- Published: 10 February 2015
- ISBN: 9781473521070
- Imprint: Vintage Digital
- Format: Audio Download
- Length: 13 hr 19 min
- Narrator: Kimberly Farr
- RRP: $24.99
A Spool of Blue Thread
- Published: 10 February 2015
- ISBN: 9781473521070
- Imprint: Vintage Digital
- Format: Audio Download
- Length: 13 hr 19 min
- Narrator: Kimberly Farr
- RRP: $24.99
A quiet sense of emotional tragedy, sharp observational humour and writing so economically precise you long to read every sentence twice
Huffington Post
One of the most accomplished writers working today... A must-read
Good Housekeeping
A new novel from Tyler is always a treat and this is her best in years
Amy E Williams, Mail on Sunday (You)
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
A warm, wise and funny book
Candis
Her terrain is the family, and the micro-interactions between both its members and interlopers from without; her tone is superficially uncomplicated, her insights culmulative, her mode of realist fiction essentially conventional... its power derives from the restless depths beneath its unfractured surface
Alex Clark, Guardian
One of America's literary giants
Graeme Thomson, Daily Mail
So subtle, so amusing and real, it's like watching their lives happen in front of you
Sainsbury's Magazine
One of her very best
Sunday Times
Perfects the intimate, easy style that makes reading her such a pleasure
Claire Allfree, Metro
Tyler tenderly unwinds the skein of three generations... deeply beguiling
Oprah Magazine
The texture of everyday experience transmuted into art
Kirkus Review
A glorious, unsentimental treat
Janette Currie, Independent
Every sentence is perfect in this witty story of family life
Sun
The story is so absorbing, and characters so real that while you race to finish it, you also really don't want it to end
Deirdre O’Brien, Sunday Mirror
A new Anne Tyler novel is always a cause for celebration... effortlessly enthralling
Charlotte Heathcote, Sunday Express
Anne Tyler is the most natural of novelist... I know no other novelist who draws so directly from real life, and whose work remains so uncontaminated by the shortcuts and cliches of television and Hollywood... A Spool of Blue Thread may be her best yet
Craig Brown, Daily Mail
A master of conversation [Anne Tyler] depicts the intimacies and irritations of family life, the exchanged, complicit lances and misunderstandings. Read this
Vanessa Berridge, 4 stars, Daily Express
A believable and wise read
Joanne Finney, Good Housekeeping
[A] wonderful book
Elspeth Barker, Literary Review
With A Spool of Blue Thread, the Pulitzer Prize winning novelist is on typically fine form
Jennifer Lipman, Optima Magazine
Sincerely and carefully told
Angus Sutherland, 5 stars, Skinny
This is a book that explores moral and psychological ambiguities with extraordinary subtlety
Caroline Moore, Oldie
Deftly written with skilful characterisation... A master of conversation
Vanessa Berridge, Daily Express
The worlds she creates are so absorbing and believable; she taps into our innate curiosity about people just like ourselves
Sophie White, Sunday Independent
There is no limit to the superlatives that Tyler inspires
Eileen Battersby, Irish Times
This is a novel to cherish
MediaCity
Wonderful new novel
5 stars, Western Mail
A Spool of Blue Thread does an exquisite job
Leo Robson, New Statesman
A truly delightful read
Rachael Roberts, Big Issue
What she does, in the course of this novel, is show that the simplest family stories often have complex roots and unlikely outcomes. This is a book full of surprises, and Tyler is adept at the great revelation that both startles and throws what has come before into a whole new light
Erica Wagner, Financial Times
Ms. Tyler has a knack for turning sitcom situations into something far deeper and more moving
Rebecca Pepper Sinkler, International New York Times
A moving, well-crafted reflection on life and death and the relationships that sustain us through both
Sarah Gilmartin, Sunday Business Post
One of the finest novelists of modern times
Bella
When it comes to painting a loving, funny and yet never simplistic portrait of American family life, Anne Tyler is, and always has been, the great mistress
Erica Wagner, Financial Times
Exquisite
