NATALIE GOLDBERG: Books

Available at Bookstores and on Amazon

Old Friend From Far Away:
The Practice of Writing Memoir
Free Press, Simon & Schuster

Now in Paperback

The Great Failure
My Unexpected Path to Truth

Special Bonus in Back
Essay “How I wrote The Great Failure,” by Natalie and “Beyond Betrayal,” Interview with Natalie

Out in bookstores and giftshops now.

The Essential Writer's Notebook

(Peter Pauper Press 2001).

This is the first time Natalie has been willing to say 'yes' to publishing a writing journal and it's to her specifications: a good spiral, a size that fits in a bag but with plenty of lined space for your own writing, filled with quotes of inspiration from her best selling writing books and punctuated by full page colored reproductions of her lively paintings. And throughout the notebook is a whisper: Keep Your Hand Moving.

This book will inspire you and makes a great gift. To order directly, call 1-800-833-2311.

NEW:
Twentieth Anniversary Expanded Edition
with a New Preface and Interview with Author

Writing Down The Bones
Freeing The Writer Within
(Shambhala, 1986)

The book that started a revolution in the way people think about writing, now available in both standard and pocket size.

"The secret of creativity, Natalie Goldberg makes clear, is to subtract rules for writing, not add them....Proof that she knows what she's talking about is abundant in her own sentences. They flow with speed and grace and accuracy and simplicity....It's the simple style of a Zen archer who looks like he's not even aiming, yet sends arrow after arrow to the bull's eye, time after time."
Robert Pirsig, author of "Zen in the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance"

Top of My Lungs

(Overlook Press)

With full-color reproductions of the author’s glorious paintings, which both complement the forty poems and stand out on their own, and the introductory essay, “How Poetry Saved My Life.”

Thunder and Lightning

In this long-awaited sequel to her bestselling books Writing Down the Bones and Wild Mind, Natalie Goldberg takes us on to the next step in the writing process: turning our flashes of inspiration–the thunder and lightning of creation–into a polished piece of work.

Wild Mind
Living The Writer's Life
(Bantam, 1990)
(secretly Natalie's favorite book)

Here is compassionate, practical, and often humorous advice about how to find time to write, how to discover your personal style, how to make sentences come alive, and how to overcome procrastination and writer's block--including more than thirty provocative "Try This" exercises to get your pen moving.

"WAKES YOU UP LIKE A CROSS BETWEEN MORNING COFFEE AND A FRIENDLY ZEN MASTER."
Jack Kornfield, Buddhist teacher and
author of "Seeking The Heart of Wisdom"

"NATALIE GOLDBERG GETS MY HAND MOVING AGAIN WHEN WRITER'S BLOCK GRIPS IT. HER METHOD IS MY METHOD: LOSE THE CENSOR, FREE THE WRITER IN YOURSELF."
Erica Jong, author of "Fear of Flying"

Long Quiet Long Quiet Highway
Waking Up in America
(Bantam, 1993)
(secretly her readers' favorite book)
From the high school classroom where she first listened to the rain, to her fifteen years as a student of Zen Buddhism, she captures both the moments of illumination and the long discipline of daily practice, the hilarity of error and the grief of our resistance to change.

"Long Quiet Highway is the autobiography of a thoughtful woman who grounded herself in Eastern thought and Western art-- a precise history of Natalie Goldberg's adventures as a poet, teacher, and spiritual student-- a book full of sentiment and anecdote."
Allen Ginsberg

Banana Rose
(Bantam, 1995)
(secretly New Mexico's favorite book)

Subtly hilarious and achingly raw, this novel is the story of Nell's long, strange trip from her beloved New Mexico to the alien Midwest and back again. As she struggles with the demands of canvas and paint, with her family and faith, and with her own wild heart, she discovers the one secret power that sustains her through it all.

"I'd read anything Natalie Goldberg writes.... After reading Banana Rose, you'll be wondering if you haven't just had a pure glimpse of Natalie herself, and you'll be wanting to rush to Taos to visit the candy store where . . . 'You don't buy anything here. You just stop in.'"
Clarissa Pinkola Estes, Ph.D.,
author of "Women Who Run With the Wolves"

Living Color
A Writer Paints Her World
(Bantam, 1997)
(secretly her father's favorite book
- it has numerous paintings of him!)

Illustrated with 60 high quality color reproductions, and narrated in Natalie's vivid style, her journey as a painter teaches us the joy of being entranced by color and texture and shows us how to be connected to our pure hearts.

Natalie's works are on display and can be purchased at the Ernesto Mayans Gallery on Canyon Road in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Call 505-983-8068

"Natalie Goldberg paints as she writes -- with a passionate, singular vision. She captures in the dailiness of 'things' --a chair, a stove, a gap-toothed piano, a jalopy--something divinely humorous and humorously divine. Part memoir and pure magic, Living Color is a book of luminous humanity."
Julia Cameron, author of "The Artists' Way" and "The Vein of Gold: A Journey To Your Creative Heart"