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Summary: Fun and impractical
Review: Anne Lamott is real, loveable, funny and honest, and this book will make most creative writers feel better about their own idiosyncracies and insecurities, but the actual advice on writing as craft could probably have been reduced to two pages. Buy it for entertainment and good company, not as a how-to book.
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Summary: BEST WRITING ADVICE I'VE EVER ENCOUNTERED!
Review: My copy of "Bird by Bird" is so underlined, highlighed and dog-eared that I may have to get a spare copy so I can start all over again. The most honest, down-to-earth book about writing I've ever read---and I've read them all. There's not a pretentious bone in Anne Lamott's body--what you see is what you get with her! I love what she said on page 102 about paying attention:"To be engrossed by something outside ourselves is a powerful antidote for the rational mind, the mind that so frequently()---seeing things in such a narrow and darkly narcissistic what that it presents a colo-rectal theology, offering hope to no one." The entire book is quotable! You come away feeling as if you've found a funky, new friend who you can't wait to visit again. I highly recommend all of her books. Not one of them has ever disappointed me!
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Summary: A Rehash of Another Author's Book
Review: I can't believe that no one else has recognized that Bird by Bird is nothing but a rehash of Brenda Ueland's book, If You Want to Write--A Book about Art, Independence and Spirit. Only Ms. Ueland did it so much better--back in the 1930's. The original author teaches us how to write--without all the self-serving rhetoric of the copycat. Grab a copy of If You Want to Write--get the real McCoy.
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Summary: From textbook to personal writing inspiration
Review: I first encountered Bird by Bird in my college Comp I class. My professor read us the part about school lunches, and had us all write an exercise from it. A year later, I took the same professor's Creative Writing class, and Bird by Bird was one of the text book's we used. I was thrilled. We were to read the book, and write an essay about what it had meant to us for part of the final grade in the class. That was one of the easiest assignments I've ever had. The hardest part was where to stop! Since then, Bird by Bird has been on and off a shelf next to my computer: on the shelf, waiting like a good friend to lend encouragement at a glance, off the shelf in those times when I've found writing difficult and needed a little more in-depth look at the "why"s of writer's block. I definitely recommend it to anyone who enjoys writing, knows someone who does, or just likes a good read now and then. It's very entertaining, and gives a good perspective as to what's really going on in a writer's mind and life.
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Summary: Rings very true.
Review: I am a writer myself, who read BIRD BY BIRD just because I like to read Anne Lamott in any form or fashion. I like her hard true way of looking at life and wasn't disappointed when she took a hard look at writing, her tone real and compassionate. I only wish I'd had BIRD BY BIRD when I was unpublished and struggling because it would have by God encouraged me. Though I find some of Lamott's views too liberal and Californian for words, I think she hits the nail on the head somewhere near the end of the book when she points out that most writers were silenced as children and refuse to be silenced anymore. I've never heard this anywhere else and wonder why not. I say: keep speaking the truth, Annie. We love you in the South, dreds and all.
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Summary: Happy fools
Review: Reading Anne Lamott is like hanging out with a good friend who lets you make a happy fool of yourself and then hands you a tissue so you can wipe the drool off your chin. Her comforting "bird by bird" ideas keep me company and comfort me like my best softest slippers. Anne Lamott thinks that "mistakes" are really warm ups to live through and enjoy even, maybe, on the way to writing something true.
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Summary: Motivation & Encouragement in Pill Form
Review: I found this book to be inspiring and validating for both writing and life; it is sure to be my writing bible, along with Natalie Goldberg's Writing Down the Bones. Anne Lamott's unconventional perspective is as motivating as it is pragmatic. The exercises she prescribes have been wonderful successes in my writing group, as well as the short assignments and index cards, which go everywhere with me now. Rarely does a book provide such good direction and make you laugh out loud as you read. I had to stop every few pages to scribble down something that had crept into my consciousness. At this book's conclusion I felt like I'd been given a pep talk by a bosom buddy.
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Summary: bird by bird
Review: The idea for the title of the book from a childhood memory by the author. When her older was overwhelmed by the magnitude of information,he had to organize in order to write a report on birds. The father said " bird by bird,bird by bird". The wisdom of this quote, made a great impression on me.This book was not only insightful with regards to writing,but also gave meaningful insight into life. Throughout the book the author cleverly described tips for better writing. I would highly recommend this book to anyone who has a passion for writing and wants to improve their own personal writing style. She used creativity and humor to get her points across. I would give this book four stars because I really enjoyed reading it.
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Summary: Caught in Lamott's witty spell
Review: Anne Lamott writes more eloquently than most on the trauma of writer's block. When a professor of mine spoke highly of BIRD BY BIRD, knowing I was studying flow for my own (subsequently bestselling) book WRITING IN FLOW, I was prepared to dislike it. After all, Lamott's novels are hardly famous, and the book she did begin to get known for is a memoir of the first year of her son's life. Since I started and stopped something similar, I was jealous. But then I fell under her spell. Bird by Bird is a very funny book, and most of the humor is the endearingly self-deprecating kind. Besides, Lamott speaks openly of her own jealousy of any writer friend who is slightly more successful at the moment than she is. I'm a sucker for honesty. Don't read this book to be entertained however. Read it to find out something about designing a plot, creating characters, and writing dialogue. Read it to find out how good writing happens. According to Lamott, it happens when "you sit down at approximately the same time every day. This is how you train your subconscious to kick in for you creatively." The honest part comes you stare at it for an hour or so. You begin rocking, just a little at first, and then like a huge autistic child." This quick-reading book is filled with fresh anecdotes, personal revelations, and practical tips about taking notes, writing groups, and who should read your drafts. You complete it all in a rush ending with the reassuring sense that regular people, like the author and yourself, if you work harder than you expected to have to, can produce something very good. And although Lamott mainly writes about her own individual experiences, her insights and advice coincide nicely with what I found to be true by interviewing 76 top novelists and poets for my WRITING IN FLOW.
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Summary: Most Helpful Book on Writing I Know
Review: I've been a publishing fiction writer for over twenty years and been teaching fiction writing for fifteen. When I discovered this book a few years ago, I seized on it as a work to use in class, but it's become increasingly important in my life and work as well. We read it the first week of class so that the students can hear the things I want to tell them in a funnier and more congenial voice than I can muster, and we refer back to it all semester long. Whenever we talk about it, I'm reminded not only of the great lessons about writing Annie has enclosed, but about the truths about the writing life we find here: the act of writing is more important than publishing, and striving to be a good person is more important than either.
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