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Summary: The Writing Life
Review: The Writing Life, by Annie Dillard, is a book describing the life of a writer from her perspective. She describes her life as well as gives suggestions as to help new writers do their work more effectively. Her stories throughout are what give this book its unconventional feel. These examples personify her personality and the affects of this life. Dillard weaves her advice into her book in between her stories and experiences. She gives a variety of advice that would help a new writer to do the best work that they can.
The Writing Life talks mostly about how a person must adjust their life in order to write. "Putting a book together is interesting and exhilarating. It is sufficiently difficult and complex that it engages all your intelligence. It is life at its most free. Your freedom as a writer is not freedom of expressions in the sense of wild blurting; you may not let rip. It is life at its most free, if you are fortunate enough to be able to try it, because you select your materials, invent your task, and pace yourself." Dillard has her own views on the life of a writer. She describes her various work places such as a one-room log cabin and a non-insulated prefabricated tool shed. Annie Dillard's life is affected in many ways due to the writer's lifestyle.
Rating: 
Summary: The Writing Life
Review: This book was not meant to inspire writers who are aiming for three books a year, and a story a day. It is not a how-to book.
It is an autobiography. More, I think it is a message from one writer to another. It's like a "hey, we all go through this."
The book itself is well written. The grammatical errors irritated me at times, but it was written in a casual tone. The practical tone it was written is nice. It's more factual than "you must do this and this and this". I enjoyed the narratives: they have opinions, and hinted ideas and suggestions, but often times you as the reader get to decide.
What i found most enjoyable about this book is actually the ironic humour. It is not "hahaha" humour. It is simply interesting reading about a fellow writer's frustrations. Indeed, Dillard's self-contempt at times can be hillarious.
I would believe that this book is meant more for those who write or have written. It's something for writers to connect with each other. It's like a mountain biker talking to another mountain biker. A baseball player would not be able to fully appreciate the difficulties and the experiences. This is a great book though. But it's got a certain audience.
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Summary: A most poetic mirror of the process of creative writing.
Review: This brief, beautiful confession of the pshyche of writing is both inspiring intellectually and deeply satisfying artistically. It is written with great humility, yet itself lives with the beauty of words about which it stands in awe. It is abstract and concrete, mystical and real, but always a living experience about the sublest of experiences, the creative process. This is one of those books which, having been read from the library, has to be bought so that it can stand in one's soul and breath
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Summary: Gertrude and Virginia Write a How-To Book?
Review: Wonder what it would be like if Virginia Woolf and Gertrude Stein collaborated on "how to" book for writers? Well,wonder no more...meet Annie Dillard and her book "The Writing Life." While this book is supposed to inspire writers and offer useful tips on becoming writers, it instead drowns in overly-smug images, metaphors and useless information--like a "stream of consciousness" textbook! After reading it, I got the feeling that one sometimes gets when one doesn't understand a modern painting--"Well, then YOU must be too stupid!" Picking out the pearls of wisdom on writing through the flowery prose isn't worth the effort. For a much, much better inspirational book for writers with GREAT suggestions and tips, get "Bird by Bird" by Anne Lamott.
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