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Little Birds

3.74 of 5 stars 3.74 · rating details · 4,117 ratings · 200 reviews

Evocative and superbly erotic, Little Birds is a powerful journey into the mysterious world of sex and sensuality. From the beach towns of Normandy to the streets of New Orleans, these thirteen vignettes introduce us to a covetous French painter, a sleepless wanderer of the night, a guitar-playing gypsy, and a host of others who yearn for and dive into the turbulent depths...more

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Published February 28th 2002 by Penguin Books, Limited (UK) (first published 1979)

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Mar 26, 2009 Amanda rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: dirty-dirty-dirty-dirty-dirty, 2009, shit-cool-kids-read

I give Little Birds four stars in comparison to Delta of Venus' two, though as a stand alone, it would probably only get 2 or 3. There are almost no disgusting and despicable sex scenes in Little Birds, and for this, I am grateful. (As it turns out, I'm a bit prudish after all...)

Little Birds is set in various places around the world, but quite often set in New York and New Orleans. It feels more modern than Delta of Venus. It feels more aware, more present. And this, my second dip into a colle...more

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Dec 02, 2007 Kitty rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: adults interested in intelligent erotica

Shelves: erotica, fiction

This book, along with it's companion book (they run together in my mind and am talking about both here), Delta of Venus, are wonderfully evocotive erotic stories. They are never the wham-bam-thank-you-ma'am stuff of porn magazines. Sometimes magical, sometimes freaky, with a European sensibility, these stories are softly spellbinding. I can't help but get caught up in them whenever I pick up these books. Elena, Pierre, Leila, the Basque and Bijou, what a cool group of characters! And there are s...more

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Jun 22, 2010 Adrienne rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: erotica

Ok first up I bought this knowing that it contained stories that are also in The Delta of Venus and Eros Unbound, so I guess out of 13 stories I've already read 6 most of which I love and adore and would read agian over and over. The remaining 7 left me feeling a little disappointed, the verve seems to have gone, the exquisite delicacy and graceful writing and words, vanished, the languidity replaced by a sense of urgency. Perhapes by the time she wrote these she was bored to tears of writing er...more

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Aug 06, 2007 Christine rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Anais Nin is in no way a contemporary of Henry Miller! Maybe it's my narrow view of things (and my first time at reading erotica) but it's really not that good. Her stories are short and bland and unstimulating. Even the language is simple. I don't aruge that she's a good writer (I believe she is) but the only thing I found remarkable about the book was the preface in which she describes how hard it is to focus solely on eroticism and how it changes your life. I may give one of her other books a...more

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Jan 10, 2013 Syringa Smyrna rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: american-literature

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. « It is an interesting fact that very few writers have of their own accord sat down to write erotic tales or confessions. Even in France, where it is believed that the erotic has such an important role in life, the writers who did so were driven by necessity – the need of money.
It is one thing to include eroticism in a novel or oa story and quite another to focus one’s whole attention on it. The first is like life itself. It is, I might say, natural, sincere, as in the sensual pages of Zola or...more

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Mar 19, 2011 Hannah rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: classic, erotic

One restless and unproductive afternoon I sat thinking of writers, of books and of something new to read. I didn't just want something on my 'to-read' list that I finally pull out. No, I wanted something utterly fresh, different, something I would remember whether for good or for bad. This book became Little Birds...

I would never have picked a book like this and thought it to be something good, if I hadn't have learned about her as a person, so in that way, I picked up the book for the writer, a...more

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Dec 17, 2010 Sabra Embury rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This book would be a great read for someone too conservatively raised to appreciate visual pornography for its valuable lessons in learning how to be comfortable with yourself or your partner. It would be a valuable read for someone who did not know how to caress his or her partner to get them aroused for sex.

