Rating: 
Summary: Grand Scale
Review: An exhasutive piece of brilliance set in the Pacific Northwest circa 1850-90s. Dillard paints word pictures of the magnificent scenary as well as of the characters down to the minutest detail. A must read for those who want a realistic portrait of the difficult yet full lives the men and women led in settling and growing this land. She has cleverly written into her characters many underlying and intertwining themes that are evidence of her great talent. Only that she would write another novel.
Rating: 
Summary: Extemely Detailed - Classic Annie Dillard
Review: An exhasutive piece of brilliance set in the Pacific Northwest circa 1850-90s. Dillard paints word pictures of the magnificent scenary as well as of the characters down to the minutest detail. A must read for those who want a realistic portrait of the difficult yet full lives the men and women led in settling and growing this land. She has cleverly written into her characters many underlying and intertwining themes that are evidence of her great talent. Only that she would write another novel.
Rating:
Summary: Depressing, but vivid
Review: Annie Dillard has one of the clearest, most attractive writing voices I have ever read. It's almost always an eye-opening joy to read her, just for the way she puts words and sentences together. This novel is no exception, although it's not her best work.The plot here - about the settlement of the Pacific Northwest, and some characters in and around Bellingham, Washington - is fairly interesting, although not compelling. After about 100 pages, I started to find the title ironic: I felt it should be called "The Dead and Dying." One gets a real taste of how difficult life was in the 19th century, when the frontier was still being opened. But Dillard's style does not mesh well with the demands of a novel. She is far better at conveying her innermost thoughts; her memoirs and essays are what make her so good. If you have the choice, read those rather than this.
Rating:
Summary: Depressing, but vivid
Review: Annie Dillard has one of the clearest, most attractive writing voices I have ever read. It's almost always an eye-opening joy to read her, just for the way she puts words and sentences together. This novel is no exception, although it's not her best work. The plot here - about the settlement of the Pacific Northwest, and some characters in and around Bellingham, Washington - is fairly interesting, although not compelling. After about 100 pages, I started to find the title ironic: I felt it should be called "The Dead and Dying." One gets a real taste of how difficult life was in the 19th century, when the frontier was still being opened. But Dillard's style does not mesh well with the demands of a novel. She is far better at conveying her innermost thoughts; her memoirs and essays are what make her so good. If you have the choice, read those rather than this.
Rating:
Summary: Atmospheric Transport To Our Past
Review: Annie Dillard is one of the best writers today. Her prose is poetic and her poetry is perfection. The Living, a marvelous book about the trials and tribulations of pioneers, is gripping, descriptive, and wonderfully told. To read it, was to be transported. You felt the moss on the trees, you smelled the rich pines, you tasted the salt air. It's an achievement, in every sense of the word.
Rating: 
Summary: I Couldn't Believe The Reviewers Had Read The Same Book
Review: Based on this novel, Dillard's reputation as an American literary icon is vastly overblown. While her descriptions of landscape and historical setting are good, the characters are laughable and, Annie, where's the plot? Almost no forward momentum to keep anyone living interested. I wouln't reccomend this book to anyone and I hope Ms. Dillard stays on the wrong side of the Mississippi River and never again writes about anything I would remotely be interested in.
Rating:
Summary: The Living End
Review: Far and away the finest novel of the decade. Dillard transports the reader to a time when just "living" during that raw period and landscape of our so distant past was a precarious notion.
Rating:
Summary: Grand Scale
Review: Grand in scope and finely detailed...this is just the kind of journey-driven writing that I like. Quirky but real, like the conditions of our lives. I missed the lack of dialogue, though, and feel like she walks a thin line between showing and telling. A bit too much telling for my taste, because I was a little distracted worn & out by the end of this journey.
Rating:
Summary: The Living
Review: I have found this book to be incredibly insightful to the early Northwest. Although the characters are many, and we don't get an indepth study of them, I find that they are there to lend to the overall "feel" of the book. Life was bleak at best, and so are the characters. Life was a struggle, and so are the lives of the characters. My youngest sister and her husband live on Lopez Island and I am sending this book to them because I know they will be able to identify with the weather, the surrounding areas, the people, and the history. Hurrah for Annie Dillard!
Rating:
Summary: thick as hasty pudding, every bit as tasty .
Review: I have had to renew this book three times in order to finish. Dillard has held me in thrall since I became a Pilgrim, also. Real, nourishing, so much to digest in every paragraph, I am happy to have this meal last for weeks and weeks.
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