I read this book ages ago, and its quiet simplicity makes it one I return to again and again. If you like reading and writing, this slim volume will surprise and please you to no end.

Here is an example of Dillard’s delightful style: “Why would anyone read a book instead of watching big people move on a screen? Because a book can be literature. It is a subtle thing – a poor thing, but our own. In my view, the more literary the book -- the more purely verbal, crafted sentence by sentence, the more imaginative, reasoned, and deep – the more likely people are to read it. The people who read are the people who like literature, after all, whatever that might be. They like, or require, what books alone have” (19).

You need this book. You need to sit down some quiet afternoon and read it. Then, keep it close by and read it again when the fancy strikes you! 5 stars

--Jim, 11/24/09 ( )

This book seems to be simply a series of meditations on writing and being a writer (and avoiding writing and being a writer, as well). I use the word "simply" because, ultimately, this is rather a simple book. It's not idiotic, but no great insights are revealed, and nothing comes to the surface to provide any new or revelatory description of The Writing Life. The book seems, instead, to be a collection of thoughts about writing and any other subject that seems to come up. It is almost as if Annie Dillard put together this book to avoid work on a more challenging, and likely more rewarding, literary or narrative project.

This book is far too short to be excusably meandering. It's hard to tell from the beginning where we're headed, but by the end it's clear we haven't arrived. The entire last chapter is dedicated to the (albeit brief) story of the career and demise of flight acrobat Dave Rahm. While I realize that Dillard presents his story as an elaborate metaphor for the writing life, it seems completely out of place with the rest of the book. This chapter is almost entirely divergent from the path she has otherwise established for her meditations, and does not bring the reader full circle to the larger discussion. Given the abrupt and poorly planned beginning to the book, this ending lends the book a slapped-together feel.

A worthwhile read? I'm not convinced... but during NaNoWriMo it might provide writers a sense of solidarity while being sufficiently short not to be an overwhelming distraction.

This is a group of short essays more or less about life while writing (well, except for the last chapter, which is entirely about a stunt pilot). While I usually find books around writing inspiring and informative, this slim volume did nothing for me. The author spends a lot of time describing the agony and tedium of writing right after saying that the amount of work put into a book is irrelevant to its quality. Some of the language was kind of pretty, but in general it felt disjointed and self-serving, like reading an amatuer's blog. ( )

hard to describe - The inside of Annie Dillard's head sometimes resembles the inside of mine. I fine this useful and comforting at the same time. ( )

Dillard sometimes astounds. The Writing Life offers a chunk of what it is to be a writer. ( )