Competitions

Win 25 Anne Tyler books for 2025

The cover of Three Days in June on a pink background

Three Days In June_1800x1200px_v1

Extracts

Extract: Anne Tyler’s Three Days in June

Focus titles zoomed 1800×1200

Reading lists

9 Vintage Paperback Novels to Add to Your Summer TBR Pile

A gif of a birthday cake with '40' candles atop, with flickering flames.

Classics-to-read-by-Age_40s_Desktop_Hero_Penguin.gif

20 books everyone should read in their forties

Where-to-Start-Anne-Tyler1

Where to start reading Anne Tyler

IWD_1800x1200-Main-Image_Penguin.jpg

Must-read books by women, as chosen by our readers

The 1980s was a decade of massive social, political and cultural change. 

1980-books-define-main-image-1800×1200201.jpg

Books that shaped the 1980s

Where to start reading Anne Tyler's books

vintage-article-promo-safe-area-AnneTyler.jpg

Where to start reading Anne Tyler’s books

If Morning Ever Comes

Ben Joe is the only boy in a family of six sisters, Mama and Gram. 
 
He is studying for a law degree in New York when he hears his eldest sister Joanne has left her husband and returned home with her baby girl. Out of a mixture of homesickness and duty Ben Joe returns to the home in which he has always felt like an outsider. 
 
**ANNE TYLER HAS SOLD OVER 8 MILLION BOOKS WORLDWIDE** 
 
'Anne Tyler takes the ordinary, the small, and makes them sing' Rachel Joyce 
 
'She knows all the secrets of the human heart' Monica Ali 
 
'A masterly author' Sebastian Faulks 
 
'I love Anne Tyler. I've read every single book she's written' Jacqueline Wilson

Funny, serious, touching, zany, delightful, revealing...a triumph of perception

Anne Tyler has won herself a devoted following. Rightly so: her novels are beautifully controlled, witty, subtle, with an undercurrent of human warmth

She is a writer who gets to the heart of the matter without being glib, and cleverly reveals the extraordinary in seemingly ordinary lives

Anne Tyler's touch is deft, her perceptions keen, her ear for speech phenomenal, her people triumphantly alive... Only a rarely talented novelist could have written this fine book

Her fiction is a quiet, gentle reminder of the goodness to be found in most ordinary lives

Anne Tyler was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota, in 1941 and grew up in Raleigh, North Carolina. Her bestselling novels include Breathing Lessons, The Accidental Tourist, Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant, Ladder of Years, Back When We Were Grown-ups, Digging to America, A Spool of Blue Thread, Clock Dance, Redhead by the Side of the Road and French Braid. 
 
In 1989 she won the Pulitzer Prize; in 1994 she was nominated by Roddy Doyle and Nick Hornby as 'the greatest novelist writing in English'; and in 2012 she received the Sunday Times Award for Literary Excellence. In 2015 A Spool of Blue Thread was shortlisted for the Baileys Women's Prize for Fiction and the Booker Prize; and in 2020 Redhead by the Side of the Road was longlisted for the Booker Prize.

Morgan's Passing

Read Pulitzer Prize-winning, Sunday Times bestselling author Anne Tyler's funny and uplifting exploration of what it is to be an outsider. 
 
Morgan Gower has an outsize hairy beard, an array of peculiar costumes and fantastic headwear, and a serious smoking habit. He likes to pretend to be other people - a jockey, a shipping magnate, a foreign art dealer - and he likes to do this more and more since his massive brood of daughters are all growing up, getting married and finding him embarrassing. Then comes his first dramatic encounter with Emily and Leon Meredith, and the start of an extraordinary obsession. 
 
**ANNE TYLER HAS SOLD OVER 8 MILLION BOOKS WORLDWIDE** 
 
'Anne Tyler takes the ordinary, the small, and makes them sing' Rachel Joyce 
 
'She knows all the secrets of the human heart' Monica Ali 
 
'A masterly author' Sebastian Faulks 
 
'I love Anne Tyler. I've read every single book she's written' Jacqueline Wilson

Tyler has created a world of imaginary people who are as tangible and as real as one's own friends and relatives

Alternatively lyrical and rambunctiously comic

An almost flawless story of love... Moran emerges as a true hero

Tyler is not merely good, she is wickedly good

Pure magic, a contemporary fairy tale that overflows with affection, mystery and laughter

A Slipping Down Life

Read Pulitzer Prize-winning, Sunday Times bestselling author Anne Tyler's raw exploration of the power of youth and fate. 
 
In a small Southern town, shy teenager Evie Decker becomes obsessed with local rock singer Bertram 'Drumstrings' Casey, and decides to take her life into her own hands. When she manages to meet him, she bursts out of her lonely shell and their two lives become unforgettably entwined. 
 
