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Summary: Like sitting down with a wonderful and witty friend.
Review: Anne Lamott loves writing and she loves writers. She tells you that she knows how pitiful and overwhelmed you feel, with your little insights and that great big piece of blank paper. But as her father told her brother, as he sat, the day before it was due, to start the huge research paper on birds he was supposed to have been working on for months, you just take it bird by bird, buddy. She reminds you why you write--not to validate your parking ticket, but to feel the pleasure of making your thoughts and experiences into words. She shares with you her own experiences and the words that have helped her. She quotes E.L. Doctorow as saying that writing is like headlights on a highway--you can go a long way, just lighting the little space in front of you. And she lights that space, to get you going. You'll also enjoy her earlier non-fiction book, Operating Instructions, about her son's first year, and her novels -- she is a pleasure to spend time with, and her advice applies to all aspec
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Summary: Writing the Great American Novel? Read this Book First!
Review: After Operating Instructions but before Crooked Little Heart, Lamott captures in Bird by Bird,the way it feels to "have arrived" without finding the anticipated "my life is now complete" realization. The context of the narrative in Bird by Bird is the writer's life, and Lamott writes in a manner so easy/enjoyable to read that one would be hard put to dispute her being the writer she aims to be. The subtext, if you wanted to overanalyze this book, is that the journey, here becoming a writer, is as, maybe more important, than the destination/goal: publication. Her easy to understand/less easy to practice Nike-like advice amounts to: Just Write It. Her advice stuck with me, although its been almost a year since I read her book and am now finally attempting to write something (this review) for ?publication...well Amazon's Customer Comment page is sort of/almost like publication. Anyway, Bird by Bird is a wonderful wonderful book-- which incidentally proves to be and an exceptional procrastination device especially if read before writing the Great American Novel.
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Summary: Not for the Self-Centered or Weak
Review: This book-on-writing is one of the best I have ever read. Lamott manages to be blatantly honest about your likelihood of getting published (something missing in most of these books, in my opinion), but encourages you to write all the same. That's the point to writing after all. I don't write because I want to see my name in print. I'd be weak and shallow if that's all I sought. I write because I have to, because I don't feel right when I'm not writing. This book should be a source of inspiration to any writer who loves writing.
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Summary: Every Meet Someone As Crazy As Yourself?
Review: Reading Anne Lamott is like sitting down with a close friend who shares all of your idiosyncracies and insanities, as well as your warped sense of humor. Bird by Bird gives Lamott's view of the writing life and confronts all of the little details and major crises faced by anyone who's ever wanted to write. Filled with warm and witty anecdotes from her own writing career and from the classes she teaches, Lamott takes you gently by the hand and then proceeds to push, pull, or drag you to the pencil or the keyboard because you suddenly feel that you have to write something, right now! This is a book to keep next to the bed or the computer, or wherever else you're likely to be when you need a nudge to keep going and a major dose of inspiration. Read this book with a highlighter grasped tightly in your sweaty palm, because you're going to want to come back to certain lines over and over again. Highly recommended.
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Summary: Laughs and Lifelines!
Review: This is not a how-to book. This is not a New Age manual for freeing your creativity in ethereal ways. This is Anne Lamott, for heaven's sake...and that means it's funny! As in, laugh- till-you-can't-read-the-words-through-the-tears-in-your-eyes funny. (Some call this therapy, and I'm inclined to agree.)
Though aimed at writers, this book is full of sage advice and razor-edged honesty for the average joe. If you're a writer--and I claim to be one--it's more than a few anecdotes and good advice; it's a lifeline in the thrashing seas of rough-draftdom, a foothold on the sands of jealousy and vain ambition. Anne makes it clear that writing must be pursued for something other than mere publication. (Though, to be honest, I know she's just trying to let the majority of us down easy.) Writing is about letting go, growing, facing truths, and holding on. I'm hooked on Lamott. She slaps me in the face with her startling revelations, nudges me in the ribs with her unpredictable humor, and prods my frozen little writer's hands back into action with warm compassion. This book won't solve the mechanical aspects of my writing, or lead me on the path of structural excellence, but it will spark my creativity, free my characters to be true to themselves, and, ultimately, shake me from my doldrums back into the writing mode. In a society addicted to mindless facts and information, "Bird by Bird" reminds us--writers or otherwise--that it's all about heart. Heart and mind and soul dancing together, even if they step all over each other's feet.
