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The Backyard Bird Journal: Pages for Writing, Sketching, and Living Deeply in Nature
Based on Amy Tan's #1 New York Times bestseller The Backyard Bird Chronicles, this beautifully bound nature journal with a removable half-jacket and ribbon marker is ready to capture the happenings outside your window.
What are the stories in your backyard? Whether you're a birder, hiker, or simply enjoy being outdoors, this thoughtfully designed journal helps you channel intentional curiosity with room to write and sketch what you observe outdoors. Within The Backyard Bird Journal, you'll find a new introduction from Amy Tan, her "no rules" guide to nature journaling with examples from her own work, and daily journaling pages peppered with quotes and sketch art from The Backyard Bird Chronicles.
Use these pages to simply write or draw what is happening in front of you—whatever you notice and what it might remind you of. Keep the journal by a window or bring it with you on a walk. With a lay-flat spine, ribbon marker, removable jacket, and high-quality paper ideal for pen or pencil, The Backyard Bird Journal is your space for musing, reflecting on, and capturing the natural wonders of the world, whether you are a budding or practiced nature enthusiast.
What are the stories in your backyard? Whether you're a birder, hiker, or simply enjoy being outdoors, this thoughtfully designed journal helps you channel intentional curiosity with room to write and sketch what you observe outdoors. Within The Backyard Bird Journal, you'll find a new introduction from Amy Tan, her "no rules" guide to nature journaling with examples from her own work, and daily journaling pages peppered with quotes and sketch art from The Backyard Bird Chronicles.
Use these pages to simply write or draw what is happening in front of you—whatever you notice and what it might remind you of. Keep the journal by a window or bring it with you on a walk. With a lay-flat spine, ribbon marker, removable jacket, and high-quality paper ideal for pen or pencil, The Backyard Bird Journal is your space for musing, reflecting on, and capturing the natural wonders of the world, whether you are a budding or practiced nature enthusiast.
208 pages, Hardcover
Published November 4, 2025
2 people are currently reading
5185 people want to read
About the author
Amy Tan
101 books11.2k followersAmy Tan (Chinese: 譚恩美; pinyin: Tán Ēnměi; born February 19, 1952) is an American writer whose novels include The Joy Luck Club, The Kitchen God’s Wife, The Hundred Secret Senses, The Bonesetter’s Daughter, Saving Fish From Drowing, and The Valley of Amazement. She is the author of two memoirs, The Opposite of Fate and Where the Past Begins. Her two children’s books are The Chinese Siamese Cat and The Moon Lady. She is also the co-screenwriter of the film adaptation of The Joy Luck, the librettist of the opera The Bonesetter’s Daughter, and the creative consultant to the PBS animated series Sagwa the Chinese Chinese Cat.
Tan is an instructor with MasterClass on writing, memory and imagination. She is featured in the American Masters documentary Amy Tan: Unintended Memoir. She was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Letters and recently received the National Humanities Medal. She serves on the board of American Bird Conservancy.
Her forthcoming book The Backyard Bird Chronicles began as a journal in 2016, when she turned to nature for calm. She also began taking drawing classes with John Muir Laws (The Laws Guide to Nature Journaling and Drawing, and The Laws Guide to Drawing Birds). During the pandemic shutdown, she drew birds only in her backyard, documenting behaviors she found puzzling. Over time she identified 64 species of birds that have visited her backyard in Marin County. By 2022, she had more than nine journals of sketches and notes, which her editor at Knopf suggested she publish. The book, which will be released in April 2024, has already received high praise:
“Much of great writing comes from great interest, and in The Backyard Bird Chronicles, Amy Tan shows us how the world fascinates her, especially the birds. The result is both unexpected and spectacular.”
—Ann Patchett, author of These Precious Days
“What an enchanting and illuminating book! How lucky for us that Amy Tan has turned her genius, her deep empathy and insight, her keen eye for what is telling, to birds. Every page of these chronicles radiates warm curiosity, wonder, and delight.”
—Jennifer Ackerman, The Genius of Birds
“This is one of the most infectious and convincing books about nature I’ve read. For the bird-watcher, the would-be bird-watcher, or for the bird-watching skeptic, this offers great delight and unexpected intrigue. Through Tan’s ecstatic eyes, what could be a dry treatise on ornithological happenings becomes something far more fun and much more profound. It’s really a book about seeing.”
