Book Series Guide
Anne Tyler

Author guide

Anne Tyler Books in Order

Anne Tyler is an American novelist and short-story writer. Her career began with If Morning Ever Comes in 1964 and includes twenty-five novels, two children's books created with her daughter Mitra Modarressi, and numerous uncollected short stories. Her major honors include the National Book Critics Circle Award for Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant, the PEN/Faulkner Award for The Accidental Tourist, and the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for Breathing Lessons.

literary fictionfamily fictionrealist fictionshort storieschildren's literature

Catalog record updated .

Anne Tyler's Newest Book

Cover of Three Days in June

Three Days in June

novel · First published 2025

A new Anne Tyler novel destined to be an instant classic: a socially awkward mother of the bride navigates the days before and after her daughter's wedding. Gail Baines is having a bad day. To start, she loses her job—or quits, depending on whom you ask. Tomorrow her daughter, Debbie, is getting married, and she hasn’t even been invited to the spa day organized by the mother of the groom. Then, Gail’s ex-husband, Max, arrives unannounced on her doorstep, carrying a cat, without a place to stay, and without even a suit. But the true crisis lands when Debbie shares with her parents a secret she has just learned about her husband to be. It will not only throw the wedding into question but also stir up Gail and Max’s past. Told with deep sensitivity and a tart sense of humor, full of the joys and heartbreaks of love and marriage and family life, Three Days in June is a triumph, and gives us the perennially bestselling, Pulitzer Prize–winning writer at the height of her powers.

Not sure where to begin?

Start with one of these

Cover of If Morning Ever Comes

If Morning Ever Comes

Tyler's first published novel

Cover of The Accidental Tourist

The Accidental Tourist

A widely recognized, representative novel and accessible entry point to her work

Cover of Breathing Lessons

Breathing Lessons

Pulitzer Prize-winning novel and a representative family story

Outside the series

Bibliography by category

Novels (25)
  1. If Morning Ever Comes

    novel · 1964

    Law student Ben Joe Hawkes is a worrier. Raised by his mother, grandmother, and a flock of busy sisters, he's always felt the outsider. When he learns that one of his sisters has left her husband, he heads for home and back into the…

  2. The Tin Can Tree

    novel · 1965

  3. A Slipping-Down Life

    novel · 1970

  4. The Clock Winder

    novel · 1972

    Een jonge vrouw raakt betrokken bij een vreemde familie.

  5. Celestial Navigation

    novel · 1974

    A poignant, uplifting, heartbreaking love story from the beloved bestselling, Pulitzer Prize–winning author: "To read a novel by Anne Tyler is to fall in love" (PEOPLE). Thirty-eight-year-old Jeremy Pauling has never left home. He lives…

  6. Searching for Caleb

    novel · 1975

    Duncan Peck has a fascination for randomness and is always taking his family on the move. His wife, Justine, is a fortune teller who can't remember the past. Her grandfather, Daniel, longs to find the brother who walked out of his life in…

  7. Earthly Possessions

    novel · 1977

    <b><b><b>From the beloved Pulitzer Prize–winning author of <i>Breathing Lessons—</i></b></b>Charlotte Emory has always lived a quiet, conventional life in Clarion, Maryland. She lives as simply as possible, and one day decides to simplify…

  8. Morgan's Passing

    novel · 1980

  9. Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant

    novel · 1982

    NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • From the beloved Pulitzer Prize–winning author, a “funny, heart-hammering, wise” (The New York Times) portrait of a family that will remind you why "to read a novel by Anne Tyler is to fall in love" (PEOPLE).…

  10. The Accidental Tourist

    novel · 1985

    NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • From the beloved Pulitzer Prize–winning author—an irresistible novel exploring the slippery alchemy of attracting opposites, and the struggle to rebuild one’s life after unspeakable tragedy Travel writer Macon…

  11. Breathing Lessons

    novel · 1988

    When a short road trip turns into a crazy adventure, Ira and Maggie Moran have a chance to review their lives, renew their love, and reaffirm a marriage that has room enough for realists and dreamers.

