
The Backyard Bird Chronicles
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Narrated by:
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Amy Tan
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Evan Sibley
About this listen
A gorgeous, witty account of birding, nature, and the beauty around us that hides in plain sight, written and illustrated by the best-selling author of The Joy Luck Club • With a foreword by David Allen Sibley
“Unexpected and spectacular”—Ann Patchett, best-selling author of These Precious Days
"The drawings and essays in this book do a lot more than just describe the birds. They carry a sense of discovery through observation and drawing, suggest the layers of patterns in the natural world, and emphasize a deep personal connection between the watcher and the watched. The birds that inhabit Amy Tan’s backyard seem a lot like the characters in her novels.”—David Allen Sibley, from the foreword
Tracking the natural beauty that surrounds us, The Backyard Bird Chronicles maps the passage of time through daily entries, thoughtful questions, and beautiful original sketches. With boundless charm and wit, author Amy Tan charts her foray into birding and the natural wonders of the world.
In 2016, Amy Tan grew overwhelmed by the state of the world: Hatred and misinformation became a daily presence on social media, and the country felt more divisive than ever. In search of peace, Tan turned toward the natural world just beyond her window and, specifically, the birds visiting her yard. But what began as an attempt to find solace turned into something far greater—an opportunity to savor quiet moments during a volatile time, connect to nature in a meaningful way, and imagine the intricate lives of the birds she admired.
This audiobook includes a downloadable PDF of images and resources from the book
PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.
©2024 Amy Tan and David Allen Sibley (P)2024 Random House AudioListeners also enjoyed...
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Critic reviews
“Delightful . . . Tan’s lovely graphite and colored pencil drawings reveal yet another side of the multitalented author . . . Her depictions of their habits and foibles are laced with considerable wit . . . Her bird chronicles are fun, too—and informative.”—Heller McAlpin, Los Angeles Times
“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
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Unraveling
- What I Learned About Life While Shearing Sheep, Dyeing Wool, and Making the World’s Ugliest Sweater
- By: Peggy Orenstein
- Narrated by: Peggy Orenstein
- Length: 5 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
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The COVID pandemic propelled many people to change their lives in ways large and small. Some adopted puppies. Others stress-baked. Peggy Orenstein, a lifelong knitter, went just a little further. To keep herself engaged and cope with a series of seismic shifts in family life, she set out to make a garment from the ground up: learning to shear sheep, spin and dye yarn, then knitting herself a sweater.
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Nailed it!
- By Miss Effie on 02-19-23
By: Peggy Orenstein
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Becoming Kin
- An Indigenous Call to Unforgetting the Past and Reimagining Our Future
- By: Patty Krawec, Nick Estes - foreword
- Narrated by: Patty Krawec
- Length: 5 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
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The invented history of the Western world is crumbling fast, Anishinaabe writer Patty Krawec says, but we can still honor the bonds between us. Settlers dominated and divided, but Indigenous peoples won't just send them all "home." Weaving her own story with the story of her ancestors and with the broader themes of creation, replacement, and disappearance, Krawec helps listeners see settler colonialism through the eyes of an Indigenous writer.
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Relearning History
- By Bo Buxton on 02-05-23
By: Patty Krawec, and others
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Daffodil Hill
- Uprooting My Life, Buying a Farm, and Learning to Bloom
- By: Jake Keiser
- Narrated by: Jake Keiser
- Length: 8 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
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Jake Keiser was living the life in Tampa, Florida, running a high-powered PR firm and juggling drink dates, shopping sprees, and charity galas. But at age thirty-eight, following a failed marriage, a series of miscarriages, and a still-blistering breakup, she began to suffer from extreme anxiety. Hit with the realization that no amount of Botox could fill the hole in her heart, she decided to make the impulse purchase of a lifetime and bought a farm in the middle of nowhere, Mississippi.
