Book Lists

New Releases by Anne Tyler

Anne Tyler is the author of Three Days in June (2025), French Braid (2022), Clock Dance (2018), Vinegar Girl (2017), Ladder of Years (2015), A Patchwork Planet (2015).

18 results found

Three Days in June

release date: Feb 11, 2025
Three Days in June
In this instant national bestseller by Anne Tyler that is destined to be a classic, a socially awkward mother of the bride navigates the days before and after her daughter's wedding. Gail Baines is having a bad day. To start, she loses her job—or quits, depending on whom you ask. Tomorrow her daughter, Debbie, is getting married, and she hasn’t even been invited to the bridal spa day. Then Gail’s ex-husband, Max, arrives unannounced on her doorstep. He has no place to stay, no suit for the wedding. Instead he has a cat (never mind that the groom is deathly allergic). But the true crisis lands when Debbie shares with her parents a secret she has just learned about her own relationship. It will not only throw the wedding into question but also stir up Gail and Max’s past. Told with deep sensitivity and a tart sense of humor, Three Days in June is a triumphant novel full of the joys and heartbreaks of love and marriage.

French Braid

release date: Mar 22, 2022
French Braid
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • From the beloved Pulitzer Prize–winning author of A Spool of Blue Thread—a funny, joyful, brilliantly perceptive journey deep into one Baltimore family’s foibles, from a boyfriend with a red Chevy in the 1950s up to a longed-for reunion with a grandchild. “A quietly subversive novel, tackling fundamental assumptions about womanhood, motherhood and female aging.” —The New York Times Book Review The Garretts take their first and last family vacation in the summer of 1959. They hardly ever leave home, but in some ways they have never been farther apart. Mercy has trouble resisting the siren call of her aspirations to be a painter, which means less time keeping house for her husband, Robin. Their teenage daughters, steady Alice and boy-crazy Lily, could not have less in common. Their youngest, David, is already intent on escaping his family's orbit, for reasons none of them understand. Yet, as these lives advance across decades, the Garretts' influences on one another ripple ineffably but unmistakably through each generation. Full of heartbreak and hilarity, French Braid is classic Anne Tyler: a stirring, uncannily insightful novel of tremendous warmth and humor that illuminates the kindnesses and cruelties of our daily lives, the impossibility of breaking free from those who love us, and how close—yet how unknowable—every family is to itself.

Clock Dance

release date: Jul 10, 2018
Clock Dance
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A novel of self-discovery and second chances from the beloved Pulitzer Prize-winning author—Willa Drake has had three opportunities to start her life over: in 1967, as a schoolgirl whose mother has suddenly disappeared; in 1977, when considering a marriage proposal; and in 1997, as a young widow trying to hold her family together. So she is surprised when in 2017 she is given one last chance to change everything, after receiving a startling phone call from a stranger. Without fully understanding why, she flies across the country to Baltimore to help a young woman she's never met. This impulsive decision, maybe the first one she’s consciously made in her life, will lead Willa into uncharted territory—surrounded by eccentric neighbors who treat each other like family, she finds solace and fulfillment in unexpected places. A bewitching novel of hope and transformation, Clock Dance gives us Anne Tyler at the height of her powers.

Vinegar Girl

release date: Mar 28, 2017
Vinegar Girl
Pulitzer Prize winner and American master Anne Tyler brings us an inspired, witty and irresistible contemporary take on one of Shakespeare’s most beloved comedies. Kate Battista feels stuck. How did she end up running house and home for her eccentric scientist father and uppity, pretty younger sister Bunny? Plus, she’s always in trouble at work – her pre-school charges adore her, but their parents don’t always appreciate her unusual opinions and forthright manner. Dr. Battista has other problems. After years out in the academic wilderness, he is on the verge of a breakthrough. His research could help millions. There’s only one problem: his brilliant young lab assistant, Pyotr, is about to be deported. And without Pyotr, all would be lost. When Dr. Battista cooks up an outrageous plan that will enable Pyotr to stay in the country, he’s relying – as usual – on Kate to help him. Kate is furious: this time he’s really asking too much. But will she be able to resist the two men’s touchingly ludicrous campaign to bring her around?

