Breathing Lessons, Anne Tyler
Breathing Lessons, Anne Tyler
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Breathing Lessons

Author: Anne Tyler

Narrator: Alyssa Bresnahan

Unabridged: 12 hr 12 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Recorded Books

Published: 12/01/2020


Synopsis

Unfolding over the course of a single, emotionally fraught day, this stunning novel encompasses a lifetime of dreams, regrets, and reckonings. Maggie and Ira Moran are on a road trip from Baltimore, Maryland, to Deer Lick, Pennsylvania, to attend the funeral of a friend. Along the way, they reflect on the state of their marriage and its trials and its triumphs—through their quarrels, their routines, and their ability to tolerate each other’s faults with patience and affection. Where Maggie is quirky, lovable, and mischievous, Ira is practical, methodical, and mired in reason.

What begins as a day trip becomes a revelatory and unexpected journey as Ira and Maggie rediscover the strength of their bond and the joy of having somebody with whom to share the ride, bumps and all.

Regarded by many as Tyler’s seminal work, Breathing Lessons celebrates the small miracles and magic of truly knowing someone, and evokes Jane Austen, Emma Straub, and other masters of the literary marriage.

“A wonderful novel, glowing with the insight and compassion of an artist’s touch.”—The Boston Globe

About Anne Tyler

Anne Tyler, an American novelist, is also an author of short stories and is a literary critic. She has had 22 novels published, being cited in literary publications as creating fully developed characters and commended for her accurate attention to detail. Some of her more well-known novels are: Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant, The Accidental Tourist, Breathing Lessons, and A Spool of Blue Thread. She has been compared to John Updike, Jane Austin, and Eudora Welty.

Tyler was born in Minneapolis Minnesota, as the oldest of four children to a chemist Dad and a social worker Mother. They were Quakers who lived in a series of Quaker communes, one being formed by conscientious objectors, as Anne was age 7 through 11. Her practical, hands on education was supplemented by correspondence school. Her first short stories, she told to herself under the covers at 3 years of age, to try to get sleepy. Her favorite book was The Little House by Virginia Lee Burton, and had a profound influence on her ability to show "how the years flowed by, people altered, and nothing could ever stay the same". Her early perception of changes over time appear and reappear in Tyler's novels, just as her favorite book, The Little House, appears in her first novel.

Tyler considered herself to be an outsider in public schools, but also attributed that same feeling as having been a valuable asset in her writing success. Her other credit is given to a former high school English teacher, Phillis Peacock. Seven years after high school, Tyler dedicated her first published novel to "Mrs. Peacock, for everything you've done".

Tyler has won many literary awards including a Pulitzer. She remains closely associated with the city of Baltimore, Maryland, her home since 1967, and is the location used in many of her books. Her husband died in 1997, and their two daughters have gone on to careers in the arts.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Glenn on May 13, 2021

I finished reading Anne Tyler’s Breathing Lessons a week ago, but I found myself thinking about it a lot, especially during the recent holidays. Tyler’s specialty is family and marriage, and while sitting down to countless meals, chatting with parents, siblings, in-laws, nieces, nephews, extended rel......more

Goodreads review by Paul on June 25, 2019

Only two stars for this tedious slice of life which by the way if this really is how life is lived you can shove it where the sun don’t shine. I think most of us would pay handsomely not to have to live these lives. And one of my stars is just for the scene where the middle aged couple are doing the......more

Goodreads review by Fabian on June 05, 2019

We can essentially classify Pulitzer Prize for Fiction winners into three categories: the epic ("Age of Innocence," "Gone with the Wind," "Grapes of Wrath," "Confederacy of Dunces," "Lonesome Dove," "Amazing Adventures with Kavalier and Clay," "Middlesex"), the deeply personal ("Rabbit Is Rich," "Ra......more