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Strong start, good perspective
- By Katerina on 01-13-24
By: Jake Keiser
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Bartleby and Me
- Reflections of an Old Scrivener
- By: Gay Talese
- Narrated by: Mike Ortego
- Length: 8 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
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“New York is a city of things unnoticed,” a young reporter named Gay Talese wrote sixty years ago. He would spend the rest of his legendary career defying that statement by celebrating the people most reporters overlooked, understanding that it was through these minor characters that the epic story of New York and America unfolded. Inspired by Herman Melville’s great short story “Bartleby, the Scrivener,” Talese now revisits the unforgettable “nobodies” he has profiled in his celebrated career—from the New York Times’s anonymous obituary writer to Frank Sinatra’s entourage.
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Wonderful meandering
- By nyc2cents on 11-01-23
By: Gay Talese
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Good Grief
- On Loving Pets, Here and Hereafter
- By: E.B. Bartels
- Narrated by: Eileen Stevens
- Length: 5 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
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An unexpected, poignant, and personal account of loving and losing pets, exploring the singular bonds we have with our companion animals, and how to grieve them once they’ve passed.
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Much needed reflections.
- By Stephanie Joens on 11-07-24
By: E.B. Bartels
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A Fever in the Heartland
- The Ku Klux Klan's Plot to Take Over America, and the Woman Who Stopped Them
- By: Timothy Egan
- Narrated by: Timothy Egan
- Length: 10 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
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The Roaring Twenties—the Jazz Age—has been characterized as a time of Gatsby frivolity. But it was also the height of the uniquely American hate group, the Ku Klux Klan. Their domain was not the old Confederacy, but the Heartland and the West. They hated Blacks, Jews, Catholics and immigrants in equal measure, and took radical steps to keep these people from the American promise. And the man who set in motion their takeover of great swaths of America was a charismatic charlatan named D.C. Stephenson.
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This is a must read!
- By V. Richmond on 04-14-23
By: Timothy Egan
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They Called Us Exceptional
- And Other Lies That Raised Us
- By: Prachi Gupta
- Narrated by: Prachi Gupta
- Length: 9 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
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Family defined the cultural identity of Prachi and her brother, Yush, connecting them to a larger Indian American community amid white suburbia. But their belonging was predicated on a powerful myth: the idea that Asian Americans, and Indian Americans in particular, have perfected the alchemy of middle-class life, raising tight-knit, high-achieving families that are immune to hardship. Molding oneself to fit this image often comes at a steep, but hidden, cost.
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Good good
- By Wild on 08-29-23
By: Prachi Gupta
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The Watchmaker's Daughter
- The True Story of World War II Heroine Corrie ten Boom
- By: Larry Loftis
- Narrated by: Christa Lewis
- Length: 8 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
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The Watchmaker’s Daughter is one of the greatest stories of World War II that listeners haven’t heard: the remarkable and inspiring life story of Corrie ten Boom—a groundbreaking, female Dutch watchmaker, whose family unselfishly transformed their house into a hiding place straight out of a spy novel to shelter Jews and refugees from the Nazis during Gestapo raids. Even though the Nazis knew what the ten Booms were up to, they were never able to find those sheltered within the house when they raided it.
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Yes!!
- By Michele on 03-07-23
By: Larry Loftis
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Wandering Stars
- A Novel
- By: Tommy Orange
- Narrated by: Shaun Taylor-Corbett, MacLeod Andrews, Alma Cuervo, and others
- Length: 9 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
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Star, a young survivor of the Sand Creek Massacre, is brought to the Fort Marion prison castle, where he is forced to learn English and practice Christianity by Richard Henry Pratt, an evangelical prison guard who will go on to found the Carlisle Indian Industrial School, an institution dedicated to the eradication of Native history, culture, and identity. A generation later, Star’s son, Charles, is sent to the school, where he is brutalized by the man who was once his father’s jailer. Under Pratt’s harsh treatment, Charles clings to moments he shares with a young fellow student, Opal Viola.
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Beautiful writing and performance of realistic native family saga
- By ReallyNelie on 07-12-24
By: Tommy Orange
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Stuff Matters
- Exploring the Marvelous Materials That Shape Our Man-Made World
- By: Mark Miodownik
- Narrated by: Matthew Waterson
- Length: 6 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
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In Stuff Matters, Miodownik entertainingly examines the materials he encounters in a typical morning, from the steel in his razor and the graphite in his pencil to the foam in his sneakers and the concrete in a nearby skyscraper. He offers a compendium of the most astounding histories and marvelous scientific breakthroughs in the material world.