Ladder of Years

release date: May 05, 2015
Ladder of Years
"UTTERLY COMPELLING . . . WONDERFULLY SATISFYING . . . VIRTUALLY FLAWLESS." --Chicago Tribune BALTIMORE WOMAN DISAPPEARS DURING FAMILY VACATION, declares the headline. Forty-year-old Delia Grinstead is last seen strolling down the Delaware shore, wearing nothing more than a bathing suit and carrying a beach tote with five hundred dollars tucked inside. To her husband and three almost-grown children, she has vanished without trace or reason. But for Delia, who feels like a tiny gnat buzzing around her family's edges, "walking away from it all" is not a premeditated act but an impulse that will lead her into a new, exciting, and unimagined life. . . . "TYLER DETAILS DELIA'S ADVENTURE WITH GREAT SKILL. . . . As so often in her earlier fiction, [she] creates distinct characters caught in poignantly funny situations. . . . Tyler writes with a clarity that makes the commonplace seem fresh and the pathetic touching." --The New York Times

A Patchwork Planet

release date: May 05, 2015
A Patchwork Planet
In this, her fourteenth novel--and one of her most endearing--Anne Tyler tells the story of a lovable loser who's trying to get his life in order. Barnaby Gaitlin has been in trouble ever since adolescence. He had this habit of breaking into other people's houses. It wasn't the big loot he was after, like his teenage cohorts. It was just that he liked to read other people's mail, pore over their family photo albums, and appropriate a few of their precious mementos. But for eleven years now, he's been working steadily for Rent-a-Back, renting his back to old folks and shut-ins who can't move their own porch furniture or bring the Christmas tree down from the attic. At last, his life seems to be on an even keel. Still, the Gaitlins (of "old" Baltimore) cannot forget the price they paid for buying off Barnaby's former victims. And his ex-wife would just as soon he didn't show up ever to visit their little girl, Opal. Even the nice, steady woman (his guardian angel?) who seems to have designs on him doesn't fully trust him, it develops, when the chips are down, and it looks as though his world may fall apart again. There is no one like Anne Tyler, with her sharp, funny, tender perceptions about how human beings navigate on a puzzling planet, and she keeps us enthralled from start to finish in this delicious new novel.

A Spool of Blue Thread

release date: Feb 10, 2015
A Spool of Blue Thread
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • From the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Clock Dance comes the story of four generations unfolding in and around the lovingly worn house that has always been the Whitshank family's anchor. • MAN BOOKER PRIZE NOMINEE “Absorbing and deeply satisfying.” —Entertainment Weekly "It was a beautiful, breezy, yellow-and-green afternoon ...” This is how Abby Whitshank always describes the day she fell in love with Red in July 1959. From Red’s parents, newly arrived in Baltimore in the 1920s, to the grandchildren carrying the Whitshank legacy boisterously into the twenty-first century, the Whitshanks are one of those families that radiate an indefinable kind of specialness, but like all families, their stories reveal only part of the picture: Abby and Red and their four grown children have accumulated not only tender moments, laughter, and celebrations, but also jealousies, disappointments, and carefully guarded secrets.

The Beginner's Goodbye

release date: Apr 03, 2012
The Beginner's Goodbye
Anne Tyler gives us a wise, haunting, and deeply moving new novel in which she explores how a middle-aged man, ripped apart by the death of his wife, is gradually restored by her frequent appearances -- in their house, on the roadway, in the market. Crippled in his right arm and leg, Aaron has spent his childhood fending off a sister who wants to manage him. When he meets Dorothy, a plain, outspoken, independent young woman, she is like a breath of fresh air. Unhesitatingly, he marries her, and they have a relatively happy, unremarkable life together. But when a tree crashes into their house and Dorothy is killed, Aaron feels as though he has been erased forever. Only Dorothy's unexpected appearances from the dead help him to live in the moment and find some peace. Gradually he discovers, as he works in the family's vanity-publishing business, (turning out titles that presume to guide beginners through the trails of life) that maybe for this beginner there is a way of saying goodbye. A beautiful, subtle exploration of loss and recovery, pierced throughout with Anne Tyler's humour, wisdom, and always penetrating look at human foibles.