If someone's fifteen-year-old son asked their mom or dad what sex was all about, first it would be wise to tell them about reproduction, how to avoid it until ready, venereal diseases, and...more

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Mar 14, 2010 Cheryl Gardner rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This little book of short stories is by far some of the finest erotica ever written. Nin is a true master of love, lust, and the body’s betrayal of our innermost desires. Nin writes with a simple elegance. Never overdoing the imagery, we get just what we need to feel the work without a crass microscopic examination. Nin plunges deeply into the psyche of her characters, and we get more than an up-close and personal intimate glimpse of their inner turmoil as they struggle to break free of their se...more This little book of short stories is by far some of the finest erotica ever written. Nin is a true master of love, lust, and the body’s betrayal of our innermost desires. Nin writes with a simple elegance. Never overdoing the imagery, we get just what we need to feel the work without a crass microscopic examination. Nin plunges deeply into the psyche of her characters, and we get more than an up-close and personal intimate glimpse of their inner turmoil as they struggle to break free of their self-imposed sexual limitations. Her characters awaken, blossom like flowers covered in the morning dew, and perfume the pages before our very eyes.

Nin is not merely writing about sex or sexual taboos in these stories; she is writing essays on humanity’s constant battle to reconcile our inner longings and emotional conflicts concerning sex and death. She definitely pushes the boundaries, but she does it with such nuance and such poetry and such innocence that the disturbing subject matter feels tempered in order for us to achieve a greater understanding of themes presented.

This is a wonderful introduction to Nin’s work. I highly recommend that all authors read her work, specifically authors who are interested in exploring sexuality in their own material. Her approach is genuine: voyeuristic without being intrusive. Those who are already familiar with the great erotic enchantress know this. This book is a must have for the collection. It is a book to return to with a blush and a smile over and over again. However, if you are looking for graphic depictions of sex, you will not find it here, for this is true erotica, and it takes a deeply subliminal approach, not plot laden poke and jab.

To me, there is a huge difference between erotica and pornography. Erotic doesn’t even necessarily have to be about sex, and as a reader and a writer, I don’t need it to be. I find that erotica tends to titillate at a deeper more emotional level, and ambiguity can be used to great effect. Well-written erotica affects the reader beyond the physical, and often times that affectation is so powerful that the physical can be left out entirely. As for my own work, I do write a fair amount of sex, and it’s never comfortable no matter how many times you do it. Each scene feels just like the first time you did it yourself. It’s awkward and fumbling and downright un-poetic, but just like the rest of the story, sex scenes evolve during the re-writes. Sex for your characters can be a well-spring of self-discovery, and if done well, they can deepen the experience for the reader and move the story beyond the plot-line. Sexual motivation is deeply rooted, and exploring your character’s Id can be quite fulfilling, if not a bit frightening. Just watch your language, erotica can turn into cheap porn with just a few puerile words … it doesn’t take much, and not every story needs sexual exploration. You are the author: you know the story and the characters … you will know if the story needs it or not depending on your overall Thesis. The trial and error part comes in deciding how deeply to explore. Don’t justify the need: be sure it’s worthwhile for your characters to go there; otherwise it will just read like a bad segue.

Of course, I am speaking of literary erotica here. If you are writing erotica for sexual titillation, meaning that you are writing pornography for the sole purpose of arousing the reader, then have at it: But you had better make it good. Clichés only leave my head throbbing and me longing for an aspirin. Spare me the twenty-inch manhood and the weeping multi-orgasmic vulvas paleeease. (less)

6 likes · like · see review

May 05, 2011 Vincent rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: erotica

This book was one of two small volumes of erotic short stories written by Anais Nin, the other being Delta of Venus. Nin was a member of the literary circle in pre-war Paris and later New York that included Henry Miller. On the basis of this and extensive diaries and fictionalised autobiography produced from them, she gained a reputation in the 1960s as a literary figure.