**ANNE TYLER HAS SOLD OVER 8 MILLION BOOKS WORLDWIDE** 
 
'Anne Tyler takes the ordinary, the small, and makes them sing' Rachel Joyce 
 
'She knows all the secrets of the human heart' Monica Ali 
 
'A masterly author' Sebastian Faulks 
 
'I love Anne Tyler. I've read every single book she's written' Jacqueline Wilson

Her brilliance in capturing the ripples on the surface of family life gives her a claim to be the Jane Austen of our age

Anne Tyler is inventive, funny and wise. Her fiction is magically alive to the quirks and coincidences of fate

Funny and lyrical and true, exquisite in its details and ambitious in its design...rich...warm. The writer is not merely good, she is wickedly good

Miss Tyler never loses her control. She writes with virtuosity and perfect confidence, insight and compassion

In a small Southern town, shy teenager Evie Decker becomes obsessed with local rock singer Bertram 'Drumstrings' Casey, and decides to take her life into her own hands. When she manages to meet him, she bursts out of her lonely shell and their two lives become unforgettably entwined. 
 
**ANNE TYLER HAS SOLD OVER 8 MILLION BOOKS WORLDWIDE** 
 
'Anne Tyler takes the ordinary, the small, and makes them sing' Rachel Joyce 
 
'She knows all the secrets of the human heart' Monica Ali 
 
'A masterly author' Sebastian Faulks 
 
'I love Anne Tyler. I've read every single book she's written' Jacqueline Wilson

Celestial Navigation

Discover the Pulitzer Prize-Winning Sunday Times bestselling author

'A rich, revolutionary novel...she writes with virtuosity and perfect confidence, insight and compassion' The Times 
 
Jeremy is a child-like, painfully shy bachelor who has never left home. He lives on the third floor of his mother's boarding house and spends his days cutting up coloured paper to make small collages - until the day his mother dies and the beautiful Mary Tell arrives to turn his world upside down. 
 
**ANNE TYLER HAS SOLD OVER 8 MILLION BOOKS WORLDWIDE** 
 
'Anne Tyler takes the ordinary, the small, and makes them sing' Rachel Joyce 
 
'She knows all the secrets of the human heart' Monica Ali 
 
'A masterly author' Sebastian Faulks 
 
'I love Anne Tyler. I've read every single book she's written' Jacqueline Wilson

A rich, revolutionary novel...she writes with virtuosity and perfect confidence, insight and compassion

Anne Tyler's talent is to make extraordinary characters entirely credible... So unfaltering is their story that every word is convincing

Tyler has created two characters at once entirely original and entirely convincing...a quiet but immensely strong novel, to admire and treasure

Searching For Caleb

Discover Pulitzer Prize-winning, Sunday Times bestselling author Anne Tyler's deeply personal American historical epic. 
 
Duncan Peck is a restless man, always on the move. His wife, Justine, is a fortune teller who can't remember the past. Her grandfather, Daniel, longs to find the brother who walked out of his life in 1912 never to be seen again. All three are taking journeys that lead back to the family's deepest roots, to a place where rebellion and acceptance have the haunting power to merge into one... 
 
**ANNE TYLER HAS SOLD OVER 8 MILLION BOOKS WORLDWIDE** 
 
'Anne Tyler takes the ordinary, the small, and makes them sing' Rachel Joyce 
 
'She knows all the secrets of the human heart' Monica Ali 
 
'A masterly author' Sebastian Faulks 
 
'I love Anne Tyler. I've read every single book she's written' Jacqueline Wilson

Family sagas have such an endless appeal that whenever one meets a really good one, like Anne Tyler's Searching for Caleb, one wonders why anyone bothers to write a different form of novel

Anne Tyler is a writer whose special gift is to convey the richness, strangeness and unpredicability of seemingly everyday lives

The Tin Can Tree

Read Pulitzer Prize-winning, Sunday Times bestselling author Anne Tyler's classic exploration of the impact of grief on a family. 
 
When young Janie Pike dies in a tragic accident, she leaves behind a family numbed with grief and torn with guilt and recrimination. In this compassionate and haunting novel Anne Tyler explores how each member of the family learns to face the future in their own way. 
 
**ANNE TYLER HAS SOLD OVER 8 MILLION BOOKS WORLDWIDE** 
 
'Anne Tyler takes the ordinary, the small, and makes them sing' Rachel Joyce 
 
'She knows all the secrets of the human heart' Monica Ali 
 
'A masterly author' Sebastian Faulks 
 
'I love Anne Tyler. I've read every single book she's written' Jacqueline Wilson

A wholly individual writer of considerable stature

Her touch is deft, her perceptions keen, her ear for speech phenomenal. Her people are triumphantly alive

Miss Tyler is a writer whose special gift is to convey the richness, strangeness and unpredictability of seemingly everyday lives...She is a wholly individual writer and one of considerable stature

Anne Tyler

Quietly magical... Tyler turns the stuff of everyday life — work, marriage, family — into something truly special

Tyler’s particular genius is for capturing the fullness of character and feeling in so few words

A masterly portrait of a divorced couple brought together by their daughter’s wedding... characters so alive they could be sitting next to you telling you what happened to them last Tuesday – and the ending is a beauty... a wise, wonderful book

Perfect for diving into on a lazy afternoon

Independent, *Books to Look Out For 2025*

This novel goes down like a cold glass of wine on a warm summer’s afternoon… a wryly funny comedy of manners

Sublimely written and beautifully observed

What a perfect book to come out the day before Valentine's Day!

