The author won a Pulitzer for Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, and though this work—also about the interior life--- didn’t win a Pulitzer, it is a masterful piece of writing. In some ways, it’s more impressive because it’s a look back—from 1987 all the way to her 1950s girlhood in Pittsburgh.

In this very introspective series of essays, Dillard turns her student, naturalist, and historian’s eye to the people, the neighborhood, and the culture of Pittsburgh ---and in between waxes on about everything that she found interesting in those growing up years--the French and Indian War, Andrew Carnegie, a rock collection, dancing school, amoebas, the polio epidemic, and a whole lot more.

Unless you’ve read Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, it’s difficult to imagine a child being this observant and greedy for knowledge. But Annie Dilliard has spent a lifetime studying, reading, thinking, and being very attentive. And we readers—even those of us who did more daydreaming than thinking during childhood—can all benefit from her inquisitive nature.