book data
1,214 ratings,
4.00
average rating, 159 reviews
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published
September 1st 1988
(first published 1987)
by Harper Perennial
binding
Paperback, 272 pages
literary awards
1987 National Book Critics Circle Award Nominee
isbn
0060915188
(isbn13: 9780060915186)
description
Annie Dillard remembers. She remembers the exhilaration of whipping a snowball at a car and having it hit straight on. She remembers playing with the...more
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avg 4.00
editions: all | this edition
editions: all | this edition
Read in November, 2008
I chose this one for the Book Discussion group because I was looking for a memoir and I remembered really liking this when I read it 21 years ago on the eve of Gabe's birth. I liked it just as much the second time around and reading it again now, on the eve of Gabe's transition into adulthood, made me realize what an impact this book has had on my life and the way I have raised my children.
When I read it the first time, I kept thinking about how I spent too much of my own childhoo...more
When I read it the first time, I kept thinking about how I spent too much of my own childhoo...more
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Read in January, 1988
What is it like to "grow up?" How thrilling and disconcerting is it to discover our distinctness from our parents? What do we do with freedom as found in a bicycle? What changes when we discover boys (or girls)?
Annie remembers, and helps you remember, too. Some of her memories seem like my own, and this is one of those great reads as an adult where you feel the reality of a book blending with your soul. I have many such books in my heart of hearts from childhood. I can't re...more
Annie remembers, and helps you remember, too. Some of her memories seem like my own, and this is one of those great reads as an adult where you feel the reality of a book blending with your soul. I have many such books in my heart of hearts from childhood. I can't re...more
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Read in October, 2007
recommends it for:
former mouseketeers
Okay, Dillard, show us what you got. She bluffs, she holds, she raises the stakes. I love her broad scope and her precise portraits. Also, her self-consciousness is crucial in this - her narrator doesn't take herself too seriously as she addresses serious topics like race prejudice, class discrimination, and religious intolerance. However, Dillard's own limitations remain irksome, even as she points towards them: on one page, she claims that "Every woman stayed alone in her house in tho...more
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Read in February, 2009
This book was really delightful; a memoir that sort of takes me back to my own childhood, because of growing up in the same time period. I loved Annie's creative imagination, and the activities that occupied her days. I laughed a lot and loved looking at life through her eyes. It was a fun read. Thanks Nikki for a fabulous birthday present.
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Read in October, 2008
A keenly and humorously observed account of growing up (or waking up). The book is as quotable as a transcendentalist work, but as full of wonder as any blessed childhood. Confused adolescence tangles with the "thought that joy was a childish condition that had forever departed," but the child's wisdom that "There was joy in effort, and the world resisted effort to just the right degree, and yielded to it at last" prevails. (235, 107)
On books...
"What I...more
On books...
"What I...more
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Read in August, 2008
I always love a writer who has a wonderful handle on prose and detail. That's what I like about her. I'd actually read her The Writing Life and adored her suggestions and advice. I picked this one up because she was born and raised in Pittsburgh. Her memories, the poignancy and specificity of her observations, is just completely incredible.
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Read in May, 2009
I believe I read some of Dillard's Pilgram at Tinker Creek in an American Studies class, but I don't really recall what I thought of her or that book. I saw this one at Powells and was intrigued by the Pittsburgh setting since my mom grew up there around the same time (just a few years later). Anyway, the Pittsburghisms were interesting and entertaining but what I particularly liked were her descriptions of childhood perceptions - how you perceived the world/adults/other kids/your house/neighboo...more
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Has a copy to sell/swap
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Read in September, 2007
recommends it for:
anyone who feels a little dead inside (or never did)
Exhilarating journey through childhood experience, with some of the best writing on the nature of consciousness I've seen since Proust. But her mother steals the show - based on the passages about her, I'd consider her my hero. Thanks to GGP for the recommendation.