A wry, joyful tale, complete with a cupid-like cameo for a haughty cat

Anne Tyler is a novelist who always pleases. She treats her characters with respect and, usually, affection… Her books are intelligent and sympathetic

Witty, thoughtful and brilliantly character-driven

Tyler's sentences are wholly hers, instantly recognisable and impossible to duplicate

She knows all the secrets of the human heart

Anne Tyler tales the ordinary, the small, and makes them sing

Tyler writes with an apparent effortlessness which conceals great art

‘Just relishable. Thank God for the balm of good writing’ NIGELLA LAWSON 
‘A joy to read in a single relaxing afternoon’ JACQUELINE WILSON 
'Razor sharp on family, love and marriage' DAVID NICHOLLS 
'I devoured it in one long lazy afternoon - I laughed and cried' VICTORIA HISLOP 
 
The happily ever after is only part of the story… A funny, touching, hopeful gem about love, marriage and second chances 
 
It’s the day before her daughter’s wedding and things are not going well for Gail Baines. First thing, she loses her job – or quits, depending who you ask. Then her ex-husband Max turns up at her door expecting to stay for the festivities. He doesn’t even have a suit. Instead, he’s brought memories, a shared sense of humour – and a cat looking for a new home. 
 
Just as Gail is wondering what’s next, their daughter Debbie discovers her groom has been keeping a secret… 
 
As the big day dawns, the exes just can’t agree on what’s best for Debbie. Gail is seriously worried, while Max seems more concerned with whether to opt for the salmon or prime rib at the reception, if they make it that far. 
 
The day after the wedding, Gail and Max prepare to go their separate ways again. But all the questions about the future of the happy couple have stirred up the past for Gail. Because ‘happy’ takes many forms, and sometimes the younger generation has much to teach the older about secrets, acceptance and taking the rough with the smooth. 
 
'Clear-eyed, out-and-out funny' RACHEL JOYCE 
 
'Has all her trademark wry humour and brilliant observation' ELIZABETH BUCHAN 
 
'If Anne Tyler isn’t the best writer in the world, who is?' BBC R4 WOMAN'S HOUR 
 
'Anne Tyler really is the best' GRAHAM NORTON 
 
'Our greatest chronicler of family life' DAILY MAIL 
 
'Nobody does it better' VOGUE

Three Days in June

About us

About Us (Header 4)

Kate-Atkinson

James-Baldwin

Marian-Keyes

haruki-murakami-320×320-1

Richard-Osman

Malorie Blackman

Lisa-Jewell

Charlie-Mackesy

Authors (Header 3)

Children&#039;s

Company

Discover

Fiction

Non-fiction

Penguin Classics

Penguin Shop (Header 5)

Useful links

Work with us

prhuk-authors

author-hero

author-avatar

author-menu

By signing up, I confirm that I'm over 16. To find out what personal data we collect and how we use it, please visit our&nbsp;<a href="https://www.penguin.co.uk/company/about-us/notices/privacy-policy/">Privacy Policy</a>

Discover the Penguin books that shaped us

Anne Tyler

Praise for Three Days in June

Quietly magical... Tyler turns the stuff of everyday life — work, marriage, family — into something truly special

Tyler’s particular genius is for capturing the fullness of character and feeling in so few words

A masterly portrait of a divorced couple brought together by their daughter’s wedding... characters so alive they could be sitting next to you telling you what happened to them last Tuesday – and the e ...

Quietly magical... Tyler turns the stuff of everyday life — work, marriage, family — into something truly special

Tyler’s particular genius is for capturing the fullness of character and feeling in so few words

A masterly portrait of a divorced couple brought together by their daughter’s wedding... characters so alive they could be sitting next to you telling you what happened to them last Tuesday – and the e ...

Quietly magical... Tyler turns the stuff of everyday life — work, marriage, family — into something truly special

Tyler’s particular genius is for capturing the fullness of character and feeling in so few words

A masterly portrait of a divorced couple brought together by their daughter’s wedding... characters so alive they could be sitting next to you telling you what happened to them last Tuesday – and the e ...

Books by Anne Tyler

Series by Anne Tyler

Vintage Classics Shakespeare Series

Articles featuring Anne Tyler

Win 25 Anne Tyler books for 2025

Extract: Anne Tyler’s Three Days in June

9 Vintage Paperback Novels to Add to Your Summer TBR Pile

20 books everyone should read in their forties

Where to start reading Anne Tyler

Must-read books by women, as chosen by our readers

Books that shaped the 1980s

Where to start reading Anne Tyler’s books

Sign up to the VINTAGE Books newsletter

Follow penguin

Follow ladybird

Follow puffin

Sign up to the Penguin newsletter