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Summary: Not exactly universal
Review: I recognize that Lamott, unlike me, is a published author, so I hardly have the right to critique her methods. As an aspiring author, though (presumably the target market for this book), I think the fact that I found it irritating and unhelpful does have some significance for other perspective buyers. Someone once said that an author is someone for whom 'writing is more difficult than it is for other people.' I don't neccesarily agree with that, but Lamott obviously does. About half of the time, when she talks about writer's block or issues related to writer's block (how to start yourself on the path to a succesful work of fiction), she makes it sound like writing a decent paragraph on the first try is something that happens about as often as God cures you of blindness. She has all kinds of suggestions for how to essentially trick yourself into writing. I always assumed that being good at something meant that you could actually do it...again, I realize how singularly this is my opinion, but if writing fiction is that hard, maybe your talent is for something else. The other approximate half of the book consists of more practical advice about style, plot and character, a lot of which is practical, some of which tends toward the obvious. Its best feature is Lamott's comic style, which is really ingenious at times, but I would still say that this book is probably of more of interest to casual literature students than to people seriously considering a career as a novelist.
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Summary: Ten stars, please. A classic in its own time
Review: Here's the thing: I KNOW Anne Lamott loves writing fiction, and she's helluv good at it. But I swear she's at her best when writing nonfiction. Afterall, it was Bird by Bird and Operating Instructions that put her over the top; then she followed up with Traveling Mercies. The quality and longevity of her fiction pale by comparison.
Bird by Bird is simply one of the three best books on the angst of writing and being a writer that's ever been written. The other two are Writing Down the Bones and S. King's On Writing. But the three books are very, very different. King's is actually pretty weird in spots, as he is, but for the most part it's all about philosophy. Natalie Goldberg's 'Bones' is very instructional and inspirational.
But Lamott! Oh, Annie's book is just as outrageously honest and funny and true and painful in the telling as it is in actuality to be a writer.
Wonderful, wonderful book; highest recommendation.
Read it.
If you're a writer, you'll get some advice from a master on how to cope with (or not) self-doubt, writer's block, and jealousy. But read it anyway, even if you're not the least bit interested in being a writer but just happen to like her other books; you won't be disappointed.
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Summary: Writer's Reality
Review: Ms. Lamott has truly captured the essence of the world of a creative writer. She truly expresses what it is to be a professional author. Her book is filled with anecdotes that are so truthful and real that the reader automatically relates to her comments and experiences. She has fully achieved one of her objectives in getting her prose to "ring true" to the reader. The author talks about how a person driven to be a writer can discipline themselves and develop a personal system to create work. Her book makes comments on all the common problems that writers experience, including such things as writer's block, plot and character development and mental static. Within all of this Ms. Lamott introduces a dose of reality, that could be seen as cynical, if she didn't have such a witty and personal way of relating it to the reader. The book is filled with instructive advice on writing and life and serves to draw the reader in to the author's life, by cathartically experiencing or re-experiencing one's own personal life events. Not only does Ms. Lamott give people a reason to write, but she also answers the question once and for all, can someone teach another how to write better work? Ms. Lamott proves that this is eminently possible with this book. All people interesting in a writing career or even an adjunct career as a writer would be well advised to read "Bird By Bird."
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Summary: Take it from someone who knows
Review: I loved this book. It was full of life lessons that you can use whether or not you ever write a book. This author is so wise and so funny. She has been there...done that...and is willing to share her experiences which will hopefully help keep you from making some of the mistakes she did.
This book was my first experience with Lamott, but certainly not my last. She has earned my respect.
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Summary: this book flies
Review: This is the best book on writing that I've read. Witty enough to leaven any hints of self-pity, and compulsively quotable, I would recommend it to anyone struggling with their writing (which is all of us, at one time or another). It looks at (to paraphrase the author) the dark places under the ice that we're really not too keen on examining up close, but which turn out to be not so scary and not so unique once we do. If you think you're alone in trying to write well, you aren't. Anne Lamott is proof, and she's proof that it's possible to even laugh at ourselves on the way to becoming better at our craft.
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