure, nay, joy, this intricate and sustaining vision. By the end, it seems proven as the very architecture of our minds. More, it has altered my thinking."

Nattel, Lilian: The River Midnight: A Novel

[Still looking for this one.]

NEA--from Writing American Writers: A Millennium Arts Project

"The grant freed me from teaching and enabled me to write two books: a book of thoughts about contemporary fiction, Living By Fiction, and a book of essays, Teaching a Stone to Talk. The Boston Globe generously called the latter one of the ten best books of the 1980s; oddly enough, Outside magazine listed it as one of the ten best books of the past 25 years. Anthologists often use selections from both the books.

"I try to describe what it feels like to be alive in the United States. My books are about rural Virginia, about Pittsburgh, about the Pacific Northwest Coast . . . Literature has all my heart and mind. That the NEA supports literature in the United States enhances and confirms our cultural status. All civilized nations support artists; we know nations by their works of art."

Nelson, Maggie. The Red Parts

"Very rarely does a book come along that combines such extraordinary lyricism and ethical precision with the sense that the author is writing for her very life. The Red Parts is one of these. At every turn of this riveting, genre-defying account, Nelson refuses complacency and pushes further into the unknown. A necessary, austere, and deeply brave achievement."

The New Shorter Oxford English Dictionary

"No writer, and no serious reader, can afford to live without the Shorter OED."

Newth, Rebecca:: Great North Woods

"What pleasure, what agility, what sweet and beautiful work!"

Noel, Christopher: Hazard and the Five Delights

"A fine novel. It is a wonderful evocation of adolescence in all its mystery and complexity. Hazard is unforgettable."

Norris, Kathleen: Dakota: A Spiritual Geography

"What a wonderful book . . . I enjoyed and admired it enormously. It's grandly funny, too, as part of its spiritual power . . . I loved the book."

Offutt, Chris: The Good Brother

" 'The Good Brother' is a work of a first-rate storyteller soaring at the height of his power."

Ogburn, Charlton: The Southern Appalachians: A Wilderness Quest

"Ogburn is as fine a writer as he ever was, and as exciting a mind."

Ondaatje, Michael. The Collected Works of Billy the Kid

"Wonderful. . . . Ondaatje's language is clean and energetic, with the pop of bullets. This is literature, art."

Payne, David: Back to Wando Passo

"Back to Wando Passo is like a delightful, slightly dangerous house party that swept me up for days. What I admired most were the characterizations, particularly that of the protagonist, Ransom Hill, a triumph. I adore Payne's wicked humor, his rich, inventive language, and his deep engagement with the moral tangle of American history. Though this book is Southern down to the molecular level, its ambition, scope, and range are universal."

Pett, Stephen: Sirens

"Patt tells the dark and vivid story of Carlos Cade with both toughness and lyricism--a powerful and original combination. This is a fine book."

Phillips, Jayne Anne: Black Tickets

"Jayne Anne Phillips writes a knockout prose. Hold on to your seats!"

Pollan, Michael: Second Nature: A Gardener's Education

"Usually when Americans have wanted to explore their relationship to nature they've gone to the wilderness, or the woods. Michael Pollan went to the garden instead . . . and he's returned with a quirky and pleasing book. By turns funny and profound, Second Nature marks the debut of a fresh and provocative voice in American writing."

Pool, Elizabeth and Eleanor West: God of the Hinge: Sojourns in Cloud Cuckoo Land

"Amazing, enchanting, timely!"

Powys, John Cowper: A Glastonbury Romance

"John Cowper Powys is a powerful genius, whose novels stir us deeply. A Glastonbury Romance is his masterpiece."

Pritchard, Melissa: Phoenix

"Melissa Pritchard is one of our finest writers."

Pritchard, Melissa: Spirit Seizures: Stories

"These are powerful, jolting stories."

Reece, Spencer: The Clerk's Tale: Poems

"Spencer Reece has a fascinating mind and imagination. The poems in The Clerk's Tale will exalt you."

Reed, Kit: Catholic Girls

"A complex, serious and fast moving story of four contemporary women and one wonderfully sinister boy. Kit Reed is one of our finest novelists."

