As a fan of Amy Tan, and also a birder, this was such an enjoyable read! I really enjoyed the illustrations and can't wait to physically see them in person. I kind of wanted a little more from this book, but it was a great into to birding.

Thanks to #TheBackyardBirdChronicles and #NetGalley for a copy of this arc!

Thank you to Knopf, Pantheon, Vintage, and Anchor for a copy of this ebook in exchange for an honest review.

First I will say that this is 3.5 on the star rating scale.

I love Amy Tan and have read several of her non-fiction books, so I was very excited to get to know a little more about her.
This is a story of how she developed a love for birds. A narrative of how to bird watch and journal your experiences. I found the beginning very interesting and interactive but have to say about halfway through got a little bored with the whimsical stories. This was a fun book about one person's experience with finding a new hobby and her experiences along the way.
Yet! Let me not neglect the artwork. WOW, very talented in her drawings Mrs. Tan does not disappoint.
In whole I will say , I enjoyed the art, the cute stories and find that I am now intrigued by those birds that seem to be everywhere. I also just purchased a bird feeder with a video feed. SO excited and must find a way to keep my cat away....

Amy Tan is already known for her writing, particularly fiction but also nonfiction. Turns out she’s an impressive artist as well, rediscovering the joy she gained from drawing she had as a kid when she started to watch and feed the birds in her yard. She chronicles in this book 6 years of watching, drawing, and journaling the avian goings-on and the mild obsession she develops with feeding them. This book is a complete delight! I love nature books and learning about animals (though am not myself a birder), and I couldn’t have enjoyed this more.

This is a beautiful book! I was so impressed with what I read on my Kindle that I couldn't wait to purchase it when it came out and see all those lovely drawings in color. I know that our patrons will really enjoy this book!

I have never read a book like The Backyard Bird Chronicles before and I wasn't sure if I would like it. Only an excellent writer like Tan could make seemingly mundane bird behaviors interesting. Her descriptive writing and personification kept me hooked throughout the book. Though there was no real plot, I was drawn to see how Tan and her birds would evolve throughout the course of the book. A must read for home gardeners and Marin residents.

The Backyard Bird Chronicles is a gently written and enjoyable ode to birdwatching full of reminiscences and sketches by Amy Tan. Released 23rd April 2024 by Knopf Doubleday, it's 320 pages and is available in flexibound, audio, and ebook formats.

Contemplative and relaxing to read, the author is quite talented with description and her ruminations on the division and unpleasantness which inevitably comes with being an internet citizen will have readers nodding along in sympathy. Her answer was to turn her gaze on the world outside her windows. She learned how to sketch the birds visiting her backyard, and she's done quite a remarkable job of it. Her sketches are technically adept and lovely to look at.

She also speaks a bit about the creative processes of writing a novel (torture, discipline, and structure) contra journal (pure joy and spontaneity) and how those differed from the drawing part.

It is written as a journal/diary... with dated observations and many illustrations. It's fascinating reading.

Four and a half stars. It would be a great public library acquisition, home library addition, or gift purposes.

Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes.

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