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Anne Tyler

Biography

Anne Tyler

Anne Tyler was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota, in 1941 and grew up in Raleigh, North Carolina. She is the author of more than 20 novels. Her 20th novel, A SPOOL OF BLUE THREAD, was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize in 2015. Her 11th novel, BREATHING LESSONS, was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 1989. She is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters. She lives in Baltimore, Maryland.

Anne Tyler

Books by Anne Tyler

by Anne Tyler - Fiction, Women's Fiction

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 spa day organized by the mother of the groom. Then, Gail’s ex-husband, Max, arrives unannounced on her doorstep, carrying a cat, without a place to stay and without even a suit. But the true crisis lands when Debbie shares with her parents a secret she has just learned about her husband to be. It will not only throw the wedding into question but also stir up Gail and Max’s past.

by Anne Tyler - Fiction, Women's Fiction

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.

by Anne Tyler - Fiction

Micah Mortimer is a creature of habit. A self-employed tech expert, superintendent of his Baltimore apartment building, cautious to a fault behind the steering wheel, he seems content leading a steady, circumscribed life. But one day his routines are blown apart when his woman friend (he refuses to call anyone in her late 30s a "girlfriend") tells him she's facing eviction, and a teenager shows up at Micah's door claiming to be his son. These surprises, and the ways they throw Micah's meticulously organized life off-kilter, risk changing him forever.

by Anne Tyler - Fiction, Women's Fiction

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.

by Anne Tyler - Fiction

After years out in the academic wilderness, Dr. Battista 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 on his daughter, 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?

written by Anne Tyler, read by Kirsten Potter - Fiction

After years out in the academic wilderness, Dr. Battista 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 on his daughter, 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?

by Anne Tyler - Fiction

Abby and Red Whitshank, and their four grown children, have accumulated not only tender moments, laughter and celebrations, but also jealousies, disappointments and carefully guarded secrets. From Red’s father and mother, newly arrived in Baltimore in the 1920s, to Abby and Red’s grandchildren carrying the family legacy boisterously into the 21st century, here are four generations of Whitshanks, their lives unfolding in and around the sprawling, lovingly worn Baltimore house that has always been their anchor.

by Anne Tyler - Fiction

Anne Tyler gives readers 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.

by Anne Tyler - Fiction

After presiding over a disastrous family picnic in Baltimore, fifty-three-year-old Rebecca Davitch suddenly begins to question who she is...and how she has turned into someone other than herself. The story of how she answers this question is beguiling, funny, and deeply moving.

by Anne Tyler - Fiction

Anne Tyler's fourteenth novel presents Barnaby Gaitlin, the latest of her quirky characters trying to cope with a less-than-perfect life. Barnaby has been in trouble ever since adolescence. He had this habit of breaking into other people's houses, not so much to steal things, but because he liked to read other people's mail and pore over their photo albums. But for eleven years now, he's been working steadily for Rent-a-Back, renting his back to people who can't move thier own porch furniture or bring the Christmas tree down from the attic. Still, when the chips are down, he learns that his family and friends really don't trust him, and his world falls apart.