Lili Taylor - Turning to Birds

Name: Lili Taylor - Turning to Birds
Start: 2025-09-16T19:00:00-05:00
Location: 15 S Dubuque St, Iowa City, IA, United States, Iowa 52240

Schedule

Tue, 16 Sep, 2025 at 07:00 pm

UTC-05:00

Location

15 S Dubuque St, Iowa City, IA, United States, Iowa 52240 | Iowa City, IA

Actor (and now author!) Lili Taylor will read from her debut book, Turning to Birds: The Power and Beauty of Noticing. Penguin Random House says the following about one of its newest titles:

Most people don’t really know birds—or rather, they aren’t aware of them. Lili Taylor used to be one of those people. She knew birds existed. She thought about them, maybe even more than the average person. But she didn’t know them. And then something happened. During a much-needed break from her work as an actor, Lili sought silence and instead found the bustling, symphonic world of birds that had always existed around her. Since then, she has kept a keen eye pressed to her binoculars in search of vivid stories that elevate the everyday, if only one pays attention. Through a series of beautifully crafted essays, Taylor shares her intimate encounters with the birds that have captured her heart and imagination—from tracking flitting woodpeckers through oak trees to spotting majestic blue jays perched on a Manhattan fire escape; from the exhilaration of witnessing a migratory flock from the top of the Empire State Building to the quiet joy of observing a nest of hatchlings in her own backyard. Through simply paying attention to birds, Lili has been shown a parallel world that is wider and deeper, one of constant change and movement, full of life and the will to survive (penguinrandomhouse.com).

Audubon Magazine praises Turning to Birds as "A profoundly relatable story about falling in love with the avian world," while Griffin Dunne--actor, director, and author of The Friday Afternoon Club--says: "Lili Taylor is an actor I’ve long been in awe of, and now I know why her work has always been soulful and painfully honest. Turning to Birds is a treasure map to Lili’s inner life and a scripture in how to be truly mindful."

Lili Taylor has starred in such films as Ship of Fools, Ransom, Girls Town, I Shot Andy Warhol, Short Cuts, Dogfight, Say Anything, Public Enemies, and The Conjuring. She appeared on television in HBO’s Subway Stories and on stage in Three Sisters and Avenue Boys.