Lots of Candles, Plenty of Cake

An irresistible memoir from Anna Quindlen - New York Times bestseller and author of Every Last One

Like having an older, wiser siser of favorite aunt over for a cup of tea ... A graceful look at growing older from a wise and accomplished writer.

A laugh-out-loud book .. Lots of Candles, Plenty of Cake renews and restores our zest for life.

The Washington Independent Review of Books

Wise and inspiring ... Quindlen masterfully and beautifully sums up the best parts of aging.

Quindlen will delight her steadfast readers with this pithy, get-real memoir.

Anna Quindlen is a novelist and journalist whose work has appeared on fiction, non-fiction, and self-help bestseller lists. Her book A Short Guide to a Happy Life has sold more than a million copies. While a columnist at The New York Times she won the Pulitzer Prize and published two collections, Living Out Loud and Thinking Out Loud. Her Newsweek columns were collected in Loud and Clear. She is the author of six novels: Object Lessons, One True Thing, Black and Blue, Blessings, Rise and Shine, and Every Last One.

In Lots of Candles, Plenty of Cake, New York Times bestseller and winner of the Pulitzer Prize Anna Quindlen shares the events of her own life to illuminate our own. From childhood memories to manic motherhood to middle age, Quindlen tells life as she has lived it. She acknowledges the passing years, from the generational shrinking of underwear to facing the fact that her knees make ’this noise like Rice Krispies’ when she exercises. Despite its downsides, she says, aging brings wisdom, and a perspective that makes life satisfying and even joyful. Honest, witty and moving, this irresistible memoir celebrates all our lives.

Blessings

From the author of Every Last One, a story about abandonment and second chances

We are so lucky to have Anna Quindlen in our literary lives. With her big heart and her amazing humanity she reminds us all of our blessings

Qualities and shades of love are this writer's strong suit, and she has the unusual talent for writing about them with so much truth and heart that one is carried away on a tidal wave of involvement and concern.

Intelligence, clarity and heartrending directness

The honest of her storytelling is exemplary.

Relationships and family life are captured by Anna Quindlen in a beautiful, intelligent way.

An intelligent, highly entertaining novel laced with acute perceptions about the nature of day-to-day family life

Tender, taut, full of insight, yet with a darkness at its centre

Anna Quindlen is the author of three bestselling novels, Object Lessons, One True Thing and Black and Blue, and three non-fiction books, Living Out Loud, Thinking Out Loud and A Short Guide to a Happy Life. Her New York Times column 'Public and Private' won a Pulitzer Prize in 1992. She is currently a columnist for Newsweek and lives with her husband and children in New York.

One night a young couple sneak onto the estate of wealthy Lydia Blessing and leave a box in the driveway. In the box is a baby and Skip Cuddy, the caretaker who finds her decides secretly to keep her. When Lydia Blessing discovers this she has choices to make, as she had many years before.

Object Lessons

From the author of Every Last One, another unmissable novel about family life

The characters are quirky and vividly drawn ... The writing is lovely, and shows humour and quiet insight ... Quindlen is an intellignet and imaginative writer

Elaborate and playful... Honest and deeply felt... Here is the Quindlen wit, the sharp eye for details of class and manners ... the ardent reading of domestic lives.

Anna Quindlen's first novel is about an experience that is the same for everyone and different for us all: the time when we suddenly see our family with an outsider's eye and begin the separation that marks our growing up.

Quindlen is at her best writing about the dislocations of growing up, the blows a child does not see coming

A charming compassionate little masterpiece - a story so compelling that one wishes at the end that it hadn't stopped.... a brilliant novel, a story that makes one eagerly wait for Anna Quindlen's next novel.

Anna Quindlen is the author of five bestselling novels and has one the Pulitzer Prize for her New York Times column 'Public and Private'. She lives with her family in New York City.

It is the 1960s, in suburban New York City, and twelve-year-old Maggie Scanlan begins to sense that despite the calm surface of her peaceful life, everything is going strangely wrong. 
 
When her all-powerful grandfather is struck down by a stroke, the reverberations affect Maggie's entire family. Her normally dispassionate father breaks down, her mother becomes distant and unavailable, and matters only get worse when her cousin and her best friend start doing things to each other that leave Maggie confused about sex and terrified of sin. 
 
