Pilgrim at Tinker Creek has continued to change people''s lives for over thirty years. A passionate and poetic reflection on the mystery of creation with its beauty on the one hand and cruelty on the other, it has become a modern American literary classic in the tradition of Thoreau. Living in solitude in the Blue Ridge Mountains near Roanoke, Virginia, and observing the changing seasons, the flora and fauna, the author reflects on the nature of creation and of the God who set it in motion. Whether the images are cruel or lovely, the language is memorably beautiful and poetic, and insistently celebratory. Just pay attention, Dillard urges throughout, and you will find yourself ''sailing headlong and breathless under the gale force of the spirit''.