Annie Dillard

Sometimes I wonder how many books I've read in my four decades. Thousands, anyway — maybe tens of thousands — since the first one, about a choo-choo, when I was not quite 3. Right up to Anne Carson's “Autobiography of Red,”...

To stand in the main gallery at Orlando Museum of Art is to be surrounded by greatness. Playwright Edward Albee, of "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf" fame, looks out from one wall; artist Robert Rauschenberg from another. There's "Tales of the South...

-------------------- The Way the World Works Essays Nicholson Baker Simon & Schuster: 319 pp., $25 -------------------- Nicholson Baker's new book, "The Way the World Works," is a miscellany: a collection of 34 essays originally published in...

Chicago's Feltre School offers discussion of the great works, in a no-commitment setting. One thing to know about our book club: The discussions are intelligent without being fussy, and fun without being frivolous. Author we'd most like to meet: Yann...

In "The Writing Life," Annie Dillard advises would-be writers to find their bone, the thing that drives them to write, and to work as closely to that bone as possible. Dillard also instructs writers — with another corporeal metaphor — to...

Falling in love with a writer requires commitment; the long haul, thick and thin. They get old, you get old. The relationship waxes and wanes. Most readers can recall times of perfect synchronicity -- when the book was the necessary enzyme, the catalyst,...

Administrator: Welcome to our online chat with Janet Fitch and Denise Hamilton. raul: hi Denise, how do you research your books? ellen Ulken: Janet, At what stage in life did you know you wanted to be a writer? Denise Hamilton: I was a Los Angeles...

Two Marriages Novellas Phillip Lopate Other Press: 272 pp., $24.95 THE publication of new fictions -- the first in more than 20 years -- by one of our most reliable men of letters is an occasion worth marking and measuring. Phillip Lopate is best...

EVERY so often, a novel comes along that describes a relationship with such thoroughness that you almost feel better about love. Maybe, just maybe, it's a worthy use of our time alive. Annie Dillard's "The Maytrees" is such a novel. It is also a reservoir...

Big Two-Hearted River: Part I Nick looked down into the pool from the bridge. It was a hot day. A kingfisher flew up the stream. It was a long time since Nick had looked into a stream and seen trout. They were very satisfactory. As the shadow of the...

What makes a magazine great? The writing. The ideas. The photography. The design. Sure. But more importantly, a magazine's worth depends on how it catches readers' glances, and then their hearts. Here, Tempo presents its second annual 50 Best Magazines...

Will You Take Me as I Am Joni Mitchell's Blue Period Michelle Mercer Free Press: 240 pp., $24.99 When Joni Mitchell thinks about confession, two things come to mind: witch hunts and Catholic priests. To be held up as the exemplar of confessional...