This book focuses on Gertrude Stein, who wanted to capture ‘this thing life’ in writing, and argues that Stein is linked to a number of late-nineteenth and twentieth-century thinkers, who, like Stein, also conceived of life as an open, differential system. These chapters weave together Wilhelm Dilthey, Henri Bergson, Walter Benjamin and A.N. Whitehead, offering readers an alternative vitalist framework.