A Spool Of Blue Thread - Hardcover

"Tyler's twentieth novel finds fresh fictional riches in imaginative territory she has been exploring for half a century... Atmospherically rendered, the passage of time has both entertaining and heart-rending results. She has never written with more finesse, vitality and acuteness" (Sunday Times, book of the year)

"I love Tyler's writing... She writes so beautifully and with such insight. Read her books and she can actually change your view, change how you see the world" (Judy Finnigan Mail on Sunday)

"Exquisite" (The Times)

"Tyler's sentences are wholly hers, instantly recognisable and impossible to duplicate" (Hanya Yanigihara Observer, Books That Made Our Year 2015)

"The extraordinary thing about her writing is the extent to which she makes one believe every word, deed and breath" (Kate Kellaway Guardian)

"Tyler writes with an apparent effortlessness which conceals great art. The Whitshank family is tragic, comic, absurd, absorbing -- and lives on its illusions, as every family must. You'll shiver with recognition" (Helen Dunmore Stylist)

"May be her best yet, though, to be honest, this is what I always tend to say after reading the latest Anne Tyler. I’ve now read it twice, and I may well read it again" (Craig Brown Mail on Sunday)

"Anne Tyler takes the ordinary, the small, and makes them sing" (Rachel Joyce Observer, Books That Made Our Year 2015)

"The combination of direct appeal, subtle perception and unshowy artistry in Tyler's fiction has been admired by authors ranging from Joyce Carol Oates and Carol Shields to Jonathan Franzen and Sebastian Faulks... Her extraordinary gift for producing what seems less like fiction than actuality works wonders again... magnificent" (Peter Kemp Sunday Times)

"Every sentence is perfect in this witty story of family life" (Sun)

**Shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize 2015**

**Shortlisted for the Baileys Women's Prize for Fiction 2015**

**Sunday Times bestseller**

‘It was a beautiful, breezy, yellow-and-green afternoon...’

This is the way Abby Whitshank always begins the story of how she and Red fell in love that day in July 1959. The whole family on the porch, relaxed, half-listening as their mother tells the same tale they have heard so many times before.

And yet this gathering is different. Abby and Red are getting older, and decisions must be made about how best to look after them and their beloved family home. They’ve all come, even Denny, who can usually be relied on only to please himself.

From that porch we spool back through three generations of the Whitshanks, witnessing the events, secrets and unguarded moments that have come to define who and what they are. And while all families like to believe they are special, round that kitchen table over all those years we also see played out our own hopes and fears, rivalries and tensions – the essential nature of family life.

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