Anne Tyler

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER - From the beloved, Pulitzer Prize-winning author comes "an intimate picture of middle-class family life" (The New York Times) that challenges the notion that home is a fixed place, and celebrates the subtle complexities of life on all sides of the American experience. Two families meet at the Baltimore airport while waiting for their baby girls to arrive from Korea. The Iranian-American Sami and Ziba Yazdan, with Ziba's elegant and reserved mother, Maryam, in tow, wait quietly while brash and all-American Bitsy and Brad Donaldson, plus extended family, are armed with camcorders and a fleet of balloons proclaiming "It's a girl " After they decide together to throw an impromptu "arrival party," a tradition is born, and so begins a lifelong friendship between the two families. As they raise their daughters, the Yazdan and Donaldson families grapple with questions of assimilation and identity. When Bitsy's recently widowed father sets his sights on Maryam, she must confront her own idea of what it means to be other, and of who she is and what she values.

Friday August 15th, 1997. Two tiny Korean babies are delivered to two very different Baltimore families. Every year, on the anniversary of 'Arrival Day' the two families celebrate together, with more and more elaborately competitive parties, as little Susan and Jin-ho take roots and become American.

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

Marrying quickly during World War II after falling in love at first sight, a mismatched couple discovers that their very different personalities and approaches to life are taking a toll on their lives, their relationship, and their family, in a compelling novel spanning three generations. Reader's Guide included. Reprint. 300,000 first printing.

"To read a novel by Anne Tyler is to fall in love." --People The beloved bestselling, Pulitzer Prize-winning author brings us the story of Evie Decker, a shy, slightly plump teenager, lonely and silent. But her quiet life is shattered when she hears the voice of Drumstrings Casey on the radio and becomes instantly attracted to him. She manages to meet him, bursting out of her lonely shell--and into the attentive gaze of the intangible man who becomes all too real.... "Without Anne Tyler, American fiction would be an immeasurably bleaker place."--Newsweek

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 divorc 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.

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

A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK - NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER - The beloved Pulitzer Prize-winning author 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.

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.

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.

From the beloved bestselling, Pulitzer Prize-winning author--a timeless portrait of a young man's homecoming, and his ensuing journey through youth, identity, family, and love. Here is the debut novel that set Tyler on the path to becoming an American classic. Ben Joe Hawkes is a worrier. Raised by his mother, grandmother, and a flock of busy sisters, he's always felt the outsider. When he learns that one of his sisters has left her husband, he heads for home and back into the confusion of childhood memories and unforseen love....

The beloved bestselling, Pulitzer Prize-winning author brings us a novel that is "funny and lyric and true" (The New Yorker). Through the syncopated rhythms of the ragtime era to the thumping, rocking beats of the 1970s, generations of Pecks have maintained a determined steadiness. Adamantly middle class--Peck-proud, as the family slogan goes--they are quick to sweep under the rug those members who do not live up to their standards. Maybe that's why Caleb Peck took off with his violincello as a boy? Sixty years later, his brother Daniel is still wondering. No longer willing to live without answers, he turns to his daughter-in-law, Justine, another Peck family eccentric. A studied tarot card reader, Justine comes across one message over and over in the cards: change is coming. With Daniel's help, she's hoping to find the courage to embrace whatever happens next. An unlikely pair struggling against a stifling family, Daniel and Justine believe they'll find freedom in just the right mix of magic, music, and mystery.

A poignant, uplifting, heartbreaking love story from the beloved bestselling, Pulitzer Prize-winning author: "To read a novel by Anne Tyler is to fall in love" (PEOPLE). Thirty-eight-year-old Jeremy Pauling has never left home. He lives on the top floor of a Baltimore row house where he creates collages of little people snipped from wrapping paper. His elderly mother putters in the rooms below, until her death. And it is then that Jeremy is forced to take in Mary Tell and her child as boarders. Mary is unaware of how much courage it takes Jeremy to look her in the eye. For Jeremy, like one of his paper creations, is fragile and easily torn--especially when he's falling in love....

With wondrous observations and bittersweet humor, the beloved best-selling, Pulitzer Prize-winning author tells the story of an unsuspecting young woman who becomes the North star that helps a stumbling, dysfunctional family find its footing. Mrs. Emerson, widowed with seven adult children, lives alone in crumbling Victorian mansion outside Baltimore with only a collection of antique clocks to keep her company. Elizabeth Abbott--twenty-three years old, aimless, bohemian, and beautiful--leads a vagabond lifestyle until she happens upon Mrs. Emerson's home and convinces the older woman to hire her as a handyman. When three of the strange, idiosyncratic Emerson children return to their childhood home for a visit, they are irresistibly drawn to Elizabeth.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER - From the beloved Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Breathing Lessons "BALTIMORE WOMAN DISAPPEARS DURING FAMILY VACATION." The headlines are all the same: Beloved mother and wife Delia Grinstead was last seen strolling down the Delaware shore, wearing only a bathing suit and carrying a beach tote with five hundred dollars tucked inside. To the best of her family's knowledge, she has disappeared without a trace. But Delia didn't disappear. She ran. Exhausted with her routine and everyone else's plans for her, Delia needed an out, a chance to make a new life for herself and to become a different person. The new Delia can let go of all the hurt and resentment that left her stuck in her past. As she eagerly sheds the pieces of herself she no longer needs, Delia discovers feelings of passion and wonder she'd long since forgotten. The thrill of walking away from it all leads to a newfound sense of self and the feeling that she is, finally, the star of her own life story.

Ranging from the ragtime era to small-town America in the seventies, this book is a moving quest for a family's deepest roots - and a haunting story of growing up and breaking away, acceptance and rebellion.

Ben Joe is the only boy in a family of six sisters, Mama and Gram. He is studying for a law degree in New York when he hears his eldest sister Joanne has left her husband and returned home with her baby girl. Out of a mixture of homesickness and duty Ben Joe returns to the home in which he has always felt like an outsider.

'Wickedly good' John UpdikeIn a small Southern town, shy teenager Evie Decker becomes obsessed with local rock singer Bertram 'Drumstrings' Casey, and decides to take her life into her own hands.