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rebekahjenkins's review against another edition
4.0
I’m excited to read this book again in 15 or 20 years and learn something new. For now, I appreciate the grandness that Dillard writes about in small pieces.
aethenea's review against another edition
4.0
This book is written beautifully. It is not the easiest read but I can give you a different look on our world.
hmcastaldo's review against another edition
challenging
emotional
funny
hopeful
mysterious
reflective
sad
slow-paced
4.5
raijoy's review against another edition
5.0
Still one of my favorite books of all time. I think that I need to re-read it in 2008.
va23's review against another edition
2.0
Yea I didn’t care about her tourism to Israel and China. Really wish I didn’t read so much about them. This seems like a collection of personal essays with a very unconventional narrative with a few historical references and comments about life and God. The latter part is the best part of the book, yet it’s relatively sparse and I wish there was more of it. If I had to rate this, I’d give it a 2.5 / 5
lump's review against another edition
slow-paced
0.75
This is the wierdest book. I don't know how it was allowed to be published. It's a collection of gibberish.
jaimcham's review against another edition
5.0
I wanted to run around in the streets after reading this. Dillard careens better than just about anybody; she looks for answers in everything, goes everywhere, dips into history and science and religion and draws parallels between seemingly unlike things, and she does it with more eloquence and sensitivity than a single person ought to have a right to have. This book is so decadent it drips.
If this woman were a preacher, I'd be in church everyday.
If this woman were a preacher, I'd be in church everyday.
tensy's review against another edition
5.0
In this short work of non-fiction, Annie Dillard explores the most basic questions that we ask ourselves, "Why are we here?" "Where do we come from?" "Who or what is God and what does he/she expect from us?" The narrative goes on wild rides from China to Israel and focuses on the writings of the Jesuit Teilhard de Chardin and the Hasidic Baal Shem Tov. Subsections start with a single word: now, clouds, sand but my favorite was 'numbers' and the impact of these statistics taken out of time and somehow relevant in the context of that particular section were illuminating. As you can tell, this book is hard to describe and I read it in two sittings, the first on a long plane ride and the second during a quiet afternoon. I recommend reserving one entire day to reading the book so as to enjoy its connecting ideas in one invigorating intellectual journey.
hrh_victoria's review against another edition
2.0
I didn't enjoy this book as much as I wanted to. I've long heard praise of Dillard, but this didn't cut it. I struggled to get into the text, and, though I liked some of the images and facts independently, I wasn't interested in the piece as a whole. I enjoyed the sections on Numbers and Sand more than the other parts, but even these felt stale halfway through. I wondered if maybe it was just too philosophical for my tastes. I figured philosophy students might enjoy it more, but another philosophy student in my class said it was just repeating concepts that already exist without adding anything. So this book may fit best around a crowd of people who are interested in philosophy but haven't yet stepped into literature by canonical philosophers.
pattydsf's review against another edition
4.0
Somehow I had missed this book by Dillard, but thank goodness I found it. I spent two days reading then stopping to look something up and then going back to Dillard's writing. This is what I love about Annie Dillard. She introduces me to so many ideas and people that enrich my life - I would never find these without her.
Who else could teach me about sand, Peking man, Jewish thought, babies and clouds? Not only did I learn about these disparate subjects, but Dillard links them so that they don't stay unlinked. Next time I am at the beach, I will be thinking about sand and all the ideas that Dillard introduced me to.
I have written before about Ms Dillard's writing. I am stunned by the beauty, the amazing word choices, by the breath of her reading. I am in awe.
Who else could teach me about sand, Peking man, Jewish thought, babies and clouds? Not only did I learn about these disparate subjects, but Dillard links them so that they don't stay unlinked. Next time I am at the beach, I will be thinking about sand and all the ideas that Dillard introduced me to.
I have written before about Ms Dillard's writing. I am stunned by the beauty, the amazing word choices, by the breath of her reading. I am in awe.