Nin's stories were among the first to be published when censorship laws were relaxed in the 1970s and this, plus the fact tha...more

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Dec 16, 2012 poiboy rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: favorites

Anais Nin is easily one of the highest tier of intelligent, smoothly clever and casually prolific erotica writers in modern literary history. the prologue to this collection of erotic short stories explains clearly how they came to be and why writers did so at the time. to even ponder a reality that she wrote most of this for pay and not for driven inner desire is impressive.
think on it like pulling off a term paper, that you have no real personal interest in, over a weekend. your 'teachers' ra...more

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Sep 12, 2008 Erika rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: other

This book was interesting. I was surprised to come across it while browsing at the library. Who knew? I had read Delta of Venus years ago and remember thinking that it was interesting (and informative), but that the writing style felt a little stiff. I have found that I still feel that way, but that I had missed the insight into our natures that really are what make the work enduring.

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Jul 14, 2011 Book Concierge rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This is a collection of erotic short stories. The best way I can describe the effect of this book on the reader comes from Nin’s own words in the preface. She comments that most writers of erotica do not set out to write such material; they are driven to it by the need for money. “Most of the erotica was written on empty stomachs.” She goes on to note that hunger will stimulate the imagination. But she also cautions that if “you get too hungry, too continuously, you become a bum…” I found some a...more

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Mar 12, 2012 Ricardo Perez rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

El esplendor de la juventud, la idea atrevida, los sitios prohibidos y el deseo de lo prejuzgado. Con una serie de cuentos más frescos que en "Delta de Venus" Anaïs Nin nos vuelve a sugestionar y despertar la imaginación al ubicarnos en sitios privilegiados, escribiendo para los hombres como lo siente una mujer. Deliciosos relatos de imágenes eróticas y sensuales, que van desde el fogoso y por todos anhelado encuentro con una mujer desconocida en la playa, hasta repetidas ocasiones en el estudio...more

1 like · like · see review

Jan 17, 2011 Lisa rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Here is how the book is billed: "Evocative, compelling, superbly erotic, Little Birds is a powerful journey into the mysterious world of sex and sensuality."

Here is what Alice Walker, one of my favorite female authors, has said: "[It is] so distinct an advance in the depiction of female sensuality that I felt, on reading it, enormous gratitude."

Here's what I thought: "Eh."

I am trying to find out whether Nin originally wrote in French and the work was translated to English...which might explain...more

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Aug 05, 2009 Grace Johnson rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

My boyfriend had pulled this off the bookshelf and I thought he was going to read it. Turns out he was just looking for something to put under the laptop to shield his lap from the heat. (apropos) No matter. I took it as a sign and decided to read it. I loved 'Henry and June' so thought I might really like these stories. As far as erotica goes, it was pretty tame by today's standards. It's funny to see how many times a person can write the words "fever", "heat" and "hardness" in one story. The w...more

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Nov 16, 2012 Kelli rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: erotica

Little Birds is a collection of erotic short stories written in the 1940s. While they cover a variety of topics, including lesbianism, pedophilia, and group sex, they still feel extremely tame due to their time frame. Because they were written for money ("a dollar a page"),the characters can be almost caricaturish. This lens a sense of humor and almost surrealness to the stories, while still maintaining the heightened sensuality of their erotic desires or actions. I enjoyed how Nin doesn't focus...more

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Sep 06, 2010 Angie rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Hace mucho tiempo lo leí, más bien guiada por los Trópicos de Miller. La erótica de Nin es divertida y entretenida, aunque en un plan naive (no hay que esperar mucha sofisticación estilística o técnica en sus cuentos). Una los lee como ve una soap opera, por su poder para inducir un estado de placentera ociosidad u olvido pasajero. ¿Si Nin es como un D.H. Lawrence en una mente femenina? Es una pregunta interesante, pero me atrevo a decir que entre los dos no hay punto de comparación, al menos no...more

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Jul 29, 2012 Stefan rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I was pursuing the e-book shelves on my library's web site and found this book. I read a few reviews and was encouraged by the comparisons to Henry Miller. I have been trying to broaden my reading and thought I would give it a try. Over all, I enjoyed the stories, and the only real negative I can find is the rather abrupt ending of many of the stories. Of all the stories, "The Model" was my favorite.

