Rating: 
Summary: A must for anyone who wants to write but isn't
Review: If you are already writing consistently and have no problem getting to the page each day, pounding out pages and are confident that you are doing great work, you might not get anything out of this book. For everyone else, this book could provide you with nothing short of revolutionary inspiration. This book, along with Julia Cameron's "The Right to Write," finally convinced me that I couldn't stifle my creativity anymore and that I would never feel truly fulfilled until I got to the page each day and wrote. Thereputic and motivational, this book doesn't necessarily offer any earth shattering wisdom, but instead delivers it's teachings in a way that it is almost impossible not to "get." Be warned, it is a little slow going at first, but if you stick with it you will be rewarded. I have given this book many times to frustrated writers and have never gotten anything less than an exhuberant response. Plus...it's hella funny!
Rating:
Summary: One of the Best!
Review: I highly recommend this book to anyone remotely interested in writing! It gets you thinking, laughing and WRITING.
Rating: 
Summary: nothing wrong with therapy
Review: I was bemused by the negative reviews I read of this book, and not sure what the expectations were of the neg. reviewers when they approached "Bird by Bird." Having no expectations and a bad case of writer's block, I found "Bird" to provide -- dare I say it? -- much needed therapy, or at least comfort. This book is not for weak-minded folks, as you may have read, but it is for anyone with vascillating feelings about writing who wants insight into what it takes and who does it. Frankly, I recommend surveying many books on writing -- including this and Meyer's "Writing for your Life" -- since no book on writing does it all, and the variety of perspectives is tremendously helpful.
Rating: 
Summary: Not worth reading
Review: Managed to read one chapter with great difficultly. The name of the second chapter begins with the S-word. If some one has to use that kind of word to convey an idea, you can judge how much expressive power the author has.This is ideal for kids (with the s-word blackened out :). More serious writers should read "How to Write: Advice and Reflections" by Richard Rhodes.
Rating:
Summary: Beautiful and inspiring
Review: One of my favourite ever books and one I come back to again and again, finding new ideas to savour. Funny, something to linger over, one to constantly inspire.
Rating:
Summary: Oh, You Must Buy This Book
Review: It's brilliant and funny and wise and helpful and inspirational and human and has the potential to make YOU all of the above.
Rating:
Summary: Nearly a Milky Way of stars, actually.
Review: This is a must for anyone who wishes there really was some sort of instruction manual not just for writing, but for living. Of course, every writer -published or not- must have at least five copies. One to read yearly and others to loan and never get back. But I think orthodontists and house painters and paralegals and bird watchers would do well by it. It's wise, is the thing. It truly is like sitting down and hearing some really good advice that you really need.
Rating:
Summary: Writing or Group Therapy?
Review: For writers? I don't think so. This hodge-podge of "how do I feel today" stuff is really for the weak of mind who can't handle the notion that writing is a craft, not a group therapy session. Most often, Lamott references movies, NOT BOOKS, to make the points that her insipid writing cannot capture.
Rating:
Summary: A Romp Through Anne Lamott's Writers Workshop
Review: If you've ever thought of signing up for one of those writers workshops with some successful wordcrafter but were put off by the price or the possibility of somebody asking, "What are YOU doing here?" this is your chance to do a test-run on what it might really be like. If Anne Lamott's workshops are anything like her book "Bird by Bird: Instructions on Writing and Life," then whatever the cost - dollars or pride - it will be worth the price of admission. Lamotte is funny - poking fun at herself as well as doing a running, withering commentary on society and human nature. No thought is too important to permit a digression which is part of her style of writing (and speaking?). On the other hand, no thought is too trivial to put on a 3X5 card for possible intrusion (not a Freudian Slip, thank you!) in something she is writing or saying. Her philosophy of life and writing seems to be: If the shoe fits, it probably isn't yours, but wear it anyway. Whoever left it for you should have been more careful where they leave their shoes. Besides the fun, no there's nothing besides fun in life - except despair and you don't want to go there - the fun in no way takes anything away from Lamott's sound advice for writers, especially those with low self-esteem, poverty status, lack of writing skills, and nagging in-laws who wonder why you don't get a REAL job. Her practical advice includes: getting started (sit down everyday, same time, same place, quiet your mind, and start writing until you "get to that one long paragraph that was what you had in mind when you started, only you didn't know that, couldn't know that, until you got to it"); try doing short assignments ("...writing a novel is like driving a car at night. You can see only as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way." E. L. Doctorow); developing characters ("Just don't pretend you know more about your characters than they do, because you don't. Stay open to them. It's teatime and all the dolls are at the table. Listen. It's that simple."); and plot (Plot grows out of character. If you focus on who the people in your story are, if you sit and write about two people you know and are getting to know better day by day, something is bound to happen."). One of my favorite chapters is "Broccoli" which begins with Mel Brooks' old routine in which a psychiatrist advises a patient, "Listen to your broccoli, and your broccoli will tell you how to eat it." Don't try to find out who that psychiatrist is - she's booked up 'til January 3000! Lamotte is affirming the shy attribute of intuition - trust it, tease it, test it, listen to it, get to know it. There is a gentle, tender, wondrous part of each of us that aches to be honored and invited to tea with our other toys, but like E.T., it has the right stuff to transform our lives and awaken the dolls. "Bird by Bird" offers the pat on the back and kick in the pants every aspiring writer needs. Lamott does not think everybody who writes should publish . But she does believe everybody who wants to write should do it! There are characters in each of us just waiting to enter the stage of our minds and come to life. So, what are you waiting for? Get started all ready! They may not wait for ever.
Rating:
Summary: Inspirational!
Review: Thank you, Anne Lamott. You've written a wonderfully inspirational, funny book on writing. There are so many marginally helpful books on writing -- and I have many of them -- that seem to be written from the point of view that publishing is the most important aspect of writing. Anne Lamott tells us -- no! shows us! -- that it's doing the writing that we should love first. And she illustrates that point in so many beautiful ways.
|
