{"product_id":"for-the-time-being-9780375703478","title":"For the Time Being","description":"\u003cb\u003eNATIONAL BESTSELLER - From the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of \u003ci\u003ePilgrim at Tinker Creek\u003c\/i\u003e and one of the most compelling writers of our time comes a \"beautifully written and delightfully strange\" (\u003ci\u003eDaily News) \u003c\/i\u003enarrative that renews our ability to discover wonder in life's smallest--and often darkest--corners.\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eFor the Time Being\u003c\/i\u003e is Annie Dillard's most profound narrative to date. With her keen eye, penchant for paradox, and yearning for truth, Dillard asks: Why do we exist? Where did we come from? How can one person matter? Dillard searches for answers in a powerful array of images: pictures of bird-headed dwarfs in the standard reference of human birth defects; ten thousand terra-cotta figures fashioned for a Chinese emperor in place of the human court that might have followed him into death; the paleontologist and theologian Teilhard de Chardin crossing the Gobi Desert; the dizzying variety of clouds. Vivid, eloquent, haunting, \u003ci\u003eFor the Time Being \u003c\/i\u003eevokes no less than the terrifying grandeur of all that remains tantalizingly and troublingly beyond our understanding. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\"Beautifully written and delightfully strange...as earthy as it is sublime...in the truest sense, an eye-opener.\" --\u003ci\u003eDaily News\u003c\/i\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\"Stimulating, humbling, original. [Dillard] illuminate[s] the human perspective of the world, past, present and future, and the individual's relatively inconsequential but ever so unique place in it.\" --\u003ci\u003eRocky Mountain News\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003e \u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAbout the Author\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eANNIE DILLARD lives in Middletown, Connecticut.\u003cbr\u003e","brand":"Vintage","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":50725292998930,"sku":"9780375703478","price":12.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0831\/4771\/8930\/files\/img_d01c7b5a-a443-4b6a-aeaa-2e70535e256f.jpg?v=1734824014","url":"https:\/\/surprise-castle.myshopify.com\/products\/for-the-time-being-9780375703478","provider":"Surprise Castle","version":"1.0","type":"link"}