Anna Quindlen

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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.

A Short Guide To A Happy Life

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.

Lots of Candles, Plenty of Cake

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!"

Life with Beau

A Tale of a Dog and His Family

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.

Every Last One

The stunning Richard and Judy Book Club pick

'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.

Black And Blue

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.

Rise and Shine

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.

One True Thing

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.

Blessings

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?

Object Lessons

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.

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