A Slipping Down Life - Anne Tyler

61%

01.05.26

This Tyler is so early that the distinctive small-town 1960s setting was contemporary. It's stranger and sadder than her later work - and it's not set in Baltimore! - but it's as intriguing and beautifully captured as ever. 

Three Days in June - Anne Tyler

 71%

12.03.26

Anne Tyler's extensive output can be patchy (or maybe patchworky?) but this is a jewel of a novella, every word carefully placed, every thought and action and memory contributing to the shining whole. Nothing much happens, but it happens so engagingly. If you don't like the best of Tyler's novels, do you really like reading? Or life?

French Braid - Anne Tyler

 

54%

29.04.23

Anne Tyler at her best is superlative. This was not her best, or even her middling. As a narrative covering the ebbs and flows of family dynamics over time, it worked fine, but the story and characters just weren't worth caring about. And enough of the pointless pandemic epilogues!

Celestial Navigation - Anne Tyler

 

54%

08.08.21

This early Tyler starts out promisingly with her trademark 'short story' opening chapter but it soon gets weird and inexplicable. Disappointing.

Redhead by the Side of the Road - Anne Tyler

 64%

14.11.20

This is maybe the 15th Tyler novel I've read, and it's not her best and it's not her worst. It is vintage Tyler, though - a carefully nuanced snapshot of a loner man <check>, chaotic loving family <check>, not much actual plot <check> ... really, just people bumbling on through life. More phones and computers than her early novels but the same unerring dissection of relationships.

Clock Dance - Anne Tyler

62%
14.07.18

I love Anne Tyler's writing so much that I got this as soon as it was published (the UK cover isn't as appropriate as this one, presumably the US version). Her books are wise and quirky and well-observed... and this was... yet it seemed unremarkable, even inconsequential. It's really a series of short stories about the central character but doesn't quite hang together as a novel. If it wasn't Anne Tyler, I probably wouldn't be so indulgent.

Vinegar Girl - Anne Tyler

57%
20.01.17

Anne Tyler is a novelist without equal but even she has her off-books. This retelling of 'The Taming of the Shrew' as an amiable romance among socially awkward characters may feature her signature sharp observation but lacked bite and conviction. I wonder if it even started out as a Shakespearean update but was adapted to be one on request.

A Spool of Blue Thread - Anne Tyler

71%
19.02.15

I might be unfashionably critical of every other writer but I won't hear a word against Anne Tyler. While this lacks the emotional punch of The Beginner's Goodbye it's deceptively complex, with (unusually for Tyler) several delicious twists carelessly tossed into the well-judged prose. As usual, you're left wondering whether it's tragic or triumphant - or both.

The Beginner's Goodbye - Anne Tyler

75%
26.10.12

I made an unseemly dive for this at the Wordstock Bookswap (having nobly contributed my emergency spare copy of Woman's World). The latest novel from the wonderful Anne Tyler? Yes please! Was it a fair swap? Of course. Tyler's recent novels, while wise and ironic, have been a little unfocused but this brings the pain of loving, losing and living into sharp perspective. So many wry observations, so many perfect turns of phrase, so many sudden glimpses into the darkness and oddness of reality. Just one thing (there has to be one) - that last chapter? Unnecessary. And I'll overlook the jokes at the expense of editors.

Noah's Compass - Anne Tyler

65%
18.12.11

What joy! An Anne Tyler I hadn't heard of, and certainly not read, spotted at the library. What comfort! No surprises, just warm wisdom and deceptive depths. The story is of a man, his family and his failed relationships, but its themes are love, loss, memory, identity, place in society, doing the right thing... and how nobody really knows as much about living as they think others do.

The Herring Seller's Apprentice - LC Tyler

53%
24.09.11

I will be fair and say that there were moments when I laughed out loud. The plot was a tad predictable but perhaps that didn't matter in a satire such as this. It's interesting to note that the most vivid character didn't actually appear in person at all. It's also interesting to note that one of the main characters was called Elsie (LC), but I'd be very surprised if the book was autobiographical.

Morgan's Passing - Anne Tyler

52%
09.12.07

This early Tyler just wasn't up to the standard of her usual work - too strange and uncontrolled, with characters that, for once, didn't quite ring true.

Earthly Possessions - Anne Tyler

71%
24.08.07




One of Tyler's earlier novels, and one of her best. Her quiet wisdom and poetic phrasing illuminates the oddness in ordinary lives.

Digging to America - Anne Tyler

67%
05.06.07




As usual, nothing much happens except the characters are left to interract, in all their startlingly realistic complexity. The lack of a definite plot puts it just on the edge of boring but the quality of the writing comes to the rescue.

Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant - Anne Tyler

60%
21.02.05




More of the same from Anne Tyler, this one quite an early prototype for those that worked better. Not enough of the extraordinary ordinariness that lets her best novels take flight.

The Amateur Marriage - Anne Tyler

60%
02.10.04




Rather an amateur novel for Anne Tyler, which is odd, considering it's her 16th. Many elements from previous novels are here, but are somehow used less successfully. It's not bad but, if this had been the first Tyler book I'd read, I probably wouldn't bother reading another, and thereby deprived myself of my favourite author.

Saint Maybe - Anne Tyler

72%
09.08.04

Wise and wonderful, as always, but it tails off towards the end, when the focus seems to zoom out and the details disappear. But for the most part, another model novel.

Ladder of Years - Anne Tyler

67%
23.04.04




I'm probably getting Tylered out but this isn't quite as good as her later novels, or at least those I've read recently. This focuses on the unsatisfactory concept that is marriage as well as the usual problems of muddling through life. Gripping and addictive, as always, perceptive in its observations, yet also rather strange and unsettling.

A Patchwork Planet - Anne Tyler

75%
11.04.04




Another fabulous novel by Anne Tyler that makes me want to go straight out and find more. She doesn't need big, sensational plotlines to illuminate the quirks of human nature or to say something profound and hopeful about life. That's the essence of an ideal novel, I think.

The Accidental Tourist - Anne Tyler

74%
02.02.04




In contrast to Iris Murdoch, Tyler moves the emphasis from the intellect to the heart. This is what a novel should be - ordinary people, ordinary lives that really aren't so ordinary at all. In her quiet, wise, warm way, Anne Tyler is one of the best novelists around.