Janice Turner, The Times
The extraordinary thing about her writing is the extent to which she makes one believe every word, deed and breath
Kate Kellaway, Guardian
How can it be so wonderful!... Tyler remains among the best chroniclers of family life
Washington Post
The writing is beautiful, unshowy, spare yet bountiful, the distilled style of a long lifetime of creating great novels
Susan Hill, Spectator
Astonishingly adept
Leo Robson, New Statesman
Tyler describes so accurately the frailties, turmoil and love of family life
Big Issue
A must-read
Good Housekeeping
Exquisite
The Times
Glorious
Independent
No one does family sagas quite like Anne Tyler
Matilda Bathurst, Country Life
Mundane yet magical, thus pure Tyler
Markie Robson-Scott, Tablet
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
Anne Tyler is one of my favourite writers and this is a delicious book. It is like being with a dear old friend. It is very special
Rachel Joyce
Anne Tyler paints a large-scale portrait on a small-scale canvas and does it beautifully
Good Book Guide
A beautiful book
Adele Parks
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
What a wonderful, natural writer she is... she knows all the secrets of the human heart
Monica Ali
It was a joy to read such an amazing book - so simply written
Victoria Hislop
In many ways this novel is a culmination of all those that have gone before it; it combines a multitude of themes and never fails to exact humour alongside the more sombre task of delving into topical issues such as sexuality, relationships and ageing
Francesa Wilson, Gryphon
Absolutely wonderful, a work of genius
Gill Hornby, Lady
It's so rich in detail and reality, so simple, but so compelling. I wept
Victoria Hislop, Waitrose Weekend
Is as good as anything she has ever written
Razia Iqbal, Independent
Another insightful study of family life. It may be familiar territory for the writer, but she commands it absolutely
Neville Hawcock, Financial Times
One to read on a family holiday
Fiona Wilson, The Times
Her gift for producing what seems less like fiction than actuality works wonders
Peter Kemp, Sunday Times Ireland
Heartwarming
Four stars, Love it!
Highly reccommended
Fiona Atley, Nudge
May be her best yet, though, to be honest, this is what I always tend to say after reading the latest Anne Tyler.
Craig Brown, Mail on Sunday
Superbly accomplished, perceptive and funny, tugged forward by suspended revelations to its hurricane climax
Robert McCrum, Observer
[Tyler] writes so sparingly and yet her books are dense with the complexities of human emotions
Natasha Harding, Jessica Fellowes, The Sun
Pure pleasure
Mark Amory, Spectator
[Tyler] has the rapier wit of a true satirist
Molly Guiness, Spectator
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
Anne Tyler takes the ordinary, the small, and makes them sing
Rachel Joyce, Observer, Books That Made Our Year 2015
Tyler's sentences are wholly hers, instantly recognisable and impossible to duplicate
Hanya Yanigihara, Observer, Books That Made Our Year 2015
Anne Tyler is a magician: what she does seems so simple and et it weaves a compelling spell
D O'D, RTE Guide
Utterly absorbing, heartbreaking and endearing
Best
Tyler explores the simmering resentment that often underpins familial relationships, as well as the elusive nature of the American Dream
Paul Nolan, Hot Press
A book that is shot through with random misfortune, but which takes infinite pleasure in the detail of everyday family life.
Daisy Goodwin, Daily Mail
Rivalries flare between siblings and secrets unravel, as Tyler shines a brilliant light on our fundamental relationships and the span of life.
Sainsbury’s Magazine
Since the characters are actual, flawed human beings, it makes the story unbelievably relatable.
Emmy Griffiths, So Feminine
One of the greatest storytellers alive, whose characters arrive on the page like human beings, things happen to them, they react to these things, and then life continues
John Boyne, Irish Times
A stunning novel about three generations of a family that perfectly captures the fights, petty irritations and deep connections between them
Good Housekeeping
A rich and perceptive examination of uneven family relationships
Yorkshire Post