Storytellers can be found everywhere you look. From the big screen of a cinema to the small screen of your phone, we are surrounded by stories. Even on your drive home from work when you pass a billboard, you get a snippet of a story that a marketing team has spent hours on. Our lives are filled with stories that we may not even notice consciously, yet they influence the way we think and act.
Storytelling is an important skill used in a multitude of tasks, including:
- Pulling together a business presentation
- Building a marketing campaign
- Talking about the latest news updates with friends and family
- Teaching children how to tie their shoes
- Or even painting an original work of art
Recently, I was thinking about some of my favourite books that discuss the power of storytelling. There are some fantastic books out there full of stories about story (like this blog post!). Here are my top picks:

Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life by Anne Lamott
Not just a writing guide, this book offers advice that can apply to life as much as it can to storytelling. Bird by Bird has been a favourite of mine for a long time; Anne’s dark humour mixed with life and writing lessons has inspired me and brought me close to tears. The titular piece of advice reminds us to take things one at a time through a story about the author’s brother and his struggle to write a school report on birds.

The Storytelling Animal: How Stories Make Us Human by Jonathan Gottschall
While this book deals in fictional stories, it is full of fascinating insights into their general impact. People are deeply affected by the stories they consume, and this can shape who they are and how they interact with the world. It discusses the psychology of story and references a handful of scientific studies, including one about the positive change that fiction can have on social skills and empathy.

Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari
A winding tale that starts with the emergence of Homo sapiens and ends with a brief look to what the future may hold. While storytelling is not the central theme, scattered throughout is the author’s theory on the importance of storytelling in the evolution of humankind. A fascinating read that merges science, sociology and history, reminding us that stories can carry species-defining and millennium-spanning power.
Next Up:
Want more? Check out the next storytelling books on my TBR list:
- The Story Factor: Inspiration, Influence, and Persuasion through the Art of Storytelling by Annette Simmons
- Wired for Story: The Writer’s Guide to Using Brain Science to Hook Readers from the Very First Sentence by Lisa Cron
- Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die by Chip Heath and Dan Heath
– Victoria Jeffery, Creative Project Manager at Hyphen
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