Flea, dude, what kind of Mom was Annie Dillard? Was she flaky, did she pay on time, was her house a mess, or was she a hippie Jane Goodall saint??? Tell tell tell.

Picked up Annie Dillard's The Living at a library book sale last night, too, for all of a dime. Anyone read it? I had a friend awhile back who kept telling me to try her, especially Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, but I hadn't up till now.

I think her fiction is middling, but that she's one of the best non-fiction writers of the last fifty years. Love Pilgrim at Tinker's Creek and An American Childhood particularly.

I only sat for Rosie, the Dillard sprog, once, I think. I got the gig in a roundabout way - I think it was a dinner party that a family I sat for were also attending, at Dillard's neighbors, and they drove me over and home. She lived right near Wesleyan (this was in the late 1980s) in a biggish house that memory is painting as sort of a 1910s foursquare, Decidedly messy. Middle-class, absent-minded professor-y - books and wineglasses and coffee cups and napkins and crumbs on the table. I remember a hunt for the checkbook when it came time to pay me. Dillard struck me as vague and distracted, and seemed very laissez-faire in her child-rearing - Rosie ran a bit wild, and was also wily and well practiced in talking her way into things. I tried to read Pilgrim at Tinker Creek following the exerience, but couldn't get into it at 17 - too slow. Should try again now that I am slower.

I loved An American Childhood and really enjoyed The Living. Haven't been able to get into Pilgrim, despite having owned it for years.

His books do not stick in my mind. Character names, if that. The odd visual.

Snow Crash and Zodiac stuck in my mind. Cryptonomicon, nsm.

Pilgrim at Tinker Creek is a great book. I also love Annie Dillard for this quote:

"I don't do housework. Life's too short and I'm too much of a Puritan. If you want to take a year to write a book, you have to take that year, or the year will take you by the hair and pull you toward the grave. Let the grass die. I let almost all my indoor plants die from neglect while I was writing the book. There are all kinds of ways to live. You can take your choice. You can keep a tidy house, and when St. Peter asks you what you did with your life, you can say, I kept a tidy house, I made my own cheese balls."

Ginger, I have to tag that, or at least the last bit of it. That's my philosophy stated so that it sounds reasonable rather than slapdash and childish.

"You can take your choice. You can keep a tidy house, and when St. Peter asks you what you did with your life, you can say, I kept a tidy house, I made my own cheese balls."

My feelings exactly. I can vacuum up dog hair daily, or I can make the baby giggle and talk about whales with my seven-year-old. I can dust until everything sparkles, or I can attempt to figure out what's going on in my twelve-year-old's head.

More folks have read Annie Dillard than I thought.

Snow Crash and Zodiac stuck in my mind. Cryptonomicon, nsm.

I had the exact opposite take on the man. Snow Crash & Zodiac (and the execrable Diamond Age) all faded away, but I loved the hell out of Cryptonomicon. I love the hell out of Pynchon's books, too, which may be the difference.

I fell in like with Stephenson through Zodiac. Snow Crash and The Diamond Age made me glad I got them at the library. But he got me back with Cryptonomicon. It sprawls and wanders and then ends all too suddenly. But the characters were fascinating -- well, the male ones anyway -- and I liked some of the ideas he raised.

I've enjoyed all the Crusie I've read except for Strange Bedfellows and What the Lady Wants. In the former I felt, like others here, that the romance was forced. I could see the two leads having a fabulous affair, but their marriage seemed doomed. And the heroine in WtLW seemed like a spoiled brat.

Bet Me really worked for me. I thought Crusie did a good job showing two people from mildly disfunctional families catching one anothers' backs. I liked how a fair amount of the conflict came from character issues that resonated for me. And a little couch bondage sex never hurts a book in my eyes (unless you're lying on said book at the time).

I think someone on this list recommended Regencies by Loretta Chase. If so -- thanks! They've been a great escape at a kind of tense time. Going back and forth between regencies and H:LotS dvds has been a bit of a head trip, but it's still cheaper than most drugs.