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Read in January, 2002
I wish I'd done this review when I read the book and I wish I remember when I read the book. Here's what I remember:
The way she took an image and strung it through the book. We'd read about something in one section and then later it would pop back up and remind us of the whole image that she had created earlier. All she needed to say was one word. Like the moth. I don't remember what kind of moth, but the moth in a jar. Her teacher had underestimated it's wingspan and let it hatch in...more
The way she took an image and strung it through the book. We'd read about something in one section and then later it would pop back up and remind us of the whole image that she had created earlier. All she needed to say was one word. Like the moth. I don't remember what kind of moth, but the moth in a jar. Her teacher had underestimated it's wingspan and let it hatch in...more
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Read in March, 2009
"Living, you stand under a waterfall. You leave the sleeping shore deliberately; you shed your dusty clothes, pick your barefoot way over the high, slippery rocks, hold your breath, choose your footing, and step into the waterfall. The hard water pelts your skull, bangs in bits on your shoulders and arms. The strong water dashes down beside you and you feel it along your calves and thighs rising roughly back up, up to the roiling surface, full of bubbles that slide up your skin or break on ...more
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Like Nabokov's Speak Memory, one of my favorite memoirs and for the same reason. I can recall not only passages from the book, but how I felt while reading the passage. Dillard was able to create in the reader the feeliings she had as she lay in bed terrified while watching shadows cross her bedroom wall. The reader comes to realize what the shadows are (the lights from cars passing on the street below) as Dillard discovers the same thing. She says that once she knew what the shadows were, s...more
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Only the luminous writing of someone as gifted as Annie Dillard could render the coal industry town of Pittsburg so charmingly. Dillard captures the pain of growing up. Born into family wealth, she led a privileged childhood among large homes, shady streets, very wealthy grandparents, private school - and a very close and loving family. she also played ball until it was too dark to see, and went compulsively to the woods to watch and to wonder. She collected rocks, and she read and read.
It...more
It...more
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When I first read this book, many years ago, I was filled with longing for my own childhood and that of my children. The childhood we did not have. Somehow, in my mind I felt that my childhood had been incomplete, with parents that did not reciprocate my interests. Plus, I felt that my parenting had been neglectful and I had not developed my chiildren's interests as I should have. THis second reading gave me more hope. My parents did their best. They were uneducated, with good language sk...more
Read in January, 2007
recommended to Amy by:
DeWitt Henryrecommends it for: college students with boring lives.
This is the memoir that professors give to aspiring nonfiction writers who have led entirely boring lives and have nothing exciting or ridiculous to share with the world. When they hand over this piece of mind in published form (pointing out that it was indeed, published) normally they include some kind words of encouragement...something like, "See, you didn't have to be raped, beaten or addicted to drugs to write a successful memoir. You can just write about nothing."
It was thi...more
It was thi...more
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Read in January, 2009
Just like actual childhood I like the beginning of this book better than the end. While her white middle-class upbringing in Pittsburgh is different than my own American childhood she relays a sense of wonder that many children of different upbringings can relate to.
I can't remember what else of Annie Dillard's work I had read before but I know it was in the context of nature writing. You can see from her early curiosity about the natural world how that became a topic of her later wri...more
I can't remember what else of Annie Dillard's work I had read before but I know it was in the context of nature writing. You can see from her early curiosity about the natural world how that became a topic of her later wri...more
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One of my all-time favorites. Annie Dillard pays close attention to the minute details, and describes so well the impressions of childhood. As a child, there were things that I thought only I knew, only I noticed. But here I find that Annie Dillard describes those exact thoughts and experiences that I thought were mine alone. It was as if I was reading about my own childhood thoughts. Very comfortable yet beautiful.
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Read in January, 2009
recommended to Cindy by:
Rynell
Sorry, Rynell, but I had the hardest time with this book! I probably wouldn't have finished it if I didn't know that you really liked it.
Annie Dillard describes her childhood in post-WWII Pittsburgh. She opens the book with the metaphor that as children, we are all asleep to the wonder of life. Then at some point, we awake and realize how amazing life is. My problem is that I never remember feeling that way. She uses the metaphor over and over in the book, and every time, I just coul...more
Annie Dillard describes her childhood in post-WWII Pittsburgh. She opens the book with the metaphor that as children, we are all asleep to the wonder of life. Then at some point, we awake and realize how amazing life is. My problem is that I never remember feeling that way. She uses the metaphor over and over in the book, and every time, I just coul...more
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Read in January, 2009
This is an interesting book - a slow but rich read, a memoir about the author's childhood. I really like Annie Dillard's writing style. She writes with depth, insight, and a large vocabulary! Since she grew up in Pittsburgh, and I live there currently, that was a nice connection to some of the places she describes. I enjoyed it and recommend it.
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Read in April, 2009
I am loving this book quite a lot so far. Beautifully recalled, a true valentine to the author's childhood, but written with a loving adult recollection. Brilliantly illustrates the beginning of a child's self-awareness, explanations of a child's thoughts. A fascinating, sweet account of quirky family members and kids' adventures. I've been too busy to finish it but it's okay because I don't want it to end.
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Strangely enough I avoided reading this book because of its title. An American childhood? Yawn, I had one of those too. . . . Despite its unimaginative title there are many insightful and curious thoughts here. Annie Dillard has such a keen, wry sense of humor. A good, enriching read.
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quotes from this book
"You can't test courage cautiously, so I ran hard and waved my arms hard, happy."
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