Rating: 
Summary: Mesmerizing adventures........
Review: .......as can only be expressed by Annie Dillard.This collection of Dillard's travels and experiences will simply make you want to go out and experience each for yourself! You will long to find yourself in the midst of a solar eclipse: "The grasses were wrong; they were platinum. Their every detail of stem, head and blade shone lightness and artificially distinct as an art photographer's platinum print. This color has never been seen on earth. The hues were metallic; their finish was matte. The hillside was a 19th century tinted photograph from which the tints have faded...............The sky was navy blue. My hands were silver." Reading Dillard's words has simply made me promise myself that I will not pass from this life without having witnessed the wonder of a solar eclipse. The remainder of Dillard's expeditions and encounters are equally amazing. Travel with her words and come to know the terrors of the North Pole, the sheer tenacity of weasels, the natural wonders of the Galapagos Islands, the journeys of mangrove islands, fantasic mirages over Puget Sound and much more. Dillard brings each to full life through her descriptions and her thoughts on each. I highly recommend this book to anyone with a sense of curiosity and adventure! You'll love it!
Rating:
Summary: Seeing Life With Her Eyes Open
Review: A couple of months ago, I happened upon the wholly enchanting For the Time Being by Annie Dillard. Following up on that, I just read this Teaching a Stone to Talk, and I will certainly be continuing to explore the work of this amazing author. Teaching a Stone to Talk is a collection of essays that contains some true masterpieces. My personal favorite is the first, "Living Like Weasels," in which Dillard encourages us, and points for us the way, to remember how to live. Others are almost equal. "An Expedition to the Pole" cleverly and poignantly compares the journeys of arctic and antarctic explorers with the goings on in a tiny church congregation searching for God. In "God in the Doorway," Dillard expounds on an encounter with a woman and uses it to illuminate on the nature of God's love. Teaching a Stone to Talk is a truly amazing work. Whether she is writing about nature, an eclipse, or about a conversation with a small boy, Dillard manages to mesmerize the reader with her words and humor, and she blows the reader away with her wisdom and insight.
Rating: 
Summary: Teaching a Scientist to Write
Review: Albert Einstein himself once said, "The whole of science is nothing more than a refinement of everyday thinking." A scientist is not more intelligent than a layperson, but rather thinks differently. A talented scientist thinks of every aspect of life in terms of science and facts and hypotheses and theories. A talented scientific writer thinks of science in terms of people and society and relevance and literature. Annie Dillard, the author of Teaching a Stone to Talk, achieved the status of "talented scientific writer" by infusing each of her words with science, literature, and importance.
After reading only the first few paragraphs of this book, it was evident that Annie Dillard was an excellent writer, regardless of what she was writing about. After reading a few more paragraphs, I realized that this was going to be a good book for more than its literary merits. The science aspect of Teaching a Stone to Talk is written in the form of a concentration, not an overwhelming theme. This book is very effective in that it examines so many areas of long-studied and complicated science and still manages to present each one in simple terms. I am not a scientist by any means and I understood every last scientific reference and technological term. More importantly, I understood them not as pages of facts, but as human-interest stories.
Each of the book's 14 chapters was split into two consecutive sections: one concerning the science and one concerned with the people. For example, the second chapter, "An Expedition to the Pole," takes turns telling about research expeditions to Polar regions and the congregation of the author's church. Although the two topics seem completely unrelated, the author points out that both the members of the expeditions and the members of the congregation are searching blindly for something and are too often concerned with their own petty issues. This organization is well structured and seems a natural progression.
The facts of the book are not presented as theories; they are presented as observations. The previous studies of scientists are cited and discussed in detail, and they are also validated by the author's own experiences. For instance, after the author tells the history of polar expeditions, she tells the story of her own voyage to the Arctic Circle and the occurrences she observed. Dillard describes each detail of her voyage so that the reader may experience second-hand what he or she will most likely never experience first-hand.
I did not learn about science from the book Teaching a Stone to Talk. I learned about the most important, fundamental foundation of science: observation. The author observed nature and its land and creatures, but she also observed people and their habits and expectations. This book is a true reflection of the significance of science in everyday life.
Rating:
Summary: Ordinary is extraordinary
Review: Annie Dillard has such an eye for detail, and that preciseness gives life to her writing. I enjoy the way she takes a simple occurrence like seeing an eclipse, looking at a weasel or taking a weekend trip and applies a universal meaning to her experience. My only complaint about this technique is that she sometimes works a little too hard to develop a metaphor, and it detracts from her story. Overall, Dillard gives a reader something to think about without stretching his brain too far.
Rating:
Summary: From as high as eagles
Review: Annie Dillard is one of the most satisfying essayists I know. Although I am not, generally, a reader of nature studies, Dillard's essays seem just perfect to me. If I had a single criticism, it would be that she generally ties in a theme or moral to her story to the extent that it would almost seems forced , but the language is so beautifully descriptive and the resolutions so elegant, that I am willing to forgive her for it.
In "Total Eclipse" she manages to describe the experience of witnessing a total solar eclipse in ways that are otherworldly and profoundly beautiful (and even slightly terrifying). Nothing has made me want to experience a solar eclipse myself more than Dillard's essay. In the title essay, she begins by describing "...a man in his thirties who lives alone with a stone he is trying to teach to talk." From this, the essay expands eventually into a commentary on cosmology and theology and the palos santos trees on the Galapagos Islands, and yet it all seems to be a natural evolution. This is the way with all of her essays.
Dillard's studies almost feel like free association, though like a perfect jazz solo, what seemed random and disconnected finds its way back home again as naturally as if it were scored.
