Amy Tan’s latest book is not a novel that transports us from this world. Instead, it is a book about our world that takes away from everyday issues. The Backyard Bird Chronicles focuses on nature, and its use as a healing balm.
The Backyard Bird Chronicles is the journal she kept making daily entries, posing thoughtful questions, and drawing beautiful original sketches. In 2016, Tan grew overwhelmed by the state of the world. In search of peace, Tan focused in the fauna that came to her, the birds visiting her yard. These moments were an opportunity to savor quiet moments during a volatile time (Including the pandemic), connect to nature, and flex her curiosity and imagination.
This nonfiction book is mixed in with some fiction as Tan can’t help but create stories for her birds and other critters. These stories include drawings of animals with captions. My favorite is the set of animals she named after The Great Mouse Detective. The reader still sees what has always moved us about Tan in these moments.
This comes from a journal; it isn’t edited. But she writes her journal the same way she writes her novels. It’s not just notes—it’s full of thoughts and descriptions. Even without the drawings, you understand the bird she is writing about. That being said it’s still an easy read. It’s not full of incomprehensible jargon or too big metaphors. This is accessible to anyone interested in reading about birds.
My favorite part is watching her go from bird sketches to full-blown paintings. Watching her skill grow was like a coming-of-age journey with her. She mentions that she was glad she knew she wasn’t going to publish the journal at the beginning because she would have tried to make it all perfect. One, we don’t need perfect. Two, I loved watching her journey more than I enjoyed learning about birds.
Anyone who is interested in birds will love the Backyard Bird Chronicles. Tan fans who prefer fiction might enjoy it as I did or be disappointed without a grand tale.

Amy Tan writes with such love for the subject of her backyard birds. I felt like I knew these bird characters myself and that I learned life lessons through them.

I always enjoy Amy Tan's books! This newest- "The Backyard Bird Chronicles" was a lovely peek into her life and love for birds. Thorough account of her experiences and lessons of bird watching and feeding them, observing their behaviors and her special relationships with them, as well as her wonderful illustrations. Delightful! Thank you NetGalley, the author and publisher for the review copy. All opinions are my own.

This wasnt for me - especially in a kindle version. Im sure for the right person it is very delightful but not the space i am reading in right now.

While I don't read a ton of non-fiction, I read this book on the heels of reading Sy Montgomery's "The Secrets of the Octopus." Maybe this was a mistake, as I found that this seemed like a little too much non-fiction to me. In many ways, The Backyard Bird Chronicles felt like while personal, it also seemed to be unedited. I love Amy Tan as a novelist. I was eager to get an inside perspective of her hobby of birding. The net result though was a bit boring and tedious. Her wonderings were similar to mine, she certainly taught me a lot about birding and journaling about birding, I found this book to be long and a slog. It is worth noting that the illustrations are striking. They definitely went a step or two in redeeming the book. This book is for serious backyard birders only. And even with that, I recommend skimming.

Thank you Knopf, Pantheon, Vintage, and Anchor | Knopf for allowing me to read and review The Backyard Bird Chronicles on NetGalley.

Published: 04/23/24

Stars: 3.5

Detailed.

This is too much for me. I was looking for a story. This is a thorough fact driven book. I appreciated Tan sharing her failures with feeders, etc., her concern over feed and at one point she gave it all away fearful she would hurt a species. The Hummingbirds grabbed my attention. Immediately I could visualize them. But, by the time she finished with the ins and outs of their feeders I knew I was in trouble. Bored was settling in.

Tan is studying her backyard. The details are important to her. And in all awkward fairness if you want to feed birds her tips may be helpful.

If I knew someone who lived in an ice/snow region I may gift them the book, letting them experience something different. I would consider gifting this to someone who reads a few pages of nonfiction, it's not a novel.

Amy Tan chronicles the birds that come into her backyard with beautiful sketches and essays. She shows us nature through her wonderful writing. Beautiful book.

Who knew Amy Tan, bestselling fiction author, could draw and paint birds? Not me. The cover of her most recent book, The Backyard Bird Chronicles, features a few illustrated birds, and I admit I was stunned when I saw her credited as the artist. Flipping through the pages, I was amazed by her stunning painted illustrations and rougher observational sketches that portray so much character. Just the visual aspect of this book deserves your time. Featuring entries from a journal Tan has kept over the past several years, The Backyard Chronicles covers her journey of learning about the birds who visit her Marin County backyard. There's something endearing and inspiring about watching an adult learn something completely new. Tan's observations and stories are relatable (no birding gate-keeping found here) and amusing, and each dated entry about her interactions with the birds in her backyard provides the reader with a moment of wonder or a piece of humanity or a bit of humility. This is a perfect book for a Earth Week release. I would recommend this title to fans of Ross Gay's Book of Delights or anyone entering their birding years.

