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kcrouth's review against another edition
4.0
Starting out reading Annie Dillard's "An American Childhood", I thought "this is not my childhood". But the further i read, the more fascinating this story became, and the more i felt Ms Dillard's story shared with mine. Growing up in a 1950s Pittsburgh society family, the author shares her perspectives and experiences of the 1950s, and of Pittsburgh and American culture during that time. I especially enjoyed the author's views and feelings about the ever expanding world around her as she increasingly engaged it and lived into it. Annie Dillard is the Pulitzer prize winning author of "Pilgrim at Tinker Creek" which she wrote only a few short years after the events in this story. "Pilgrim" is beautifully and thoughtfully written, imparting wisdom well beyond the author's young age. This book helps give a picture of how, when, and where Ms. Dillard came into her wealth of knowledge and wisdom. I loved this book, and, as with "Pilgrim", found myself savoring every beautifully written word.
rampaginglibrarian's review against another edition
5.0
my discovery of Annie Dillard--found on my (ex)boyfriends shelf while i was at his house. I picked it up and couldn't put it down. Dillard has become one of my favorite writers.
annepw's review against another edition
4.0
It's funny that I read this so soon after Michael Chabon's "Manhood for Amateurs," as the pair are preoccupied by many of the same themes and, of course, deeply tied to Pittsburgh. I also adore them both.
Superficially, my childhood was rather like Dillard's, insofar as we both grew up in comfortable middle-class white suburbs of Pittsburgh, and so I deeply appreciate the perspective she gives of the city in the 1950's. "An American Childhood" is one of the few memoirs ("Manhood" is another) that I have actually found worthwhile. While I think Dillard sentimentalizes the process of growing up, she is such a stylistic wizard that I would follow her to the ends of the earth.
Superficially, my childhood was rather like Dillard's, insofar as we both grew up in comfortable middle-class white suburbs of Pittsburgh, and so I deeply appreciate the perspective she gives of the city in the 1950's. "An American Childhood" is one of the few memoirs ("Manhood" is another) that I have actually found worthwhile. While I think Dillard sentimentalizes the process of growing up, she is such a stylistic wizard that I would follow her to the ends of the earth.
ris_stitches's review against another edition
3.0
Interesting enough life story, lovely prose, a bit too stream of consciousness for me. The book jumps around so much and often times you get so bogged down in detailed tangential stories that you forget where the heck she was in her tale.
hexagong's review against another edition
5.0
Courageously beautiful, honest, transporting, poetic. This is the most alive book I have read in a while. I think I could read anything Dillard writes as her prose is poetic, funny, vibrating with the aliveness like a beat poet, a passion for the natural world like a Thoreau, but more enjoyable and passionate.