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A Spool of Blue Thread: A Novel
Unavailable
A Spool of Blue Thread: A Novel
Unavailable
A Spool of Blue Thread: A Novel
Audiobook13 hours

A Spool of Blue Thread: A Novel

Written by Anne Tyler

Narrated by Kimberly Farr

Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars

3.5/5

()

Currently unavailable

Currently unavailable

About this audiobook

"It was a beautiful, breezy, yellow-and-green afternoon. . ." This is how Abby Whitshank always begins the story of how she fell in love with Red that day in July 1959. The Whitshanks are one of those families that radiate togetherness: an indefinable, enviable kind of specialness. But they are also like all families, in that the stories they tell themselves reveal only part of the picture. Abby and Red and their four grown children have accumulated not only tender moments, laughter, and celebrations, but also jealousies, disappointments, and carefully guarded secrets. 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, here are four generations of Whitshanks, their lives unfolding in and around the sprawling, lovingly worn Baltimore house that has always been their anchor.

Brimming with all the insight, humor, and generosity of spirit that are the hallmarks of Anne Tyler's work, A Spool of Blue Thread tells a poignant yet unsentimental story in praise of family in all its emotional complexity. It is a novel to cherish.

LanguageEnglish
Release dateFeb 10, 2015
ISBN9780553551044
Unavailable
A Spool of Blue Thread: A Novel

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Reviews for A Spool of Blue Thread

Rating: 3.6183650631634823 out of 5 stars
3.5/5

942 ratings134 reviews

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  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Good, very well written. The writing keeps the attention though since there really is no plot beyond the the events that lead 3 generations to live in and leave a house in Baltimore, pacing doesn't really apply. The backward telling sort of jumps in suddenly midway with one tale from the second generation followed by two from the first, until the final segment is again at the end of the timeline. The earlier tales do make the older generation more layered if not more likeable.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Saga of several generations of a family, beautifully written by Anne Tyler. The major focus is on Abby and Red Whitshank and their four adult children, but going back in time to their childhoods and those of the forebears. Written as only Tyler can, with pathos, humor, drama, love and laughter. A wonderful addition to her repertoire.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I've wanted to read Anne Tyler for a very long time but whenever I picked up one of her novels it never seemed to be the right time. Their wordiness told me, this is not going to be a light or easy read. It certainly holds true for A Spool of Blue Thread but it was chosen for my book group so it was the perfect time to FINALLY see what Tyler is all about.If Blue Thread is any indication, Tyler is indeed wordy yet the excessive amount serves a purpose. In this case, they transport the reader to Baltimore where young Junior Whitshank, an apprentice carpenter/construction worker builds a lovely home for the Brill family. Through patience and manipulation, Junior eventually becomes the owner and the house becomes home to generations of Whitshanks.If plot and character development are key to you, it will not be found here. What does capture the reader is Tyler's sense of observation and the ability to tell a family oriented story containing moments, people and circumstances which may be familiar to many a reader and form a connection that is both nostalgic and contemporary.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    The Whitshank’s are a typical Anne Tyler family. They have their quirks, their individual charms, their often universal failings, their misunderstandings, their affection. They have their oft told family stories. And they have their secrets. Oh boy, do they have secrets. They live, of course, in Baltimore, in a large rambling house that is in itself another character. Tyler has a knack for fully fleshing out her characters and making them real as they navigate marriage, love, family dynamics and the fates themselves.Her story moves in mostly reverse generational order so the couple we first meet in middle age is returned to us again as youngsters and the older generation is allowed to return to tell their own versions of their own stories.A Spool of Blue Thread didn’t always work for me and I often wonder if I am too forgiving or too hard on my favorite authors. I’m still not sure but I do know that I enjoyed this story very much and still think about the characters a week after closing the book. Maybe not my favorite of her books, but a wonderful read nonetheless.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I'd put this in the same category as Marilynne Robinson's Lila, Anita Diamant's The Boston Girl, and even Elena Ferrante's magical Neapolitan Trilogy. What is that category? Let's call it Literary Fiction with a Female Focus (LFFF). If you have a better term, by all means, share!

