I’ve managed to get several advance reading copies of books that will be out April 23 so I will give my readers a few that they may want to preorder or suggest to their local library for purchase. I will start with The Backyard Bird Chronicles by Amy Tan.
You may be like me and have Amy Tan nicely cubbyholed into a novelist that writes from her cultural heritage. I have certainly enjoyed her string of books – The Kitchen God’s Wife, The Joy Luck Club, and The Bonesetter’s Daughter – to name a few. Now she has done something entirely different and worth reading.
In 2016, she became disturbed with the state of the world and turned to nature for relief from the volatility of social media and the news. From September 16, 2017 to December 15, 2022, she kept a what amounts to a bird diary, tracking visitors to her yard. The Backyard Bird Chronicles is her newest and entirely different book that chronicles her experience and knowledge about birds. In addition, she paints beautiful pictures of those birds with witty notes on what they were doing and perhaps what their motivations were.
Her chatty humor shows up in lines like, “I will not go to prison, a place where I would have gotten a lot of writing done.” Any idea that this is a scientific writing disappears with her use of words like “jolly” and “conniving” as descriptions and in her wondering questions. Day to day, she just invites the reader to join her enjoyment of the birds who show up around her.
Readers who are seeking their own escapes from the divisive world in which we live may join Amy Tan as she takes them into the natural world. Accessible knowledge about the birding world that she either knows already or learns about, her sense of humor, and her beautiful paintings will give relief from the world’s noise – and an entirely different picture of Amy Tan herself.
*Extra hint: If you love Amy’s bird paintings, you can follow her on Facebook for more.