“Darkness appalls and light dazzles; the scrap of visible light that doesn’t hurt my eyes hurts my brain.”

Annie Dillard, the writer who has taught me the most about collecting ideas that culminate in an explosive observation, has died, and I’m feeling the loss acutely. In the 1970s, when I read Pilgrim at Tinker Creek for the first time, I saw a whole new way of writing. Many of her sentences are stunners. She piles one seemingly random observation on top of another. And then, suddenly, on the last page, bam! We see how everything fits together. Stop whatever you’re doing and read her essay “Seeing” now. Don’t miss this opportunity to experience her work. Marinate in it.