With all of this upheaval, how can she be sure that what she wants is even worth having?

Rise and Shine

A New York Times bestseller - an unforgettable novel of two sisters from the acclaimed author of Every Last One

A columnist's eye for social nuance and Manhattan manners... reminiscent of Nora Ephron

It's an otherwise ordinary Monday when Meghan Fitzmaurice's perfect life hits a wall. A household name as the host of 'Rise and Shine', the country's highest-rated morning talk show, Meghan cuts to a commercial break, but not before she mutters two forbidden words into her open mike. 
 
In an instant, it's the end of an era - not only for Meghan, who is unaccustomed to dealing with adversity, but also for her younger sister, Bridget, a social worker in the Bronx who has always lived in Meghan's long shadow. 
 
The effect of Meghan's on-air foible reverberates through their lives, affecting Meghan's son, husband, friends, and fans, as well as Bridget's perception of her sister, their complex childhood, and herself. What follows is a story about how the Fitzmaurice women adapt, survive, and manage to bring the whole teeming world of New York to heel, by dint of their smart mouths, quick wits, and their powerful connection, one that even the worst tragedy cannot shatter.

Black And Blue

Quindlen invests her tale with rare pathos and even rarer psychological acumen ... the honesty of her storytelling is exemplary

Quindlen has got so deeply inside her characters that they gave me nightmares

Don't miss Anna Quindlen's compassionate portrayal of a violent marriage

It is rare to find a novel at once tender and taut, full of insight, yet with a darkness at its centre - and that's what makes it a gripping read

Beautifully paced - keeps the reader anxiously turning the pages.

I loved it. Qualities and shades of love are this writer's strong suit, and she has the unusual talent for writing about them with so much truth and heart that one is carried away on a tidal wave of involvement and concern

'The first time my husband hit me I was nineteen years old.' 
 
For eighteen years Fran Benedetto kept her secret, hid her bruises. She stayed with Bobby because she wanted her son to have a father, and because, in spite of everything, she loved him. Then one night, when she saw the look on her ten-year-old son's face, Fran finally made a choice - she ran for both their lives. 
 
Now she is starting over in a city far from home, far from Bobby. She uses a name that isn't hers, watches over her son, and tries to forget. For the woman who now calls herself Beth, every day is a chance to heal, to put together the pieces of her shattered self. And every day she waits for Bobby to catch up with her. Bobby always said he would never let her go, and Fran Benedetto is certain of one thing: it is only a matter of time.

One True Thing

'Simply impossible to forget' Alice Hoffman

A very good novel indeed - the relationship between mother and daughter is a triumph. This novel deserves to be bought, read and kept.

One True Thing is so uncompromising in its portrait of life and death, so honest in its rendering of love and loss, that it is simply impossible to forget.

Quindlen's extraordinary moving novel is about family responsibilities, compassion, and growing up.

Imbued with heartbreak, grace and humour, this novel made me walk taller for days.

One True Thing is a book about the very nature of love... and insight into the workings of the heart is what Anna Quindlen is so good at

Fiercely compassionate and frank... conveys a world so out of kilter and so like ours that its readers are likely to feel both exhilarated and unnerved by its accuracy.

Provocative... we leave One True Thing stimulated and challenged, more thoughtful than when we began.

Anna Quindlen is the author of five bestselling novels and has won the Pulitzer Prize for her New York Times column 'Public and Private'. She lives with her family in New York City.

Ellen Gulden is a successful, young New York journalist. But when her mother, Kate, is diagnosed with cancer, she leaves her life in the city to return home and care for her. In the short time they have left, the relationship between mother and daughter - tender, awkward and revealing - deepens, and Ellen is forced to confront painful truths about her adored father. 
 
But in the weeks that follow Kate's death, events take a shocking and unexpected turn. Family emotions are laid bare as a new drama is played out, and overnight Ellen goes from devoted daughter to prime suspect, accused of the mercy killing of her 'one true thing'. 
 
One True Thing is the devastating story of a mother and daughter, of love and loss, and of shattering choices.

