Anne Tyler has been called many things: 'the Jane Austen of our age' (Allison Pearson), 'the best writer in the world' (Woman's Hour), Liane Moriarty's favourite author... Amongst her devoted fans are the likes of David Nicholls, Jacqueline Wilson, Nigella Lawson and Graham Norton. For over 50 years she has charmed and moved readers with her work, inviting them into the seemingly small lives of her characters, their stories rich with emotional resonance, warmth, beauty, truths and relatability.
It's 2025 and Vintage have just published Tyler's 25th (!) book (Three Days in June). So, to celebrate, we've put together a list of 25 lovely things some familiar faces have said about her.
John Updike: '‘Tyler is not merely good, she is wickedly good’
BBC R4 Woman's Hour: 'If Anne Tyler isn't the best writer in the world, who is?'
Liane Moriarty: 'She is and always will be my favourite author'
Nick Hornby: 'My favourite writer, and the best line-and-length novelist in the world'
Vogue: 'Nobody does it better'
Graham Norton: 'Anne Tyler really is the best'
Victoria Hislop: 'There is almost no greater pleasure than reading Anne Tyler'
Anita Shreve: 'Anne Tyler has no peer'
John Boyne: 'The Greatest Living Novelist? Easy. It's Anne Tyler'
Elizabeth Buchan: 'Anne Tyler can never be bettered'
Anita Brookner: 'I love Anne Tyler'
Jacqueline Wilson: 'My favourite author... She writes such absorbing, wise, tender books, devastatingly acute about human nature... She never fails'
David Nicholls: 'Razor sharp on family, love and marriage'
Sebastian Faulks: 'A masterly author'
Ali Smith: 'One of my favourite writers'
Hanya Yanagihara: 'Tyler's sentences are wholly hers, instantly recognisable and impossible to duplicate'
Nigella Lawson: 'Tyler's particular genius is for capturing the fullness of character and feeling in so few words'
Rachel Joyce: 'Anne Tyler takes the ordinary, the small, and makes them sing'
Daily Mail: 'Our greatest chronicler of family life'
Monica Ali: 'What a wonderful, natural writer she is... she knows all the secrets of the human heart'
Jodi Picoult: 'No writer ever achieves success without emulating the work of those who are exceptional at the craft — I am quite sure that reading Tyler’s work has made me a better craftsman'
Helen Dunmore: ‘Tyler writes with an apparent effortlessness which conceals great art’
Eudora Welty: ‘Her fiction has strength of vision, originality, freshness, unconquerable humour’
New York Times: ‘Anne Tyler likes to break America’s heart’
Allison Pearson: ‘Her brilliance in capturing the ripples on the surface of family life gives her a claim to be the Jane Austen of our age’
Judy Finigan: ‘Read her books and she can actually change your view, change how you see the world’