Showing results by author "Anne Tyler" in All Categories

Morgan Gower is bored of the tedium of his ordinary life: of his job as manager of a run-down hardware store; of his wife; of his "industriously dull" daughters; of his mother; of his sister. But Morgan's secret escape lies in a box filled with costumes, filled with everything from a fake beard to Napoleon's tricorne to Daniel Boone, all of which provide an outlet away from his life and into the identity of someone who is assuredly not Morgan Gower.

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 preschool charges adore her, but their parents don't always appreciate her unusual opinions and forthright manner.

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.

Willa Drake can count on one hand the defining moments of her life. In 1967, she is a schoolgirl coping with her mother's sudden disappearance. In 1977, she is a college coed considering a marriage proposal. In 1997, she is a young widow trying to piece her life back together. And in 2017, she yearns to be a grandmother but isn't sure she ever will be. Then, one day, Willa receives a startling phone call from a stranger. Without fully understanding why, she flies across the country to Baltimore....

"It was a beautiful, breezy, yellow-and-green afternoon..." This is how Abby Whitshank always begins the story of how she fell in love with Red that day in July 1959. The Whitshanks are one of those families that radiate togetherness: an indefinable, enviable kind of specialness. But they are also like all families, in that the stories they tell themselves reveal only part of the picture.

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.

Anne Tyler gives us a wise, haunting, and deeply moving new novel in which she explores how a middle-aged man, torn apart by the death of his wife, is gradually restored by her frequent appearances: in their house, on the roadway, in the market. Gradually he discovers, as he works in the family's vanity-publishing business, turning out titles that presume to guide beginners through the trials of life, that maybe for this beginner there is a way of saying goodbye.

FBI Special Agent Lara Grant thought that she’d put her past behind her—finally—with her last case. But now a serial bomber is targeting Manhattan’s elite power players, offering them a choice between saving hundreds of lives or seeing their darkest secrets exposed. Lara is working with the Crisis Management Unit to stop the bomber, but how will she react when she’s the one who has to choose between truth…or death? As the clock ticks down, Lara braces for another confrontation with evil. And no matter what, she’ll make sure her enemy’s first mistake is also his last…

How does a man addicted to routine - a man who flosses his teeth before love-making - cope with the chaos of everyday life? With the loss of his son, the departure of his wife and the arrival of Muriel, a dog trainer from the Meow-Bow dog clinic, Macon's attempts at ordinary life are tragically and comically undone. A heartfelt novel from the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Amateur Marriage and Breathing Lessons, now available as an audiobook.

Protecting people is Mack Atwood’s job. But when a mysterious murder leaves Aiden Riggs in danger, the determined bodyguard will go off book to keep the quick-witted computer genius safe. Neither is prepared for the heated chemistry flaring between them—even as a killer closes in. Until Mack realizes Aiden’s case is directly connected to shared events from both their pasts…

Trust has never been easy for Special Agent Lara Grant. Life taught her a hard lesson as a child, one she's never forgotten. But now, when the betrayal is so close to home, Lara is pushed to the very limit. As the players finally move into position, it's time to go all in or go home. It doesn't matter that fear is shaking her very core; it doesn't matter that everything she has - her team, her new family - is on the line.

Evie Decker is a shy, slightly plump teenager with a distant father and hours and hours of silence to fill. Then one night she hears local rock singer Drumstrings Casey on the radio - and becomes instantly attracted to his cool, motionless voice. Evie learns that Drumstrings frequently plays at a dingy roadhouse called The Unicorn. So she goes there and, with an uncharacteristically bold gesture, bursts out of her lonely shell - and into the attentive gaze of an intangible man who becomes all too real....

When the kids are grown and Mercy Garrett gradually moves herself out of the family home, everyone determines not to notice. Over at her studio, she wants space and silence. She won't allow any family clutter. Not even their cat, Desmond. Yet it is a clutter of untidy moments that forms the Garretts' family life over the decades, from giving a child a ride to a painstaking Easter lunch, a fateful train journey to an unexpected homecoming. And it all begins in 1959, with a family holiday to a cabin by a lake.

Following a deadly anthrax attack, TCD’s biological weapons expert Carly Welsh springs into action. Problem is, the Amish trust no one - especially not an FBI special agent. That’s where Noah Miller comes in. Even though the rancher left the fold decades ago, the community trusts him...and so does Dr. Welsh. But even their combined courage and smarts might not be enough against sinister forces that want them both to perish.

Through every family run memories that bind it together - despite everything. The Tulls of Baltimore are no exception. Abandoned by her salesman husband, Pearl is left to bring up her three children alone - Cody, a flawed devil; Ezra, a flawed saint; and Jenny, errant and passionate. Now as Pearl lies dying, stiffly encased in her pride and solitude, the past is unlocked and with it, secrets. A classic novel from one of America's greatest living novelists, now available as an audiobook.

Penguin presents the audio edition of Celestial Navigation by Anne Tyler. Jeremy is a childlike, painfully shy bachelor who has never left home. He lives on the third floor of his mother's boardinghouse and spends his days cutting up coloured paper to make mosaic sculptures - until the day his mother dies and the beautiful Mary Tell arrives to turn his world upside down. From the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Amateur Marriage and Digging to America.

Micah Mortimer isn’t the most polished person you’ll ever meet. His numerous sisters and in-laws regard him oddly but very fondly, but he has his ways and means of navigating the world. He measures out his days running errands for work – his TECH HERMIT sign cheerily displayed on the roof of his car - maintaining an impeccable cleaning regime and going for runs (7:15 every morning). He is content with the steady balance of his life. But then the order of things starts to tilt.

The bomber’s latest threat has thrown the Crisis Management Unit into chaos! As Lara Grant struggles to hold her fractured team together, she discovers a possible connection between this case and her own past—something she can’t reveal to anyone, especially now. Because when the bomber’s next target chooses to keep his secret, terror turns to an intimate form of torture, and anyone’s past can be used against them...

It’s the day before her daughter’s wedding and things are not going well for Gail Baines. First thing, she loses her job – or quits, depending who you ask. Then her ex-husband Max turns up at her door expecting to stay for the festivities. He doesn’t even have a suit. Instead, he’s brought memories, a shared sense of humour – and a cat looking for a new home. Just as Gail is wondering what’s next, their daughter Debbie discovers her groom has been keeping a secret…

Breathing Lessons covers the events of a day in the life of Maggie Moran, nearing fifty, married to Ira and with two children. Her eternal optimism and her inexhaustible passion for sorting out other people's lives and willing them to fall in love is severely tested one hot summer day. Maggie and Ira drive from Baltimore to Deer Lick to attend the funeral of the husband of Serena, Maggie's childhood friend.