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Might be a good pick for a young teen
- By Ross on 03-26-25
By: Mark Miodownik
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Sounds Wild and Broken
- Sonic Marvels, Evolution's Creativity, and the Crisis of Sensory Extinction
- By: David George Haskell
- Narrated by: Steven Jay Cohen, David George Haskell
- Length: 15 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
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We live on a planet alive with song, music, and speech. David Haskell explores how these wonders came to be. In rain forests shimmering with insect sound and swamps pulsing with frog calls we learn about evolution’s creative powers. From birds in the Rocky Mountains and on the streets of Paris, we discover how animals learn their songs and adapt to new environments. Below the waves, we hear our kinship to beings as different as snapping shrimp, toadfish, and whales.
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A poet-philosopher-scientist-sage for the ages!
- By S. Kalita on 03-27-22
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The Phoenix Crown
- A Novel
- By: Kate Quinn, Janie Chang
- Narrated by: Saskia Maarleveld, Katharine Chin
- Length: 11 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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San Francisco, 1906. In a city bustling with newly minted millionaires and scheming upstarts, two very different women hope to change their fortunes: Gemma, a golden-haired, silver-voiced soprano whose career desperately needs rekindling, and Suling, a petite and resolute Chinatown embroideress who is determined to escape an arranged marriage. Their paths cross when they are drawn into the orbit of Henry Thornton, a charming railroad magnate whose extraordinary collection of Chinese antiques includes the fabled Phoenix Crown, a legendary relic of Beijing’s fallen Summer Palace.
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A Queen of the Night
- By Syd Young on 02-15-24
By: Kate Quinn, and others
What listeners say about The Backyard Bird Chronicles
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- Citizen M
- 05-21-24
Gentle, bird-centric plot
If you like birds (or want to learn more about them) this book is for you
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4 people found this helpful
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- Julia T.
- 04-07-25
Wondrous!
This book was like cool breeze on a warm day. Calming, refreshing, and interesting without being demanding. Just great!
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- Candace
- 06-02-24
Nature journaling is great.
I found in a truly journaling group in Austin, Texas, and in Tucson, Arizona, where I hope to participate.
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- Don Rottiers
- 06-17-24
Amy Tans narration is wonderful
Does not matter if you like birds 🦅 or not you will love this book and may find a new hobby. I now know why this book has been number one in best sellers. I will reread this book as soon as my wife finishes it and we can compare notes . Very rare I can find a book that moves me like this one did. I must get the hard copy also so I can see Amy’s drawings .
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- lisa childress
- 01-19-25
Inspiring!
I LOVED hearing and learning about the birds in Amy’s yard. She reads so beautifully, it was a pleasure listening.
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- Amazon customer
- 06-06-24
Embued with life, love, care and mealie worms.
Amy Tan’s characterization of bird types is a world she ardently observes that is encapsulated amidst bird feeders.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Robin Kay Quinn
- 08-28-24
Delightful journal of an author turned bird lover
Amy Tan has inspired me with her chronicles of backyard bird tending and watching. I find myself more attentive of the little animals in my own yards, and for that, Amy, I thank you.
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- Susan McCarthy
- 10-25-24
detail
I enjoyed the detail and Amy’s love of birds.I’m amazed at how she knows the birds’ names.
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- Chip C.
- 12-21-24
A Most Enthusiastic Backyard Birder and a very fun listen
Being a bacyard birder myself, I can relate to and fully appreciate Amy's excitement as she so fully enjoys her avian friends. You simply never know what you'll see next. Told with a pleasant voice, she describes in a witty and fun way her many experiences while enjoying the natural world without going any further than her own backyard. I didn't want it to end.
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- Michelle Miles-Harman
- 04-01-25
So beautifully written and told
I do not consider myself a bird person - but this book was just beautiful and opened my eyes and mind to the beauty of birds!
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