The Backyard Bird Chronicles is a fun, entertaining read. Reading someone's journal seems bleak, but in Amy Tan's hands, it is entertaining and her wit shines through. From trying to recruit the neighbor kid to start a meal worm operation to giving her backyard Scrub Jays super sleuth problem solving attributes. Along with describing the antics of her guests at Amy's spa, she also includes sketches which I thought were quite good. I may have missed it, but I went searching for the Ruby-crowned Kinglet. An exciting observation. Ultimately, this book had me grabbing my binoculars to take a closer look at those birds from my deck.

Thanks to NetGalley and Knopf for the arc.

This is a lovely bird journal of Amy Tan’s time at home during the Covid pandemic. She relates the stories and information about the backyard birds in her life and draws and sketches many bird adventures, their habits and what she has learned while observing them.
I recommend this book for bird and nature lovers alike and anyone who notices the creation around them.
#netgalley

I have something in common with Amy Tan--I too am a backyard birdwatcher. Watching hummingbirds and their antics saved me during Covid, I swear! And from Amy Tan's writings, I've learned a few facts about them and other birds common to California too.

These chronicles are her journals and lovely sketches of the birds she observed at her backyard feeders in California over several years. The accounts are quite charming and touching. Would make the perfect Mother's Day gift!

Many thanks to the author and publisher for providing me with an arc of this book via NetGalley. My review is voluntary and the opinions expressed are my own.

This is an engaging and lyrical exploration of the the outdoors, the senses, and a return to wonder. Amy Tan's prose is interesting and entertaining, and her drawings are beautiful. I enjoyed reading her thoughts and insights immensely, and love that she wrote this introspective journal in her 8th decade. Thanks to Netgalley and Knopf for the advance digital copy!

I loved her descriptions and illustrations of birds and the process that she took to observe them. I would love to read it in print because it was difficult to see it correctly on Kindle

"The Backyard Bird Chronicles" is a birder's lovechild born from the inimitable author, Amy Tan. Out of her love of nature and birds, she has lovingly created (amd now shared) her very personal set of journal entries and drawings. The great big "wild" was her own Californian backyard.

Begun in 2019 as a hobby, but magnified into an intense personal journey during the Civid-19 pandemic, Tan opens the reader's eyes, ears, and heart to the magnificent beauty of the world around you! If the pandemic has an upside that we can all take with us as we move past its horrors and isolation, it would be to follow Miss Amy Tan...find the time amd the will to look...REALLY LOOK...at the intimate and infinite beauty of this world of ours. And if we truly follow her example, we need look no further than our own backyards!

I am not a "birder," but this chronicling by Amy, my dear new friend in finding beauty and new possibilities, has reopened my to the journey called personal discovery and renewal. If one follows her example, it's as simple (and as perhaps as hard) as simply stopping, watching, listening, and embracing what's right in your own backyard!

I am honored to have taken this journey through the grace and talent of the author. This book will be published on April 23, 2024. I wholeheartedly recommend it to those who seek nature's beauty and the calm that can be provided when you look beyond yourself.

#TheBackyardBirdChronicles
#AmyTan
#NetGalley
#Nature'sBeautyInYourOwnBackyard

Whether or not you’re a birder, this is a book to savor for both prose and artistry. When getting about became limited during the worst of Covid, Amy Tan turned her intellectual curiosity on her own back yard and the birds who visited. She entertained herself by challenging herself to recreate accurately on paper and in color what she observed and kept a diary of sorts on her bird observations. The result is this incredible book which reveals not only the normally unobserved lives of birds but how many types and varieties that can exist unknown in one small yard. It is delightful, informative, and the artwork is joyous. A book to repeatedly savor.

Thanks to Knopf for the early review copy via NetGalley (available 23 Apr 24) and to @PRHAudio for the #gifted audiobook. #PRHAudioPartner #sponsored

My family calls me The Crazy Bird Lady. I sweet talk the birds I see at my feeders and bushes, I put little dots in my bird identification book when I discover a “new” species, I text my neighbor to report the first migratory sightings (and she texts me when she sees baby wood ducks), I run to the store for grape jelly on our first Oriole sighting. I ordered fancy feeders from Etsy (photo from @coppervinefeeders).

