Celestial Navigation is the second Anne Tyler book this group has read. We read Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant in September of 2011. Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant is Tyler's 9th book, she wrote it in 2005. Celestial Navigation is her 5th book which she wrote in 1974, and the first she will acknowledge. In an interview, Tyler says of the 4 books she wrote before that; "She wishes she could destroy her first four books. 'Just wipe them out. I didn't know what I was doing. I was just finding my way.'" If that is the case, she certainly found her way with Celestial Navigation. Most of the group thoroughly enjoyed the book and its quirky characters. Anne Tyler's books are not plot driven, they are character based. They take place in Baltimore, and are filled with interesting people. If you are looking for glamour, wealth, and steamy romance scenes, this is not your author. If you are looking for a writer who gets inside people's minds and writes about real life, family dynamics, and everyday situations, you have found your writer. Her college professor, Reynolds Price, said about this about Tyler in 1983; "I thought the students were all going to be like that! Anne Tyler was almost as good a writer at age sixteen as she is now; and she's one of the best novelists alive in the world." I highly recommend any of her books...
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Jennifer Mcgillis
I have been working at the Morse Institute Library for 18 years, and running the Wednesday evening book group since February 2005. |