ReGeneration: Telling Stories from Our Twenties (edited by Jennifer Karlin and Amelia Borofsky)

"In Regeneration you'll find a unique, artistic celebration of some of today's most exciting new voices."

Robinson, Jeffrey C.: The Walk: Notes on a Romantic Image

"Jeffrey C . Robinson's The Walk is a lively and intelligent omnibus for thinkers as well as for walkers. His evident love of literature is a genuine enthusiasm for all that is best in life."

Rodd, Priscilla A.: Surviving Mae West

"Rodd's spare but vivid prose echoes the beauty of the landscapes she writes about. She is a complex new voice rising out of Appalachia."

Ross, Cindy: A Woman's Journey

"Cindy Ross has put together a beautiful book, a wonderfully fascinating narrative and a fine batch of drawings . . ."

Rubin, Louis D.: Small Craft Advisory

"Small Craft Advisory is the wonderful story of Louis Rubin's many and varied small craft--his sailboats and motorboats--and the water about Virginia and the Carolinas that they ply.... This is a moving account by a happy man."

Rutledge, Fleming: The Bible and the New York Times

"This is beautiful, powerful, literary writing. Fleming Rutledge writes as a person who knows she is dying, speaking to other dying people, determined not to enrage by triviality."

Ryan, Kay: Elephant Rocks: Poems

"These are fine poems that inspire us with poetry's greatest gifts: the music of language and the force of wisdom."

Scherman, Katharine: Daughter of Fire: A Portrait of Iceland

"Here is Katharine Scherman writing with her usual authority. . . . Daughter of Fireis a personal narrative and an encyclopedic compendium; it is, surely, the last word on Iceland. Iceland's geologic and social hisotry are here, her arts (especially the sagas and Eddas), her government, education and economy, as well as the various and beautiful moods of her volcanic landscapes and seascapes. It's all here, rich and enriching."

Schwartz, Judith D.: The Mother Puzzle

"The Mother Puzzle is a spirited exploration of the pleasures and paradoxes of modern motherhood."

Scibona, Salvatore: The End

"A masterful novel set amid racial upheaval in 1950s America during the flight of second-generation immigrants from their once-necessary ghettos. Full of wisdom, consequence, and grace, Salvatore Scibona’s radiant debut brims with the promise of a remarkable literary career, of which The End is only the beginning."

Seattle Pacific University Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing Program

"This MFA program is fabulous. In fact, it is a bit of a coup."

Selzer, Richard: Down from Troy

"A vivid and stirring memoir. . . . His father wanted him to become a surgeon; his mother wanted him to become a writer. He became both. His storytelling fascinates, as it always does. Perfectly put together, this is another Selzer masterpiece."

Selzer, Richard: Letters to a Best Friend

"Richard Selzer has long been a favorite of mine. His stories are fascinating."

Shaw, Luci: Water My Soul

"Luci Shaw is one of our best writers. Read this wonderful book, and for heaven's sake pick up some copies for your friends!"

Shreve, Susan Richards: Queen of Hearts

"Susan Shreve is one of our finest novelists. This is a magical book!"

Silverstein, Jake: Nothing Happened and Then It Did: A Chronicle in Fact and Fiction

"You'll find pleasures on every page of this warm and funny book. I've never read anything like it. Nothing Happened and Then It Did: A Chronicle in Fact and Fiction is a masterful literary debut."

Simpson, Bland: The Inner Islands: A Carolinian's Sound Country Chronicle

"Bland Simpson is the perfect companion for any journey, especially this one. Witty, informed, energetic!"

Skipper, Louie: Deaths that Travel with the Weather

"This is a powerful, moving poem. It travels deep as liturgy; it tells a story; it makes a rhythm as beautiful as that of any poem in English. Louis Skipper is a fine poet."

Skipper, Louie: The Work Ethic of the Common Fly: Still Shots from the Journey

"The Work Ethic of the Common Fly is work of spiritual genius. There is nothing here that isn't every bit as good as anything the Buddha ever said."

Smith, Annick: Homestead

"Here is a woman to admire and love. 'You can fall in love with space and sky,' Annick Smith writes. 'A girl from Chicago can go west and find mountains.' In Homestead Smith gives us the whole vivid Montana scene: ranchers, wildlife biologists, poets and country bands, good neighbors, horses and trout. . . . A passionate story, beautifully told."