A Tale of a Dog and His Family

Life with Beau

A wise 'guide to life' - a gem from Pulitzer Prize winning and No. 1 New York Times bestselling author Anna Quindlen, in the vein of A SHORT GUIDE TO A HAPPY LIFE and MARLEY AND ME

'The life of a good dog is like the life of a good person, only shorter and more compressed', writes Pulitzer Prize-winning author Anna Quindlen about her beloved black Labrador retriever, Beau. With her trademark wisdom and humour, Quindlen reflects on how her life has unfolded in tandem with Beau's, and on the lessons she's learned by watching him: to roll with the punches, to take things as they come, to measure herself not in terms of the past or the future but of the present, to raise her nose in the air from time to time and, at least metaphorically, holler, 'I smell bacon!' 
 
Of the dog that once possessed a catcher's mitt of a mouth, Quindlen reminisces, 'There came a time when a scrap thrown in his direction usually bounced unseen off his head. Yet put a pork roast in the oven, and the guy still breathed as audibly as an obscene caller. The eyes and ears may have gone, but the nose was eternal. And the tail. The tail still wagged, albeit at half-staff. When it stops, I thought more than once, then we'll know'. 
Heartening and bittersweet, Life with Beau honors the life of a cherished and loyal friend and offers us a valuable lesson on our four-legged family members: Sometimes an old dog can teach us new tricks.

Anna Quindlen is the author of five novels, six nonfiction books and two children's books (THE TREE THAT CAME TO STAY, HAPPILY EVER AFTER). Her New York Times column "Public and Private" won the Pulitzer Prize in 1992. Her column now appears every other week in Newsweek. Anna Quindlen lives in New York.

What started as an ode to Quindlen's aging black Labrador in her Newsweek column has become a life-affirming short book about happiness, in the tradition of A SHORT GUIDE TO A HAPPY LIFE and BEING PERFECT. 
 
In this wise little book, Anna Quindlen writes: "The life of a good dog is like the life of a good person, only shorter, more compressed." Quindlen continues, with her trademark wonderful writing, sound wisdom and humor, to explain how her life has unfolded in tandem with Beau, and how she's learned how to enjoy life, in the simplest of ways, by watching him. 
 
She writes, "When I was a mixed-breed puppy, I could never have imagined how simple and basic contentment could be. And that's what I've learned from watching Beau: to roll with the punches, to take things as they come, to measure myself not in terms of the past or the future but of the present, to raise my nose in the air from time to time and, at least metaphorically, holler, "I smell bacon!"

The stunning Richard and Judy Book Club pick

Every Last One

The mesmerising and heart-rending new book from the #1 New York Times bestselling novelist

Every Last One is a breathtaking novel. Quindlen writes superbly about families, grief and betrayal. I was completely mesmerised by this book and Mary Beth and the Latham family will stay with me for a long time to come

Every Last One, the eloquent sixth novel by former New York Times columnist Anna Quindlen, moves, in the turn of a page, from cosy, slow-burning American pastoral to the gripping stuff of nightmares

Quindlen's sixth novel is as devastating in its emotional impact as it is devastatingly well-crafted... Writing with relentless and dazzling brilliance, Quindlen grapples with the lancing pain and the swirls of disorientation experienced by anyone who has loved and lost.

Anna Quindlen is the author of five bestselling novels and has won a Pulitzer Prize for her New York Times column 'Public and Private'. She lives with her family in New York City.

The Lathams seem to have it all. 
 
Health, wealth, a vibrant family life - as Mary Beth Latham contemplates a life built around home, friends and community, she has every reason to feel fulfilled and content. 
 
That is, until one of her sons begins to unravel. 
 
As Mary Beth focuses on him, she discovers that the comfortable life she has spent years constructing has been shattered by a single traumatic moment. Forced to confront her own demons, Mary Beth must face the knowledge that one secret, shameful act has set the course of her fate... 
___________________ 
 
Every Last One is a mesmerising and devastating portrait of family life, and a testament to the power of a mother's love and determination. It is Anna Quindlen's finest work to date.

A Short Guide To A Happy Life

A heart-to- heart book of wisdom and reflection.

Anna Quindlen is the author of three bestslling novels, Object Lessons, One True Thing and Black and Blue.  Her New York Times column 'Public and Private' won a Pulitzer Prize in 1992. She is currently a columnist for Newsweek and lives with her husband and children in New York.

