The Writing Life is a beautiful book about writing — part memoir, part guidebook — by Pulitzer Prize winner Annie Dillard. The book was originally published in 1989, fifteen years after the publication of her most acclaimed work, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, and yet its material is timeless. In it, Dillard muses on the habits, techniques, and views she’s adopted over the years that have helped her survive as a writer. She debates perfecting the words as you go versus unspooling everything at once and editing later, she expounds on the importance of getting your idea onto the page as soon as it arises (and the consequences of saving an idea for a more perfect moment), and she describes the feeling of letting the work consume you, sweep you away on its current. Practical without seeming overly technical, and philosophical without seeming esoteric, Dillard guides fellow writers through challenging terrain in a way that feels easy and conversational. Her wisdom pertains, too, to so many things outside of literature, like art, work, and life.

I adore books about the craft and experience of writing. Haruki Murakami’s What I Talk About When I Talk About Running, Stephen King’s On Writing, Anne Lammot’s Bird by Bird… these are just some of my favorites, and funnily enough, I read them before I had read any of their authors’ prolific backlists, just as I unintentionally did with The Writing Life. And even though I wish I could say I had already read all of Dillard’s other, highly celebrated books, these backwards introductions make me feel more connected to the author, as if I know her as a person and not just as a mysterious name on the cover. With The Writing Life especially, it was revelatory to get to know this Pulitzer Prize-winning author on such an intimate basis; I had assumed Dillard would come off as intimidatingly brilliant, but instead she surprised me with her humor, her humility, and her wonder. Dillard is most definitely brilliant, but she also isn’t afraid to get messy or sound silly, and her wholesomeness is a comfort. At various points throughout the book I was charmed to find passages that I’d read quoted in other books or on social media — for example, “How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives. What we do with this hour, and that one, is what we are doing” — and reading them in the context of her larger ideas makes them that much more powerful. And, for all its immense wisdom, The Writing Life comes in just over a hundred pages, a small yet potent dose of inspiration. Now, I’m off to find more books by Annie Dillard.

I’d recommend this book to…

• Anyone looking for a book that demystifies the process of writing… it’s similar to On Writing by Stephen King
• Anyone who appreciates an author who takes their work seriously but doesn’t take themselves (too) seriously… it’s similar in tone to A Swim in the Pond in the Rain by George Saunders
• Anyone who loves clear, poignant prose that weaves together the personal and the technical… it’s similar in style to Bird by Bird by Anne Lammot