    In the meantime, though, let's talk about this LFFF. It's high-grade stuff. Like any classic LFFF, the story is much more character-driven than plot-driven.

    One could argue, perhaps, that this isn't truly LFFF, as the male characters are drawn with the same clear-sighted narrative pencil as the women. But the focus here is on family, on relationships, on love in all of its romantic, platonic, hedonic, maternal, fraternal forms. That's very LFFF-y. Fortunately, it's also very comfortable, like a big overstuffed sofa full of LFFFiness that you can sink into. This family, full of its quirky-but-not-overly-so characters and limned against several decades of quaint, non-intrusive historical background, was endearing -- except when they weren't, which is exactly like real life. I felt that I knew them, and had known them for quite some time, and I was sorry to see them go when I reached the last page.

  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Utterly absorbing family saga that completely wraps you up. When you've finished, you think "not a great deal really happened!" But that doesn't stop it being totally engrossing.The narrative opens with the middle-aged Whitshanks and their four grown-up children. They almost seem a Waltons type family, headed by builder Red and social-worker Abby...and yet, there seem to be tensions, imperfections, notably in their distant, drop-out son Denny. We follow them through the years, into old age...their changing relationship to their kids, the characters and situations so plausible.Then Tyler drags us back in time: to the (often described by Abby) beautiful afternoon when the pair met. But the anecdotal glories of a time and a place are never exactly true; always there are undercurrents, flaws...the people beaming out of a photograph aren't REALLY having a perfect day. This is the actual day, related by an impartial narrator.And then back again: Red's parents (who we met in the previous section, where his mother describes the Romeo and Juliet romance of her husband and herself) are re-visited in their youth, to see just how their relationship began.Before shifting back to the Whitshanks; a situation that doesn't all come to a satisfying and implausible conclusion, but sort of drifts on, as life does.The Sunday Express describes it as 'Effortlessly enthralling' and I don't thnk I can improve on that.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    "It was a beautiful, breezy, yellow-and-green afternoon. . ." This is how Abby Whitshank always begins the story of how she fell in love with Red that day in July 1959. The Whitshanks are one of those families that radiate togetherness: an indefinable, enviable kind of specialness. But they are also like all families, in that the stories they tell themselves reveal only part of the picture. Abby and Red and their four grown children have accumulated not only tender moments, laughter and celebrations, but also jealousies, disappointments, and carefully guarded secrets. From Red's father and mother, newly arrived in Baltimore in the 1920's, to Abby and Red's grandchildren carrying the family legacy boisterously into the 21st century, here are four generations of Whitshanks, their lives unfolding in and around the sprawling , lovingly worn Baltimore house that has always been their anchor.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    A realistic portrayal of several generations of a family. Nobody's perfect in this novel. You love them all, while also exasperated with most of them from time to time.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    This was a pleasant book to read about a family with adult kids and their ever present sibling expectations, judgements, and love. It's not a big story with critical events that change the course of the family, but one that quietly unfolds (or unwinds) and reveals more of each character's depth as it goes. It's a perfect Anne Tyler book where you are embedded in the story for the duration (with only a bit of a blip at the 2/3 point where you switch back in time to a generation earlier.. which takes a bit to reabsorb you).
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    It was a very slow moving book. I often felt like nothing was happening and that I wasn't really that interested in any of the characters.
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    Didn't finish this book - decided I didn't care that much for the family!
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    This was a book that didn't immediately draw you in or one that you had to read all in one sitting. Rather this was a book that you read over a cup of tea, something you linger at reading while savoring each sentence. Abby and Red are husband and wife are in their upper years and remembering their lives. As you read the book you get the idea that their family is somehow better than others. Or maybe that's just what they like to believe.

