This personal narrative surveys the panorama of our world, past and present. Here is a natural history of sand, a catalogue of clouds, a batch of newborns on an obstetrical ward, a family of Mongol horsemen. Here is the story of Jesuit paleontologist Teilhard de Chardin digging in the deserts of China. Here is the story of Hasidic thought rising in Eastern Europe. Here are defect and beauty together, miracle and tragedy, time and eternity. Dillard poses questions about God, natural evil, and ind

Essays, poems and short stories by a Pulitzer Prize winner. The collection features a new version of Holy the Firm, on the search for God in everyday life. By the author of Pilgrim at Tinker Creek.

Dillard describes the working life of a writer. She probes and exposes, examines and analyzes, as she recounts what the actual process of writing feels like.

From eastern woods and farmlands to the Pacific northwest coast, to tropical islands and rivers, the author explores the world of natural facts and human meanings.

What is the true nature of Nature? Is it a harmonious, interconnected system, operating according to the principles of co-dependence and benevolence? Or is it red in tooth and claw, an unfeeling, unthinking force, in which the individual is overwhelmed and subsumed to serve a larger purpose, one mysterious and obscure? This is what this volume is all about: an exploration into the nature of Nature, an attempt to discover the true character of the natural world around us. Appropriately, it is nei

In recognition of the Pulitzer Prize-winning author's long and lauded career as a master essayist, a landmark collection, including her most beloved pieces and some rarely seen work, rigorously curated by the author herself.