Jeremy W. Forstadt
Rating:
Summary: A Luminescent Feast for the Sentient
Review: Her Pilgrim at Tinker Creek won the Pulitzer for non-fiction in 1974, establishing her reputation for magical writing and eyes that see the world in a special way that open ours when she describes what she is seeing. In this 5th book she continues her exploration of the world and translating it into human terms and meanings. Don't dismiss Dillard's narratives as simple excursions into nature with lessons or morals tacked on. Dillard's descriptions are powerful. You not only see the total eclipse she watches from a Washington hillside; you feel its aura, shudder in the morning chill, sense the mixture of awe, wonder and even momentary fear as the crowd screams. Annie Dillard writes with an eye for splendor and for suffering, with a sense of amazement and of loss. She witnesses events: the sun eclipses, a deer struggles at the end of a rope, a weasel meets her eye. There is a man burnt, a flight of wild swans circling, a young girl who vows never to change, a band of polar explorers who drift on ice floes. Annie Dillard is an explorer, in the world and on the page. Teaching A Stone To Talk: Expeditions and Encounters is a collection of stunning personal narratives that stretch from eastern woods and farmlands to the Pacific northwest coast, to tropical islands and rivers.
Rating:
Summary: Contains some of her finest essays
Review: I remember a paradoxical statement about the Bible that I heard attributed to Karl Barth: "The Bible is not the word of God, but it contains the word of God." Well, TEACHING A STONE TO TALK is not Annie Dillard's finest book (that distinction belongs to either PILGRIM AT TINKERS CREEK or AN AMERICAN CHILDHOOD), but it contains her best work, i.e., some essays that are as good as anything that she has ever written. Almost inevitably, as in most collections, some of the essays aren't nearly as strong as the best, but the good ones make this slender volume essential reading for any fan of Ms. Dillard. My personal favorite among the fourteen comprising this book is also the longest, "An Expedition to the Pole." I consider myself to be a deeply religious person, but I also find church services to be almost unbearable (much like one of my literary heroes, Samuel Johnson). In this essay, Dillard contrasts her experiences in an utterly dreadful church service with many of the attempts in the nineteenth century to mount expeditions to reach the North Pole. The attempts of those adventurers are simultaneously tragic and laughable, in that their goal was so vastly beyond their means. The implication is that the same is true in worship: we attempt to worship god, but our efforts are clumsy and fall far short of the mark. There is nobility in both, and certainly Dillard doesn't want to imply that worship is futile. But the parallels are there. It is a brilliant essay.
Rating:
Summary: Contains some of her finest essays
Review: I remember a paradoxical statement about the Bible that I heard attributed to Karl Barth: "The Bible is not the word of God, but it contains the word of God." Well, TEACHING A STONE TO TALK is not Annie Dillard's finest book (that distinction belongs to either PILGRIM AT TINKERS CREEK or AN AMERICAN CHILDHOOD), but it contains her best work, i.e., some essays that are as good as anything that she has ever written. Almost inevitably, as in most collections, some of the essays aren't nearly as strong as the best, but the good ones make this slender volume essential reading for any fan of Ms. Dillard. My personal favorite among the fourteen comprising this book is also the longest, "An Expedition to the Pole." I consider myself to be a deeply religious person, but I also find church services to be almost unbearable (much like one of my literary heroes, Samuel Johnson). In this essay, Dillard contrasts her experiences in an utterly dreadful church service with many of the attempts in the nineteenth century to mount expeditions to reach the North Pole. The attempts of those adventurers are simultaneously tragic and laughable, in that their goal was so vastly beyond their means. The implication is that the same is true in worship: we attempt to worship god, but our efforts are clumsy and fall far short of the mark. There is nobility in both, and certainly Dillard doesn't want to imply that worship is futile. But the parallels are there. It is a brilliant essay.
Rating:
Summary: Contains some of her finest essays
Review: I remember a paradoxical statement about the Bible that I heard attributed to Karl Barth: "The Bible is not the word of God, but it contains the word of God." Well, TEACHING A STONE TO TALK is not Annie Dillard's finest book (that distinction belongs to either PILGRIM AT TINKERS CREEK or AN AMERICAN CHILDHOOD), but it contains her best work, i.e., some essays that are as good as anything that she has ever written. Almost inevitably, as in most collections, some of the essays aren't nearly as strong as the best, but the good ones make this slender volume essential reading for any fan of Ms. Dillard. My personal favorite among the fourteen comprising this book is also the longest, "An Expedition to the Pole." I consider myself to be a deeply religious person, but I also find church services to be almost unbearable (much like one of my literary heroes, Samuel Johnson). In this essay, Dillard contrasts her experiences in an utterly dreadful church service with many of the attempts in the nineteenth century to mount expeditions to reach the North Pole. The attempts of those adventurers are simultaneously tragic and laughable, in that their goal was so vastly beyond their means. The implication is that the same is true in worship: we attempt to worship god, but our efforts are clumsy and fall far short of the mark. There is nobility in both, and certainly Dillard doesn't want to imply that worship is futile. But the parallels are there. It is a brilliant essay.
Rating:
Summary: Difficult at first, but enjoyable after you get into it.
Review: I thought that the short stories/essays were time well spent, and they gave insight to many places that we don't usually think about. At first, my attention was somewhere else, but after I read a couple of pages, I was drawn into the stories. I especially enjoyed The Deer at Providencia. -Chris Siarkiewicz 1st Hour AP English March 12th, 1999 Mr. Wolbrink
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