intelligent and sharply observed

one to watch … a promising first novel

An exceptionally funny, quirky and bold writer

Moving and funny, and crammed with incidental wisdom

Inventive and moving, these are truly tales for the new millennium

Deeply engrossing, finely-tuned, and told with a moving and luminous clarity, this is a splendid and memorable debut

A small and beautiful book . . . Pinto's writing has startling sweetness

Em and the Big Hoom is a joyous read that leaves you chuckling and sad, at once

Every sentence is perfect in this witty story of family life

A must-read

What a wonderful, natural writer she is... she knows all the secrets of the human heart

A glorious, unsentimental treat

It was a joy to read such an amazing book - so simply written

A new novel from Tyler is always a treat and this is her best in years

One of her very best

Tyler tenderly unwinds the skein of three generations... deeply beguiling

A beautiful book

The writing is beautiful, unshowy, spare yet bountiful, the distilled style of a long lifetime of creating great novels

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

So subtle, so amusing and real, it's like watching their lives happen in front of you

A master of conversation [Anne Tyler] depicts the intimacies and irritations of family life, the exchanged, complicit lances and misunderstandings. Read this

One of the finest novelists of modern times

Glorious

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

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

One of the most accomplished writers working today... A must-read

A new Anne Tyler novel is always a cause for celebration... effortlessly enthralling

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

One of America's literary giants

A quiet sense of emotional tragedy, sharp observational humour and writing so economically precise you long to read every sentence twice

Perfects the intimate, easy style that makes reading her such a pleasure

The worlds she creates are so absorbing and believable; she taps into our innate curiosity about people just like ourselves

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

A warm, wise and funny book

A believable and wise read

The texture of everyday experience transmuted into art

[A] wonderful book

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

There is no limit to the superlatives that Tyler inspires

With A Spool of Blue Thread, the Pulitzer Prize winning novelist is on typically fine form

Sincerely and carefully told

This is a book that explores moral and psychological ambiguities with extraordinary subtlety

Deftly written with skilful characterisation... A master of conversation

A Spool of Blue Thread does an exquisite job

This is a novel to cherish

Wonderful new novel

A truly delightful read

Ms. Tyler has a knack for turning sitcom situations into something far deeper and more moving

A moving, well-crafted reflection on life and death and the relationships that sustain us through both

How can it be so wonderful!... Tyler remains among the best chroniclers of family life

Astonishingly adept

Tyler describes so accurately the frailties, turmoil and love of family life

No one does family sagas quite like Anne Tyler

Mundane yet magical, thus pure Tyler

Anne Tyler paints a large-scale portrait on a small-scale canvas and does it beautifully

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

Absolutely wonderful, a work of genius

It's so rich in detail and reality, so simple, but so compelling. I wept

Is as good as anything she has ever written

Another insightful study of family life. It may be familiar territory for the writer, but she commands it absolutely

One to read on a family holiday

Her gift for producing what seems less like fiction than actuality works wonders

Heartwarming

Highly reccommended

May be her best yet, though, to be honest, this is what I always tend to say after reading the latest Anne Tyler.

Superbly accomplished, perceptive and funny, tugged forward by suspended revelations to its hurricane climax

[Tyler] writes so sparingly and yet her books are dense with the complexities of human emotions

Pure pleasure

[Tyler] has the rapier wit of a true satirist

Anne Tyler is a magician: what she does seems so simple and et it weaves a compelling spell

Utterly absorbing, heartbreaking and endearing

Tyler explores the simmering resentment that often underpins familial relationships, as well as the elusive nature of the American Dream

A book that is shot through with random misfortune, but which takes infinite pleasure in the detail of everyday family life.

Rivalries flare between siblings and secrets unravel, as Tyler shines a brilliant light on our fundamental relationships and the span of life.

Since the characters are actual, flawed human beings, it makes the story unbelievably relatable.

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

A stunning novel about three generations of a family that perfectly captures the fights, petty irritations and deep connections between them

A rich and perceptive examination of uneven family relationships