An American Childhood
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List Price: $13.95 $11.87 $ 2.08 ( 15% ) Harper Perennial Annie Dillard
Binding: PaperbackDewey Decimal Number: 818.5409EAN: 9780060915186ISBN: 0060915188Label: Harper PerennialManufacturer: Harper PerennialNumber Of Items: 1Number Of Pages: 272Publication Date: 1988-09-01Publisher: Harper PerennialRelease Date: 1988-07-20Studio: Harper Perennial
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Editorial Reviews: An American Childhood is Pulitzer Prize-winning author Annie Dillard's poignant, vivid memoir of growing up in Pittsburgh in the 1950s.
Spotlight customer reviews: Customer Rating: Summary: Enchanting...especially for a PittsburgherComment: Annie Dillard pulls you in right away, especially if you know and appreciate Pittsburgh: "When everything else has gone from my brain....I will see only those forested mountains and hills, and the way the rivers lie flat and moving among them...." Ms. Dillard experienced Pittsburgh as part of my own family did, although her generation is between mine and my parents. For others, this region is just the backdrop for a story of growing up with a keen awareness of how we fit and perform in the world and how time moves along. It could be anywhere. The story is fascinating because its ordinariness drives the fundamental insights Ms. Dillard provides as she "watches herself" growing up. For a city girl, she had a pretty adventurous childhood, with many intense interests along the way. Still, I read this book waiting for the next set of local references and experiences she describes so engagingly. She does indeed stop the book at the end of her childhood, as she's exiting her rebellious high-school years and preparing for college, and I was hoping for the rest of the story.Customer Rating: Summary: A Change of HeartComment: I'll be honest; I absolutely *hated* this book when I first read it (for a class, the summer after 7th grade). As many of the other reviewers have mentioned, it is indeed a collection of vignettes about the author's childhood that don't flow into one another. However, the descriptions are beautiful, really giving a feel of living in the city (as opposed to the suburbs) of Pittsburgh. I probably would have only dealt this three stars had I not just spent four years of my life at college in Pittsburgh--this book captures the city's character superbly, something most reviewers probably don't relate to, but I can safely say:
Customer Rating: Summary: AwakeningsComment: Suddenly this book hit me, what a prize it was, out of the blue. Who was expecting it? Like when you hear a song you will love forever. This is it. She has had many of the same fascinations I had--rock collecting, for example. And her words are just right, how it's like entering a cave, and a new world opens up, that was just invisible before, taken for granted. The whole book is about how she moves thru life that way. She does everything on a far grander scale than I ever did, her reading is omnivorous and extensive. I love the way she writes so economically about her feelings, and yet the way she says it is just right. I don't think I've ever read a book that describes inner thoughts like this before. I just discovered Annie Dillard as a writer.Customer Rating: Summary: LexiconComment: I don't relate at all to this "American Childhood." The author uses vocabulary that shows how many obtuse words she knows. This is not effective communication. I am well educated and would still have to look up many words which interrupts the flow of her story.Customer Rating: Summary: An American ChildhoodComment: As a child who grew up in Pittsburgh, Pa during the timeframe of the book. I was expecting something along the lines of "In God We Trust, All Others Pay Cash". Instead I got a self indulgent muse of a pampered life that did not embrace working class Pittsburgh of the 50's and 60's. A great let down.