I found Little Birds to be an intriguing set of stories and I am glad that I took the time to rea...more

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Jul 02, 2007 Needleroozer rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: sex

I think I only read this because I thought I should, as if it's required reading for people who like sex.

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Mar 15, 2008 Nora toomey rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

this is how I learned about sex. Thanks mom and dad for owning it! Also, I stole it from you.

10 likes · like · see review

Oct 13, 2009 Kristin rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

An interesting collection of very short erotic stories. I don't read very much erotica, so I can't compare this to anything, really, but it did certainly remind me of Memoirs of a Beatnik in many ways. Some of the writing is lovely, some is awful. The characters are mostly caricatures, but overall I liked it alright and was able to read the whole thing in just two hours. I suspect that if the stories individually and the book as a whole weren't so short, I might have grown bored. I'd really like...more

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Sep 18, 2011 Brit rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

These stories are as varied as they are delicious, exotic as the are relatable. Anais's writing seems to create a window through which her readers and see sex and desire and consuming passion as the most basic, natural human experiences. There is no veil of obscenity, no judgement, no sin. Anais has a way of finding the absolute black and white that separates eroticism and vulgarity, and places her stories right in the grey. There is an element of psychology in her writing that, among other thi...more

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Feb 20, 2012 Janet rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Again, minor work by a major talent, her work-for-hire erotic fiction--it's a nice intro to the work of Nin, get your feet wet (so to speak.) Then move on to the major fiction--the unique early short works, Under a Glass Bell and Winter of Artifice, and the novels that comprise Cities of the Interior: Spy in the House of Love, Ladders to Fire, Children of the Albatross... then onto the Diaries, starting in 1931, go forward, then back to the early diaries Linotte. Then subscribe to Cafe in Space,...more

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Apr 21, 2012 Tom Cherry rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

More of Nin's short stories, this time thirteen tales on the erotic. As usual the writing is varied, and with many of the stories they are simply too short to properly engage or excite. At the time Nin's writing must have been shocking and revolutionary, but in many parts it now simply reads in quite a dated fashion, her depictions of women are often cliché, yet in many cases this is missing the point - her characters are all clichés, most often based around her own life and experiences. These s...more

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Jan 05, 2013 J. M. rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction

I picked this up out of a pile of books going into a give away bin, having no idea what it was about or clue who Anais Nin was as an author. Whoa... after reading the first three stories I knew this was something... else, so I researched Nin. Amazing... got back to it with different eyes. Intense. I really enjoyed her themes, social commentary, concepts of human freedom and open exploration of sexuality, but some of the darker stories and the depth of hurt and longing made it painful as well, he...more

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Dec 22, 2012 Brittany Kubes rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I read this collection of essays without knowing anything about Anaïs Nin and what she’s trying to do. It made me search for more in her stories, which may not have had more than artists ‘taking’ women, sexual dysfunction, and overwhelming sensations, i.e. erotica. Is she Marquis de Sade (sadist, sexual insanity)? Edgar Allan Poe (symbolism x100)? I’ll reach out on limbs and say this, for me, was transgressive fiction…like the works of Chuck Palahniuk, Irvine Welsch, Bret Easton Ellis, uninhibit...more

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May 03, 2011 Monique rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: compilations, fiction, erotica, 2011

This is my first time to read erotica, but because I pretty much have a good idea what to expect, I wasn't at all shocked, surprised, nor repulsed. As I figured, the only way to appreciate erotic literature such as this is to keep an open mind.

I would like to report that I did exactly that, in the first stories. Towards the end, however, I could not also help but become cynical and/or sarcastic. After all, how much sex can you read about and let your mind absorb before your head actually, truly...more This is my first time to read erotica, but because I pretty much have a good idea what to expect, I wasn't at all shocked, surprised, nor repulsed. As I figured, the only way to appreciate erotic literature such as this is to keep an open mind.

I would like to report that I did exactly that, in the first stories. Towards the end, however, I could not also help but become cynical and/or sarcastic. After all, how much sex can you read about and let your mind absorb before your head actually, truly aches and you declare you've finally had enough?

