The Annie Dillard Reader is a selection by the author from some of her work. There are many chapters from Pilgrim at Tinker Creek and An American Childhood. Holy the Firm appears in its entirety, and revised. Also included is a new version of a short story first published in 1978 in Harper's, called "The Living." The characters of the original story became the nucleus of the 1992 novel The Living. Finally there are a few poems, old and new, one uncollected essay, and some narratives from her sole book of essays, Teaching a Stone to Talk.