Smith, Jeffery: Where the Roots Reach for Water: A Personal and Natural History of Melancholia

"A beautiful, compelling, and haunting book. Jeffery Smith’s capacious embrace of natural and cultural history makes this a unique memoir, one that illuminates the dark corners of melancholia in our human history."

Smith, Lee: Black Mountain Breakdown

"Black Mountain Breakdown is like a country song. It is true and real; it is loving and sad; it has a country song's vividness, humor, sorrow, and real-life power."

Smith, Lee: Fair and Tender Ladies

"I'm bowled over by Lee Smith's new book. She is a genius and this powerful and moving book is her masterpiece."

Smith, Stevie: Me Again: Uncollected Writings of Stevie Smith, Illustrated by Herself

"Stevie Smith's voice fills these pages with brightness, wit and insight. She is a wonder, and this fine collection reveals her own personal, quirky genius."

Spaugh, Jean Christopher: Something Blue: A Novel

"A wry and deeply moving voice. . . . I love it."

Spireng, Matthew J. Inspiration Point: Poems

". . . he shares with us the beauty--and ugliness--of man's interaction with other life."

Stein, Michael, M.D.: The Lonely Patient: How We Experience Illness

"No other writer has captured the essential truths about illness with as much clarity. As a physician, Stein is the perfect witness. His language and powerful insight will be of great comfort when we or anyone we love falls sick."

Stern, Gerald: Lovesick, poems

"Gerald Stern is one of our finest and best loved poets--a real poet of the people."

Stone, John: In the Country of Hearts: Journeys in the Art of Medicine

"As a cardiologist, John Stone knows the intricate mechanics of the heart; as a literary man, he suggests the mystery beyond the devices. He is himself a warmhearted man who fills his book with fascinating true stories."

Stone, Robert: Damascus Gate

"Here is our masterpiece writer, Robert Stone, writing his book of books, his millennial novel of the millennial place. . . . Here are Stone's most magnified, vivid, lunatic, and tender characters. Christopher Lucas engages us profoundly: a modest wit, who keeps faith in a faithless world. . . . Damascus Gate is a narrative of good and evil written in letters of fire."

Taylor, Barbara Brown: Mixed Blessings

"Sermons wonderfully intelligent, moving, and direct."

Taylor, Henry: Brief Candles: 101 Clerihews

"These are completely hilarious."

Thomas, D. M.: Selected Poems

"D. M. Thomas writes brilliant, deep, beautiful poems. 'To love you,' he says, 'is to learn to skate.' What is good about his poems is just what is good about The White Hotel: his unfailing ear for the power and beauty of written language."

Thomas, Elizabeth Marshall: Reindeer Moon

"The best book I've ever read about adolescence. . . Elizabeth Marshall Thomas knows human feelings so well, in all their joy and bitterness. And her literary judgment is flawless. Her wisdom shines forth and, as always, her prose is strong and sure."

Thomas, Keith: Man and the Natural World: A History of the Modern Sensibility

"Here is a rich human array, an anecdotal history of ideas and beliefs, a fascinating compendium of wonderful information about trees, birds, pet dogs, meat-eating, mountain scenery. Keith Thomas never sermonizes; instead he masses and orders a treasury of quirky facts."

Vital Signs: Contemporary American Poetry from the University Presses, edited by Ronald Wallace

"I think university presses . . . are publishing almost all the good poetry being written in English or translated into English."

Welch, James: The Heartsong of Charging Elk: A Novel

"Fools Crow, is one of the greatest, most absorbing novels of mainstream American literature. It’s absurd to stick it on a ’Native American’ reservation. Now, in The Heartsong of Charging Elk, the fact-based saga of an Oglala Sioux who joins Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show and ends up in Marseille, James Welch has once again written a major American novel."

Whalen, Richard F.: Everyday Life in Truro, Cape Cod: From the Indians to the Victorians

"Truro is truly a remarkable town, and Richard Whalen’s lively, authoritative history captures all the drama and significance of its four centuries."

Wiley, John P., Jr.: Natural High

"Wiley writes personal columns that are the highlight of Smithsonian magazine. Informed and informative, he keeps up with what is new and interesting in science. He is a lively and caring citizen of the planet. He tells stories; he keeps his good humor; he entertains."

