Anne Tyler | The Guardian
- ️Sat Feb 15 2025
February 2025
‘It seemed wrong to write about normal life after that horrendous election’: US novelist Anne Tyler
Book of the day
Three Days in June by Anne Tyler review – a wise and wonderful account of infidelity
August 2022
Top 10s
Top 10 books about starting afreshWriters from Anne Tyler to Joan Didion and Tom McCarthy explore the possibilities and perils of remaking one’s life
March 2022
Book of the day
French Braid by Anne Tyler review – rifts and reunions in Robin’s nestThe author continues to deftly mine the tensions and resentments of family life with a tender and sprawling saga set across six tumultuous decades
August 2021
Top 10s
Top 10 books about family lifeFrom parents who meddle in their children’s relationships to ex-wives who loom over second marriages, families in fiction can be just as complicated as they are in real life
April 2020
Books interview
Anne Tyler: 'Up close you’ll always see things to be optimistic about'Renowned for her extraordinary insights into ordinary lives, the award-winning novelist discusses family sagas and why she thinks she was a better writer when she was younger
Cultural clash: the trouble with writing about the lives of others
Authors are being attacked for telling stories about experiences that aren’t their own. But isn’t that the point of using the imagination?
Redhead by the Side of the Road by Anne Tyler review – quietly profound
A master at chronicling the lives of ordinary people uncovers universal truths in a novel about a computer repair man
March 2020
Book of the day
Redhead By the Side of the Road review – another gem from Anne TylerA mundane life is once again thrown into turmoil in the US writer’s best novel in some time
July 2019
Book clinic
Book clinic: what books can help me to love my enemies?Buddhist wisdom and Anita Brookner help make sense of those annoying others
March 2019
Book clinic
Book clinic: which novels will help me cope with life’s hard knocks?Diana Athill, Anne Tyler and Elizabeth Strout all provide wisdom and humour in times of need
December 2018
Further reading
Fights, booze and murder: Julie Myerson’s favourite family gatherings from literatureFrom Shirley Jackson’s arsenic-laced dinner to David Sedaris’s essay about his sister’s death, family get-togethers make for dramatic reading
July 2018
Book of the day
Clock Dance by Anne Tyler review – an old friend stuck in neutral
Books interview
Anne Tyler: ‘Wuthering Heights strikes me as silly’
March 2018
Top 10s
Top 10 runaway mothers in fictionFrom Nancy Mitford’s ‘the Bolter’ – so named for her serial monogamy – to the mother of Kramer vs Kramer, here are the best mums on the run
December 2017
'Women are better writers than men': novelist John Boyne sets the record straight
Male authors are always pronouncing their own brilliance – or boasting about not reading books by women. So, after a lifetime spent writing and attending literary festivals, John Boyne would like to get something off his chest …
September 2016
Top 10s
Top 10 mothers, 'bad' and otherwise, in booksFrom Alice Munro to Rachel Cusk, Anne Tyler to Margaret Atwood, great writers reveal a more complicated story than we’re inclined to tell ourselves
August 2016
Top 10s
Top 10 books about long marriagesNot many novelists have managed to write well about these unglamorous but subtle dramas. From George Eliot to John Updike, here are some who have
July 2016
Digested read
Vinegar Girl: The Taming of the Shrew retold by Anne Tyler – digested readJohn Crace trims Anne Tyler’s modern update on Shakespeare’s battle of the sexes to an evenly matched 800 words
June 2016
Vinegar Girl by Anne Tyler review – skilled but pointless Shakespeare retread
This update of The Taming of the Shrew is enjoyable but never manages to convince that it’s more than a mere marketing exercise
About 70 results for Anne Tyler