    A very enjoyable story but not for people who liked to be sucked in.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Very easy, undemanding read. Anne Tyler is very good at this sort of thing. Ideal to take on holiday.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    I have to say that I have always enjoyed Anne Tylers books. They always were a slow reveal and at the end you were grateful for having read them. This one though...a better title would have been a bunch of loose threads. It just doesn't come together and there are so many rabbit holes that just left you feeling what? what happened? Anne Tyler fans-read it. New to Anne Tyler? don't judge her by this one.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    A Spool of Blue Thread (2015) by Anne Tyler is a book that made many long and short list but hasn't won any prizes. I have a lot of Anne Tyler on my shelf but hadn't read any until now, so I have rectified that. I liked this book immediately. I was pulled into the story of this family; hardworking people trying to make things better for themselves, to give their children what they never had. So I finished this last night and this morning upon waking I started thinking, what was this book about, who was the protagonist. Why did I like this book when the structure was so jarring. This is a story of family, there really is no protagonist. There are the original parents who moved to Baltimore, the next generation who raise their children in the home that his father had bought. The parents are aging, the children are adult and mostly launched except Denny. More and more of the family unspoken history is revealed and then one of the characters dies and it is like you start over from a different point of view, then you start over from another point of view. The protagonist in this book is the family and because it is also about aging which is a subject are always resonate to, that is why I liked this book. Rating 4.0
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    'A Spool of Blue Thread' tells the story of family and the everyday drama that it entails. The plot is told from 2 different time lines, the current forward looking time and then the back history of the family. The story ends as it begins with Denny, the black sheep of the family.This is the first Anne Tyler book i read but from I gather, her stories often use family as the central character with the individual interactions as support. This book disappointed me - I expected more from it and the author. The characters were flat, almost one dimensional which should have been fairly difficult considering you have a family of 6, their in-laws and their 2 founders. The house was a major 'character' in the story but everyone walked away from the house with very little regret or consideration. That is not any way to treat a central plot design. The death of a parent and the downsizing of the family home are triggers for most people yet I felt little emotional attachment. One of the best chapters of the book is when Abby, the matriarch, was taking a walk with the dog and just having a stream of conscious moment. When she says to herself "and then i will tell the doctor this...." i laughed out loud because it was some normal and so well written.Overall, this wasn't a bad book (I did give it 3 stars), it was just o.k. I don't think i would recommend because there are other books i liked better but it wasn't a bad read. I read this book for my local book group and we all felt the same way - just o.k. and a bit disappointing.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Rambling on toward the end in an impossibly slow fashion, this book isn't at all for most readers. I can't say how many times I wondered if the book was over yet, which I don't mean to say I was bored, but to say I kept wondering how many endings I was going to come to.The story of one family spans several generations and should be a deep look on family itself and relationships in general. I did feel that a few times, but not often enough to be caught up in the progression from one person to another. Being a book about relationships and not drama or action, you really need memorable moments or some kind of emotional connection somewhere to keep your attention on the book and combine the characters stories. That just didn't happen for me.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    As usual, Tyler does a superb job of developing her characters and explaining their interpersonal relationships. In fact, by the time she's finished, you feel as though you know the Whitshank family far better than you do your own. If I were forced to quibble, I would say that I am not a fan of jumping back and forth in time. I find it disorienting. But, that is a very small, perhaps too personal of a complaint. All in all, "A Spool of Blue Thread" is yet another in Tyler's seemingly inexhaustible series of entertaining and illuminating novels.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    An interesting literature about chronological life of a family and a house.