Bird by Bird

Some Instructions on Writing and Life

By: Anne Lamott

Narrated by: Susan Bennett

Length: 6 hrs and 18 mins

Publisher's summary

Bird by Bird is a modern classic - a funny and practical guide to being a writer by the New York Times best-selling author Anne Lamott.

Bird by Bird is the bible of writing guides - a wry, honest, down-to-earth book that has never stopped selling since it was first published in the United States in the 1990s. Best-selling novelist and memoirist Anne Lamott distils what she's learned over years of trial and error. Beautifully written, wise and immensely helpful, this is the book for all serious writers and writers-to-be.

For a quarter century, more than a million people - scribes and scribblers of all ages and abilities - have been inspired by Anne Lamott’s hilarious, big-hearted, homespun advice. Advice that begins with the simple words of wisdom passed down from Anne’s father - also a writer - in the iconic passage that gives the book its title:

'Thirty years ago, my older brother, who was 10 years old at the time, was trying to get a report on birds written that he’d had three months to write. It was due the next day. We were out at our family cabin in Bolinas, and he was at the kitchen table close to tears, surrounded by binder paper and pencils and unopened books on birds, immobilized by the hugeness of the task ahead. Then my father sat down beside him, put his arm around my brother’s shoulder, and said, 'Bird by bird, buddy. Just take it bird by bird.'

©1994 Anne Lamott (P)2019 Penguin Random House LLC

Critic reviews

"A warm, generous and hilarious guide through the writer's world and its treacherous swamps." (Los Angeles Times)

"[A] classic of the genre.... The lessons she shares with her students...are refreshing." (Guardian)

"Deftly and honestly explores the mental challenges of being a writer, and Lamott's advice is, simply put, invaluable." (Bustle)