Wolfe, Gregory: Intruding Upon the Timeless: Meditations on Art, Faith, and Mystery

"Gregory Wolfe's vision is the animating force behind Image, one of the best journals on the planet. Intruding Upon the Timeless, a collection of his pieces from Image, takes its title from a phrase of Flannery O'Connor. That's apt, because not since O'Connor's Mystery and Manners has there been such bracing insight on the pile-up where art and faith collide. This book will rev your engines and propel you down the same road."

Wolfe, Suzanne M.: Unveiling: A Novel

"With an imaginative vision akin to that of Dante, Unveiling probes the myriad layers of meaning in art, the human soul, and ultimately the great world itself. To read this novel is to be reminded that explorations at this depth are inevitably accompanied by uncertainty, suffering, and the piercing joy of revelation."

Wolff, Tobias: In the Garden of the North American Martyrs

"Tobias Wolff is a captivating, brilliant writer, one of the best we've got."

Woodward, Kenneth L.: The Book of Miracles: The Meaning of the Miracle Stories in Christianity, Judaism, Buddhism, Hinduism and Islam

"All roads to the sacred run through the tricky terrain of miracles. For those making the journey, Ken Woodward's The Book of Miracles is a wise and delightful guide."

Young-Bruehl, Elisabeth: Vigil: A Novel

"The net of lives in this brilliant and moving tale drew me in, raised me up, and left me gasping."

Zahniser, Ed: Mall-Hopping with the Great I AM

"Surely God laughs, but I do hope Ed wears a crash helmet. Rightly dividing God and mammon shouldn't be such a glorious romp. These poems are a Blue-light Special on sanity."

Zaleski, Philip and Carol: Prayer: A History

"Prayer: A History is a grand and human compendium, fascinating on every page. It's witty, moving, and full of interesting facts and funny stories."

Zaleski, Philip and Carol (editors): The Book of Heaven: An Anthology of Writings from Ancient to Modern Times

"Everything Philip and Carol Zaleski touch turns to gold. Scholarly, witty, and wise, they know the field well and have keen eyes for what's interesting."

Zimmer, Paul: Trains in the Distance

"Over the years Zimmer's poems have consistently been full of good sense and buoyant humor. Now he has kicked it up some notches and, using his poetic skills, made this sad, funny, quite serious book of prose about trains, childhood, war, education, drinking, jazz, wooden sheds, grass, elephants, the moon, blues, horses, sickness, and so many other things that come together as a satisfying whole. It is a great pleasure to turn these lyrical, finely-written pages."

Links

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The Official Annie Dillard website (formerly titled The Secrets of the Universe as Decoded by the Unhinged)

Guide to the Annie Dillard Papers

Featured Author: Annie Dillard (articles by and about her from the archives of The New York Times)

2002 New York Times travel article about visiting Tinker Creek

Multimedia

"Annie Dillard's Tale of Bohemian Love by the Sea." Weekend Edition Saturday, July 28, 2007. (Interview with Scott Simon.)

"Excerpt: 'The Maytrees: A Novel.' " NPR's Summer Books 2007, June 4, 2007.

"Dots in Blue Water." Morning Edition, January 6, 2005. (Reading a selection from For the Time Being.)

"A Writer's Writer on Her Work." (Chicago Tribune Lecture: November 4, 2001)

Harper's Magazine 150th Anniversary: 02/Annie Dillard. (May 25, 2000)

"An Evening with Annie Dillard." City Arts & Lectures, 29 April 1999. Web streaming: 54 minutes.

"An Evening with Annie Dillard." City Arts & Lectures, 30 April 1992. Web streaming: 87 minutes.