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Welcome to Anne Tyler's Baltimore. It's not a land of magic, nor of super people who jet from place to place, nor the dark land of gritty noir fiction. Tyler's Baltimore is peopled by real folks, average in their accomplishments, unremarkable in their everyday activities. But through Tyler's lens we come to know them, understand them and their stories, and in so doing we learn a bit about ourselves.The Whitshank family is the centerpiece of "A Spool of Blue Thread." There's Abby and Red who live in the Whitshank family home, and as the novel opens are facing their final years. Age brings a gradual decline that threatens them and frightens their adult children. But change is inevitable.Tyler's view shifts to the various stages of their lives, and the reader comes to know how Abby and Red became the people that they are. But because this is a novel and not a history, our view is not chronological, but rather is carefully arranged by Tyler, who skillfully exploits our perspective. (Like the man on the flying trapeae, it looks so easy because it's so skillfully done!)Part of the beauty of reading Tyler is that the words seem to flow from her pen effortlessly. But in reality it's a tightly interwoven plot that introduces the reader to the stories of three generations and the family myths and misunderstandings that have developed over the years.In their way Tyler's novels are gritty and real. This is real life as lived by real people. Tyler offers no false promises; all dreams aren't achieved and living brings pain as well as joy. However, no one stands alone; we are capable of change and most of all, we are a part of the fabric of family.(The reviewer received a free copy of the book from the publisher as part of the Amazon Vine program.)
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    These are people I know and have known and will know. Is ordinary the right word?!
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    AN enjoyable narrative about 3 generations of a middle class American family.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    dysfunctional family. my favorite thing to read about!
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    This is a story about a family. A family whose roots are unknown to the family itself, and will remain that way, but the reader gets a glimpse. It started with a stark, short phone conversation between father and son and I was grabbed right away. However, I have to admit that it was pretty boring for awhile and while I was committing to finish it (and not Pearl rule it), I was thinking that I wasn't going to like it in the end - it just seemed like a book about a slightly dysfunctional but normal family. But then things started to get interesting, and it turns out this family, or at least its origins, were not normal at all. I'm smiling a bit now at how I was almost fooled into thinking this wouldn't be a worthwhile read.
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    2.5
    I found this novel draggy and boring, but then I'm just not a big fan of Anne Tyler's type of book. Obviously from the numerous glowing reviews I'm squarely in the minority, but I'm not sure why. She has a very readable style of writing, but the plot seemed to have no point. Oh well, you can't like 'em all.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Anne Tyler writes clever, witty, and complicated novels about the matriarchs of extended families in Baltimore. This is a clever, witty, and complicated novel about the matriarch of an extended family in Baltimore. Highly recommended, unless you've read an Anne Tyler novel in the last six months, in which case it might be worth holding off for a little while.Seriously, this is an excellent novel, probably one of Tyler's best and most subtle, but it does read almost like a pastiche of an Anne Tyler novel at times. She dissects four generations of the Whitshanks, a family of house-builders, who live in a grand house that "Junior" Whitshank, founder of the firm, built for a client and then bought back for himself during World War II. In the foreground timeframe of the story, Red and Abby, the second generation, are starting to get old and their children are worried about them, to the extent that two sons (one single, one with a family) decide to move back in to look after their parents - nothing that Red and Abby can do will pry them loose.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Family drama - Through the years.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I love Anne Tyler books and I hope what I've heard about this being her last novel is not true. I enjoy her quirky characters and often identify with some of the situations they get themselves into. Tyler has remarkably accurate insight into the details of everyday life, and she describes these with humor and compassion. I think all of her books focus on relationships within families and/or marriages. A Spool of Blue Thread wasn't my favorite book of hers--that probably would be Breathing Lessons--but it was a good read and I recommend it. I'm glad I haven't read all of her books yet--there are 20--and I look forward to more.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I've been reading Anne Tyler for around 25 years since I first picked up a copy of The Accidental Tourist in my university bookshop. I've never been able to explain the appeal of her writing about not quite broken families from Baltimore but every new book has been a joy and this was one of her best.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Anne Tyler's A Spool of Blue Thread was my book club's May pick. I had two friends, and a spouse, who didn't finish the book because it lacked a compulsive narrative.I found that around page 140 things got very interesting, and in the last sections, devastating. What seems to be a boring family is revealed to be a sad failure spanning generations.There are remarkably funny scenes. I laughed at loud at the complaint asking why people only bring casseroles to the grieving; why not wine?And in the end, there is hope that, regardless of how messed up our family is, we will survive and perhaps learn to do better ourselves.Several of my book club members enjoyed the book, but others who read Tyler's other books were disappointed. In the end, I was glad to have read the book.