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A Spool of Blue Thread

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A Spool of Blue Thread

By: Anne Tyler
Narrated by: Kimberly Farr
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THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER

SHORTLISTED FOR THE MAN BOOKER PRIZE

SHORTLISTED FOR THE BAILEYS WOMEN'S FICTION PRIZE

A RICHARD AND JUDY BOOK CLUB PICK

‘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 summer’s day in 1959. The whole family on the porch, half-listening as their mother tells the same tale they have heard so many times before.

From that porch we spool back through the generations, witnessing the events, secrets and unguarded moments that have come to define the family. 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 twenty-first century – four generations of Whitshanks, their lives unfolding in and around the sprawling, lovingly worn Baltimore house that has always been their home…

'One of my favourite authors' Liane Moriarty

'She spins gold' Elizabeth Buchan

'Anne Tyler has no peer' Anita Shreve

'Anne Tyler is one of my favourite writers and this is a delicious book' Rachel Joyce

 Family Life Historical Fiction Literary Fiction World Literature Fiction Baltimore Genre Fiction

Critic reviews

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
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)
Exquisite
Tyler's sentences are wholly hers, instantly recognisable and impossible to duplicate (Hanya Yanigihara)
The extraordinary thing about her writing is the extent to which she makes one believe every word, deed and breath (Kate Kellaway)
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)
Anne Tyler takes the ordinary, the small, and makes them sing (Rachel Joyce)
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)
Every sentence is perfect in this witty story of family life
A must-read
All stars
Most relevant
Ah, Tyler does it again! So satisfying and complete. Heart filled and sweeping extended family drama with unexpected forays and a good ending.

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A deep and rich evocation of family. Anne Tyler creates yet another wonderful world full of the details that make fiction seem even more vivid than life. A writer at the peak of her imaginative powers sharing with us her wisdom and insight on the frailty and wonder of what it means to belong to the people we are related to.

Superb

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