Little Birds is a compilation of short stories of erotica. These are stories about varying degrees and classes of sexual deviancy and exhaustive descriptions of all manners of copulation. There's a story about an exhibitionist, a pig-like creature with a snout that finds its way between women's legs, orgies, homosexuality, even incest (the one that I couldn't stomach), and more sex. Sex on the sand, sex in a public place, sex in the forest, sex just about everywhere. Cunnilingus and fellatio are described in clear, vivid detail, such that the author's words leave nothing to the reader's imagination.

The stories I couldn't forget are those with endings that I found either funny or weird. The first story, entitled Little Birds, was about this man who lures several young girls to his apartment near their school by purchasing and displaying birds on cages in his terrace. The man was an exhibitionist, and something funny (at least, to me it is) happens near the end. :) And the one I found weird was about the husband who couldn't make love to his own wife, preferring to do it with his colored servants instead. Yes, the husband would actually caress and touch and make foreplay with his wife, but he couldn't just seem to be able to do it with her. The wife is heartbroken especially since, every night, she would hear her husband and one of the colored maids getting it on somewhere nearby. Finally, when the wife makes a purchase of this particular herb, the mystery is solved. Oh, had the wife only known...! :)

In Anais Nin's foreword, she narrated that she started writing erotic literature out of necessity, creating the stories from an empty stomach. According to her, she became the "madame" of a certain group of writers who lived and got by through what she termed "literary prostitution". When I read this, I realized that the value of these erotic literature was the fact that it put food on their table, at the time. And if it stirred people's sexual desires, well, that would have been a mere incident now, wouldn't it? :)(less)

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Jul 29, 2010 Kym rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I always love reading Anais Nin. She has a certain beauty and exotic tapestry to her work that flushes out these amazing scenarios and characters so full of vim that it makes me want to whisk away to 1930s Paris and be an artist's model, or flirt with dangerous girls in Mexican nightclubs whilst dressed in ostentatious garb.

Even her use of language in the erotic elements of her stories work because she has such a knack for description that it invokes the images so melodramatically into existenc...more

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Feb 08, 2010 Joshua rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: sexy-time

I found this book long after discovering "Delta of Venus" as a boy on someone's book shelf. I read "Little Birds" as an adult and I believe it should be taken in tandem with the former rather than separately.

What I can say is that thanks to encountering Anias Nin as a boy, I grew up viewing sexuality and sexual attraction as something that takes place mostly in the mind and it is that tension that she describes, between desire and fear/exhileration, and the surrender that her characters often g...more

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Mar 17, 2011 Lindsey rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: read-in-2009, short-fiction, totally-lame

In the introduction to Little Birds, Anais Nin states in plain terms how difficult it was for writers to make a living, and then goes on to explain that many writers wrote erotic fiction as a means of supporting themselves in those difficult times (as we are all aware, sex sells). I don't know if this admission tainted my reading of the stories, but they all seemed pretty bland and under-developed. Though the stories all involved sex or arousal, I didn't necessarily find them all erotic, or even...more

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About Anaïs Nin

French-born novelist, passionate eroticist and short story writer, who gained international fame with her journals. Spanning the years from 1931 to 1974, they give an account of one woman's voyage of self-discovery. "It's all right for a woman to be, above all, human. I am a woman first of all." (from The Diary of Anaïs Nin, vol. I, 1966)

Anaïs Nin was largely ignored until the 1960s. Today she is...more

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Books by Anaïs Nin

Henry and June: From "A Journal of Love"--The Unexpurgated Diary of Anaïs Nin (1931-1932)

The Diary of Anaïs Nin, Vol. 1: 1931-1934

The Diary of Anaïs Nin, Vol. 2: 1934-1939

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“We don't see people as they are. We see people as we are.” — 11 people liked it

“That night Fay became a woman, making a secret of her pain, intent on saving her happiness with Albert, on showing wisdom and subtlety.” — 4 people liked it

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