Digging to America

release date: Feb 05, 2010
Digging to America
Anne Tyler’s richest, most deeply searching novel–a story about what it is to be an American, and about Iranian-born Maryam Yazdan, who, after 35 years in this country, must finally come to terms with her “outsiderness.” Two families, who would otherwise never have come together, meet by chance at the Baltimore airport – the Donaldsons, a very American couple, and the Yazdans, Maryam’s fully assimilated son and his attractive Iranian wife. Each couple is awaiting the arrival of an adopted infant daughter from Korea. After the instant babies from distant Asia are delivered, Bitsy Donaldson impulsively invites the Yazdans to celebrate: an “arrival party” that from then on is repeated every year as the two families become more and more deeply intertwined. Even Maryam is drawn in – up to a point. When she finds herself being courted by Bitsy Donaldson’s recently widowed father, all the values she cherishes – her traditions, her privacy, her otherness–are suddenly threatened. A luminous novel brimming with subtle, funny, and tender observations that immerse us in the challenges of both sides of the American story.

Noah's Compass

release date: Jan 01, 2010
Noah's Compass
Liam Pennywell, who set out to be a philosopher and ended up teaching fifth grade, never much liked the job at that run-down private school, so early retirement doesn't bother him. But he is troubled by his inability to remember anything about the first night that he moved into his new, spare, and efficient condominium on the outskirts of Baltimore. All he knows when he wakes up the next day in the hospital is that his head is sore and bandaged.

The Accidental Tourist

release date: Dec 18, 2007
The Accidental Tourist
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • From the beloved Pulitzer Prize–winning author—an irresistible novel exploring the slippery alchemy of attracting opposites, and the struggle to rebuild one’s life after unspeakable tragedy Travel writer Macon Leary hates travel, adventure, surprises, and anything outside of his routine. Immobilized by grief, Macon is becoming increasingly prickly and alone, anchored by his solitude and an unwillingness to compromise his creature comforts. Then he meets Muriel, an eccentric dog trainer too optimistic to let Macon disappear into himself. Despite Macon’s best efforts to remain insulated, Muriel up-ends his solitary, systemized life, catapulting him into the center of a messy, beautiful love story he never imagined. A fresh and timeless tale of unexpected bliss, The Accidental Tourist showcases Tyler’s talents for making characters—and their relationships—feel both real and magical. “Incandescent, heartbreaking, exhilarating…One cannot reasonably expect fiction to be much better than this.” —The Washington Post

Breathing Lessons

release date: Nov 01, 2005
Breathing Lessons
WINNER OF THE PULITZER PRIZE • NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • Evoking Jane Austen, Emma Straub, and other masters of the literary marriage, Breathing Lessons celebrates the small miracles and magic of truly knowing someone. Unfolding over the course of a single emotionally fraught day, this stunning novel encompasses a lifetime of dreams, regrets and reckonings—and is oftern regarded as Tyler's seminal work. Maggie and Ira Moran are on a road trip from Baltimore, Maryland to Deer Lick, Pennsylvania to attend the funeral of a friend. Along the way, they reflect on the state of their marriage, its trials and its triumphs—through their quarrels, their routines, and their ability to tolerate each other’s faults with patience and affection. Where Maggie is quirky, lovable and mischievous, Ira is practical, methodical and mired in reason. What begins as a day trip becomes a revelatory and unexpected journey, as Ira and Maggie rediscover the strength of their bond and the joy of having somebody with whom to share the ride, bumps and all. “More powerful and moving than anything [Tyler] has done.” —Los Angeles Times