—Dave Eggers, author of Ungrateful Mammals
“Anybody even mildly interested in birds, or thinking about getting interested in birds (which are, after all, the indicator genus for the health of the planet), will want this book perched on their shelf, if only for the gift of Amy Tan’s eye and the example she gives us of how to pay attention. What a treasure.”
—Robert Hass, Pulitzer Prize-Winning author of Summer Snow: New Poems
“Backyard Bird Chronicles is fun reading. It shows how we can become engaged emotionally, literally and artistically with the natural world—to joyfully learn about the most accessible and yet wild animals, the often rare and beautiful birds that choose to come and live near and sometimes with us.”
—Bernd Heinrich, author of Mind of the Raven
“With this book as your guide, embark into the bird world Amy Tan. This is an intimate view, a sort-of love affair with the birds and their behavior, that Amy has come to know over several years. Within the leafy universe of her own backyard, she has quietly beheld, patiently observed, and taken in-depth notations of an extensive array of bird species. In colorful detail, she describes various bird’s behavior, while capturing their beauty in exquisitely rendered illustrations. Species include fearsome predators and watchful prey, long distance migrants and hometown residents. Through her unique insight and gift as an author and
Tan is an instructor with MasterClass on writing, memory and imagination. She is featured in the American Masters documentary Amy Tan: Unintended Memoir. She was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Letters and recently received the National Humanities Medal. She serves on the board of American Bird Conservancy.
Her forthcoming book The Backyard Bird Chronicles began as a journal in 2016, when she turned to nature for calm. She also began taking drawing classes with John Muir Laws (The Laws Guide to Nature Journaling and Drawing, and The Laws Guide to Drawing Birds). During the pandemic shutdown, she drew birds only in her backyard, documenting behaviors she found puzzling. Over time she identified 64 species of birds that have visited her backyard in Marin County. By 2022, she had more than nine journals of sketches and notes, which her editor at Knopf suggested she publish. The book, which will be released in April 2024, has already received high praise:
“Much of great writing comes from great interest, and in The Backyard Bird Chronicles, Amy Tan shows us how the world fascinates her, especially the birds. The result is both unexpected and spectacular.”
—Ann Patchett, author of These Precious Days
“What an enchanting and illuminating book! How lucky for us that Amy Tan has turned her genius, her deep empathy and insight, her keen eye for what is telling, to birds. Every page of these chronicles radiates warm curiosity, wonder, and delight.”
—Jennifer Ackerman, The Genius of Birds
“This is one of the most infectious and convincing books about nature I’ve read. For the bird-watcher, the would-be bird-watcher, or for the bird-watching skeptic, this offers great delight and unexpected intrigue. Through Tan’s ecstatic eyes, what could be a dry treatise on ornithological happenings becomes something far more fun and much more profound. It’s really a book about seeing.”
—Dave Eggers, author of Ungrateful Mammals
“Anybody even mildly interested in birds, or thinking about getting interested in birds (which are, after all, the indicator genus for the health of the planet), will want this book perched on their shelf, if only for the gift of Amy Tan’s eye and the example she gives us of how to pay attention. What a treasure.”
—Robert Hass, Pulitzer Prize-Winning author of Summer Snow: New Poems
“Backyard Bird Chronicles is fun reading. It shows how we can become engaged emotionally, literally and artistically with the natural world—to joyfully learn about the most accessible and yet wild animals, the often rare and beautiful birds that choose to come and live near and sometimes with us.”
—Bernd Heinrich, author of Mind of the Raven
“With this book as your guide, embark into the bird world Amy Tan. This is an intimate view, a sort-of love affair with the birds and their behavior, that Amy has come to know over several years. Within the leafy universe of her own backyard, she has quietly beheld, patiently observed, and taken in-depth notations of an extensive array of bird species. In colorful detail, she describes various bird’s behavior, while capturing their beauty in exquisitely rendered illustrations. Species include fearsome predators and watchful prey, long distance migrants and hometown residents. Through her unique insight and gift as an author and
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