RIP Annie Dillard. My personal memories with her work are with her collection The Abundance. Rich with sparkling verbal illustrations of a life lived with eyes wide open, it was a warm companion during my masters, read in between bike rides and practicing musical repertoire. Her essays were a struck match that lit the fire in my work and attention at that time, as undoubtedly they have for countless others.

Why are we reading, if not in hope of beauty laid bare, life heightened, and its deepest mystery probed? Can the writer isolate and vivify all in experience that most deeply engages his intellect and heart—and our own? Can the writer renew our hope for literary forms? Why are we reading if not in hope that the writer will magnify and dramatize our days, will illuminate and inspire us with wisdom, courage, and the possibility of meaning, and will press upon our minds the deepest mysteries, so we may feel again their majesty and power?