The Amateur Marriage

release date: Jan 01, 2004
The Amateur Marriage
Baltimore ægteparret Pauline og Michael, som forhastet giftede sig under 2. verdenskrig, tvinges til at komme overens for at passe deres barnebarn, som bliver forsømt af sin teenagemor

Back When We Were Grownups

release date: Apr 09, 2002
Back When We Were Grownups
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • "Once upon a time, there was a woman who discovered that she had turned into the wrong person." The woman is Rebecca Davitch, a fifty-three-year-old grandmother. "You’ll want to turn back to the first chapter the moment you finish the last.” —PEOPLE On the surface, Beck, as she is known to the Davitch clan, is outgoing, joyous, a natural celebrator. Giving parties is, after all, her vocation—something she married into after Joe Davitch spotted her at an engagement party in his family’s crumbling nineteenth-century Baltimore row house, where giving parties was his family business. What caught Joe's fancy was that she seemed to be having such a wonderful time. Soon this large-spirited divorcé with three little girls swept Beck into his orbit, and before she knew it she was embracing his extended family—plus a child of their own—and hosting endless parties in the ornate, high-ceilinged rooms of The Open Arms. Now, some thirty years later, after presiding over a disastrous family party, Rebecca is caught un-awares by the question of who she really is. Is she an impostor in her own life? Is it indeed her own life? How she answers—how she tries to recover her girlhood self, that dignified grownup she had once been—is the story told in this beguiling, funny, and deeply moving novel.

Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant

release date: Aug 27, 1996
Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • From the beloved Pulitzer Prize–winning author, a “funny, heart-hammering, wise” (The New York Times) portrait of a family that will remind you why "to read a novel by Anne Tyler is to fall in love" (PEOPLE). Abandoned by her wanderlusting husband, stoic Pearl raised her three children on her own. Now grown, the siblings are inextricably linked by their memories—some painful—which hold them together despite their differences. Hardened by life’s disappointments, wealthy, charismatic Cody has turned cruel and envious. Thrice-married Jenny is errant and passionate. And Ezra, the flawed saint of the family, who stayed at home to look after his mother, runs a restaurant where he cooks what other people are homesick for, stubbornly yearning for the perfect family he never had. Now gathered during a time of loss, they will reluctantly unlock the shared secrets of their past and discover if what binds them together is stronger than what tears them apart. “[In Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant Tyler] has arrived at a new level of power.” —John Updike, The New Yorker “Marvelous, astringent, hilarious, [and] strewn with the banana peels of love.” —Cosmopolitan

Earthly Possessions

release date: Aug 27, 1996
Earthly Possessions
From the beloved Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Breathing Lessons—Charlotte Emory has always lived a quiet, conventional life in Clarion, Maryland. She lives as simply as possible, and one day decides to simplify everything and leave her husband. Her last trip to the bank throws Charlotte's life into an entirely different direction when a restless young man in a nylon jacket takes her hostage during the robbery—and soon the two are heading south into an unknown future, and a most unexpected fate.

The Tin Can Tree

release date: Aug 27, 1996
The Tin Can Tree
The beloved bestselling, Pulitzer Prize–winning author brings us a novel filled with "emotional power" (The New York Times). • "To read a novel by Anne Tyler is to fall in love." —PEOPLE In the small town of Larksville, the Pike family is hopelessly out of step with the daily rhythms of life. Mrs. Pike seldom speaks, while Mr. Pike maintains a forced stoicism. Only their ten-year-old, Simon, seems able to acknowledge that their world has changed. He just doesn’t understand why. The Pikes may choose to stand still, to hide from an unnameable past, but the strange shroud over their home cannot be contained. Soon it’s inching its way toward their neighbors, where brothers Ansel and James will have to confront their own dark secrets if they want to bring their neighborhood back out into the light.

Saint Maybe

release date: Jan 01, 1992
Saint Maybe
Blaming himself for the death of his older brother, Ian responds by joining the Church of the Second Chance and playing father to his dead sibling's orphaned brood. Reprint.
18 results found


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