International Poetry Forum reading - February 26, 1975

1966 pictures by Chris Knipp: 1, 2

Interviews

"Tete a tete: Lunch with Annie Dillard" (1982)

"When the West Was New" (1992)

"A Pilgrim's Progress" (1992)

David Bowman's March 9, 1999 Salon article, "Brilliant Careers: Nature Girl," uses some of the quotes from the above interview, and one of Dillard's editors, Gary Fisketjon, wrote a letter to the editor regarding this article:

"While I enjoyed David Bowman's report on Annie Dillard (whose new book, "For the Time Being," we have the pleasure of publishing), I feel obliged on grounds of accuracy to deconstruct his concluding paragraphs. When quoted as saying, "Just because I'm religious doesn't mean I'm insane," what Annie said was, "Just because I'm religious doesn't mean I'm a saint." Similarly, the New York Times Magazine has her claim, "I didn't know you were supposed to write on ceilings" instead of the more prosaic "I didn't know you were supposed to write in scenes." Still, your readers benefit from David Bowman's interesting piece and get a couple laughs in the bargain; not bad, and certainly not insane, either."

Interview with the Yale Herald (1996)

"Natural Wonders" (1999)

"Apparent Contradictions" (1999)

"Metaphysical Graffiti" (1999)

"Noted author 'just groping around in the dark' for answers" (2001)

"A Lesson in Killing Characters: Sara Nelson Talks with Annie Dillard." (2007)

"In Conversation with Annie Dillard"

"Annie Dillard's Tale of Bohemian Love by the Sea"

"Legendary Writer Retires: Dillard’s Done" (2007)

Excerpts from her work

Chapter four of The Writing Life

From the first chapter of For the Time Being

First chapter of The Maytrees

Short writings

"The Force That Drives the Flower"

"This is the Life"

"First Taste of America"

"Foreword" to Unarmed But Dangerous by Hal Crowther

"Four Bits"

"My Favorite Historical Novel"

"The Nature Writer's Nature Writer"

"The Nazi Doctors" (letter to the editor)

"Taking Another Look at the Constitutional Blueprint"

"These farms witness the winds" (letter to the editor)

"The Leg in the Christmas Stocking: What We Learned from Jokes"

Contacting Annie Dillard

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Please, please be aware of what Annie Dillard has written on her homepage:

"I'm sorry, I can accept speaking or reading engagements except once in a blue moon for daughter's tuition. I can no longer read, let alone comment on, the books and manuscripts people send me; soon I am going to have to stop even acknowledging them, as I am overwhelmed. Nor can I write introductions or forwards or provide comments or text or reviews--my husband has had two open-heart surgeries and I dread the mail with all my heart and am trying to find time to read, spend time with family and friends maybe even write."

But if you must, you can write her in care of any of her publishers.

If you need to contact her for business reasons, you can find addresses for her agent and secretary on her website.

Things I'm looking for

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I would like to be informed of any upcoming readings or speaking engagements.

Also, I am missing the following items:

1) Cobb, Nancy. Connecticut Voices. Connecticut Public Radio. May, June, or July 1993. [I contacted WNPR, and they were not able to locate a recording of the interview in their archives. Perhaps a listener made a transcription or personal recording? If you're that listener, please let me know so the interview is not lost to history.]

2) Middleton, Faith. The Faith Middleton Show. Sometime in the 1990s? [I contacted WNPR, and they were not able to locate a recording of the interview in their archives. I also contacted the host. Perhaps a listener made a transcription or personal recording? If you're that listener, please let me know so the interview is not lost to history.]

3) The online interview that accompanied the "Antarctica" article on the defunct Mungo Park website (3 February 1998). [I contacted Christian Kallen, the interactive editor of Mungo Park, and learned that a transcript of this event was not preserved. Perhaps a reader made a digital copy or printout? If you're that reader, please let me know so the interview is not lost to history.]

4) "Some Easy Pieces," The Antioch Review, Vol. 33, No. 1 (1975). [Supposedly this exists, but it's not in this journal, where it's always listed...]

5) Any recordings (audio or video) not listed in the multimedia section of the bibliography: Annie Dillard giving readings, lectures, interviews, etc.

About Me

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I have a B.A. in English and, from the University of Colorado at Boulder, an M.F.A. in creative writing. For two years, I taught literature and writing at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul and am now at work on an M.A. in literature at Colorado. Wolverine Farm published "Standing on Stones with Annie Dillard" (Matter 10: Village, Summer 2007), my essay on community, the individual, and the way quotations work in Dillard's For the Time Being.

If you would like to contact me you may post a comment on these pages or write a letter:

Jonas Gardsby
2045 Walnut St., Apt. B
Boulder, CO 80302