In this treasure of a book, Anna Quindlen, the bestselling novelist and columnist, reflects on what it takes to 'get a life' - to live deeply every day and from your own unique self, rather than merely to exist through your days. Anna Quindlen uses her candid, heart-to-heart  voice  to show us how good life really is: 'Life is made of moments, small pieces of glittering mica in a line stretch of gray cement.  It would be wonderful if they came to us unsummoned, but particularly in lives as busy as the ones most of us lead now, that won't happen.  We have to teach ourselves how to live, really live-to love the journey, not the destination.'But how to live from that perspective?  To fully engage in our days?  In this, an unusual and beautiful book, Quindlen guides us with an understanding that come from knowing how to see the view, the richness in living.

Anna Quindlen

[A] marvelous romantic comedy of manners ... Taken as a whole, Quindlen’s writings represent a generous and moving interrogation of women’s experience across the lines of class and race ... [Still Life with Bread Crumbs] proves all the more moving because of its light, sophisticated humor. Quindlen’s least overtly political novel, it packs perhaps the most serious punch ... Quindlen has delivered a novel that will have a staying power all its own.

Focused on a few characters, this is engaging, immaculately constructed storytelling, with a warm message about the chance of happiness later in life

Quindlen has made a home at the top of the bestsellers lists with novels that capture the grace and frailty of everyday life, and her latest work is sure to take her there again. With spare, elegant prose, she crafts a poignant glimpse into the inner life of an aging woman who discovers that reality contains much more color than her own celebrated black-and-white images.

Quindlen has always excelled at capturing telling details in a story, and she does so again in this quiet, powerful novel, showing the charged emotions that teem beneath the surface of daily life.

A Pulitzer Prize–winning columnist and star in the pantheon of domestic fiction (Every Last One, 2010), Quindlen presents instantly recognizable characters who may be appealingly warm and nonthreatening, but that only serves to drive home her potent message that it’s never too late to embrace life’s second chances.

A romantic comedy layered with depth, grace and wit… a smart, funny novel filled with surprisingly sparse prose and beautifully-drawn characters

LONGLISTED FOR THE BAILEYS WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR FICTION 2014 
 
THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER 
 
Still Life with Bread Crumbs begins with an imagined gunshot and ends with a new tin roof. Between the two is a wry and knowing portrait of Rebecca Winter, a photographer whose work made her an unlikely heroine for many women. Her career is now descendent, her bank balance shaky, and she has fled the city for the middle of nowhere. There she discovers, in a tree stand with a roofer named Jim Bates, that what she sees through a camera lens is not all there is to life. 
 
Brilliantly written, powerfully observed, Still Life with Bread Crumbs is a deeply moving and often very funny story of unexpected love, and a stunningly crafted journey into the life of a woman, her heart, her mind, her days, as she discovers that life is a story with many levels, a story that is longer and more exciting than she ever imagined.

Anna Quindlen

Praise for Still Life with Bread Crumbs

[A] marvelous romantic comedy of manners ... Taken as a whole, Quindlen’s writings represent a generous and moving interrogation of women’s experience across the lines of class and race ... [Still L ...

Focused on a few characters, this is engaging, immaculately constructed storytelling, with a warm message about the chance of happiness later in life

Quindlen has made a home at the top of the bestsellers lists with novels that capture the grace and frailty of everyday life, and her latest work is sure to take her there again. With spare, elegant prose, she cr ...

[A] marvelous romantic comedy of manners ... Taken as a whole, Quindlen’s writings represent a generous and moving interrogation of women’s experience across the lines of class and race ... [Still L ...

Focused on a few characters, this is engaging, immaculately constructed storytelling, with a warm message about the chance of happiness later in life

Quindlen has made a home at the top of the bestsellers lists with novels that capture the grace and frailty of everyday life, and her latest work is sure to take her there again. With spare, elegant prose, she cr ...

[A] marvelous romantic comedy of manners ... Taken as a whole, Quindlen’s writings represent a generous and moving interrogation of women’s experience across the lines of class and race ... [Still L ...

Focused on a few characters, this is engaging, immaculately constructed storytelling, with a warm message about the chance of happiness later in life

Quindlen has made a home at the top of the bestsellers lists with novels that capture the grace and frailty of everyday life, and her latest work is sure to take her there again. With spare, elegant prose, she cr ...

Books by Anna Quindlen

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