I’m thrilled to know I’m not alone. When I recommended Margaret Renkl’s COMFORT OF CROWS to my friend Tricia, she immediately recommended this GEM. Amy Tan wrote and illustrated six years of journal entries, musings, and drawings of backyard birds, squirrels, and the occasional rat. Yes, THAT Amy Tan.

It was perfect. Of course, Tan is a beautiful writer! Here, her talents extend to describing her birds - both their antics and their identifying features. She fills her fridge with live mealworms, engages the aid of animal rescue, and dedicates large portions of her time (and income) to keeping her feathered friends happy and healthy. In return, the effort also makes her (and her readers) happy.

Reading the full-color e-book while listening to Tan narrate the audiobook was a true luxury. Initially, I hadn’t planned to listen to the audiobook due to the drawings, but another friend insisted. And boy, was she right! Tan's sly humor shines through as she unabashedly anthropomorphizes her birds, and her remarkable talent for IMMITATING them adds another layer of entertainment. Her demonstration of how an owl’s call differs from a dove (“It is deeply sonorous and reverberates far and wide. Its voice is a saxophone, the dove’s a recorder.”) was a delightful surprise.

I wish I could remember who recommended the audiobook! Whoever it was, THANK YOU! You were so right.

Maybe my first Amy Tan book should have been The Joy Luck Club, but I think The Backyard Bird Chronicles being my first Tan book is perfect. This is a tender, caring look into birding in your own backyard. There are plenty of books describing long trips to remote, special locations to spot a rare bird for a few exhilarating seconds. There are few books that show you the magic of looking out your back window and watching what special things fly in.

I loved this partially because I enjoy the way that Tan observes animals. There is curiosity and kindness in each journal entry, and how she thinks about birds reminds me of my own thought processes on birds. I also loved the sketches and how Tan places thoughts into the birds' heads, trying to understand their actions.

It's just a really, really nice book, and if you are a beginner birder or an advanced one, you will find beauty in this book.

Thanks to Knopf and Netgalley for the e-ARC!

Well known fiction author Amy Tan takes us to her backyard for her observations and drawings of the birds that populate her feeders. Most of her journaling takes place during the pandemic, a divisive time during which she developed an interest in birdwatching. Her observations and stories are entertaining; her drawings are beautiful! She also shares the knowledge she has gained over the many hours spent studying the birds' behaviors. Many nature lovers will relate to the attachment and compassion she has for the birds. This won't be the book for everyone, but I really enjoyed it! She left me with lots of food for thought about bird behaviors and migration

Tan chronicles the birds in her backyard over several years in journal format. She starts out knowing very little and ultimately learns a ton (and spends A LOT of money!) She also sketches the birds. This would be a good gift book for someone newly interested in attracting birds to their backyard.

I LOVED this book. Amy Tam journaling about the birds of her backyard? With pictures? Sure! Tan's obsession (her word) with the birds found her going pretty deep to create a haven for the birds, and they repaid in full. The book is laid out chronologically from September 2017 to the last entry in December 2022 and includes excerpts from her journals and accompanying drawings. The drawings are beautiful. Some are cartoon-like (with captions), some are in color, some in pencil. There's a lot of humor, there's excitement as she learns to identify birds with the confidence of an expert. And the writing is sublime. The bird action reads, at times, like a thriller.

Tan began her nature journaling adventure by taking classes and going on field trips led by John Muir Laws, "Jack". An artist, naturalist, author and educator he's well known in the Bay Area (and beyond). Tan refers to Jack frequently in "The Backyard Bird Chronicles" and these mentions had extra weight because coincidentally a group of us went on a nature journaling adventure with him last month. Talk about a small world. His philosophy to stay curious, to have wonder, to be in awe resonated and it was so refreshing to see in Tan's work. She asked many many questions in her journaling to home in on the bird behavior she was observing. A refreshing reminder to slow down and really look at the beauty that surrounds us, to ask questions.

This book was calming. It was meditative. I loved how I felt when I was reading it.

I read it on my phone to render the drawings in color. You'll cheat yourself if you only see Tan's gorgeous drawings in black and white. I also think the physical book would make a great gift.

My thanks to NetGalley and Knopf for the ARC. "The Backyard Bird Chronicles" will be published on April 23, 2024.