  12. Saint Maybe

    novel · 1991

    Saint Maybe is the rich and absorbing story of a young man's guilt over his brother's death and his struggle to atone for the wrong he feels he has done. On a quiet street in Baltimore in 1965, seventeen-year-old Ian Bedloe lives with his…

  13. Ladder of Years

    novel · 1995

    A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOKBALTIMORE WOMAN DISAPPEARS DURING FAMILY VACATION, declares the headline. Forty-year-old Delia Grinstead is last seen strolling down the Delaware shore, wearing nothing more than a bathing suit and carrying a…

  14. A Patchwork Planet

    novel · 1998

    A lovable loser tries to get his life in order. He is Barnaby Gaitlin, 30, the black sheep of a rich Baltimore family, ex-juvenile delinquent who specialized in housebreaking for kicks. He works for Rent-a-Back, moving furniture for old…

  15. Back When We Were Grownups

    novel · 2001

    Beck Davitch looks back on her thirty-year marriage to Joe and her role as a mother and manager of the Open Arms, wondering if she is living the life she was meant to live and reconsidering her dedication to the family business.

  16. The Amateur Marriage

    novel · 2004

    My favourite writer, and the best line-and-length novelist in the world' Nick Hornby, Independent on Sunday. From the incomparable Anne Tyler, a rich and compelling novel, spanning three generations, about a mismatched marriage - and its…

  17. Digging to America

    novel · 2006

    Friday August 15th, 1997. The night the girls arrived. Two tiny Korean babies are delivered to Baltimore to two families who have no more in common than this. First there are the Donaldsons, decent Brad and homespun, tenacious Bitsy (with…

  18. Noah's Compass

    novel · 2009

    Preparing to retire early from an unfulfilling teaching job, Liam Pennywell struggles to recall missing memories of the night before he awoke in the hospital with a head injury, an effort that leads to unexpected discoveries.

  19. The Beginner's Goodbye

    novel · 2012

    "Anne Tyler gives us a wise, haunting, and deeply moving new novel in which she explores how a middle-aged man, ripped apart by the death of his wife, is gradually restored by her frequent appearances--in their house, on the roadway, in…

  20. A Spool of Blue Thread

    novel · 2015

    It was a beautiful, breezy, yellow-and-green afternoon." This is the way Abby Whitshank always begins the story of how she fell in love with Red that day in July 1959. The whole family--their two daughters and two sons, their…

  21. Vinegar Girl

    novel · 2016

    Pulitzer Prize winner and American master Anne Tyler brings us an inspired, witty and irresistible contemporary take on one of Shakespeare’s most beloved comedies. Kate Battista feels stuck. How did she end up running house and home for…

  22. Clock Dance

    novel · 2018

    Willa Drake can count on one hand the defining moments of her life: when she was 11 and her mother disappeared, being proposed to at 21, the accident that would make her a widow at 41. At each of these moments, Willa ended up on a path…

  23. Redhead by the Side of the Road

    novel · 2020

    Micah Mortimer is a creature of habit. A self-employed tech expert, superintendent of his Baltimore apartment building, cautious to a fault behind the steering wheel, he seems content leading a steady, circumscribed life. But one day his…

  24. French Braid

    novel · 2022

    NEW YORK TIMES BEST SELLER • From the beloved Pulitzer Prize–winning author—a funny, joyful, brilliantly perceptive journey deep into one Baltimore family’s foibles, from a boyfriend with a red Chevy in the 1950s up to a longed-for…

  25. Three Days in June

    novel · 2025

    A new Anne Tyler novel destined to be an instant classic: a socially awkward mother of the bride navigates the days before and after her daughter's wedding. Gail Baines is having a bad day. To start, she loses her job—or quits, depending…

Children's books (2)
  1. Tumble Tower

    children's_book · 1993

    A very messy princess in a very tidy royal family has the opportunity to prove that there are advantages to not being neat.

  2. Timothy Tugbottom Says No!

    children's_book · 2005

    Timothy Tugbottom likes his old pants, his old crib, his old bedtime story, and his old breakfast, until he realizes that new things, including sleepovers, can be good too.

Frequently asked questions about Anne Tyler

Who is Anne Tyler, and what is she known for?

Anne Tyler is an American novelist known for quietly comic, compassionate fiction about American families and the ordinary troubles of everyday life.

Sources: annetyler.com (opens in a new tab)uipress.uiowa.edu (opens in a new tab)

Where was Anne Tyler born, and where did she grow up?

She was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota, in 1941, and grew up in Raleigh, North Carolina. She lives in Baltimore, Maryland.

Source: annetyler.com (opens in a new tab)

What influenced Anne Tyler’s writing?

Tyler identified Eudora Welty as a central literary influence. She also said that growing up in a Quaker commune in North Carolina and studying Russian literature, including Chekhov and Tolstoy, shaped her writing sensibility.

Source: theguardian.com (opens in a new tab)

What awards has Anne Tyler won?

Her major honors include the 1989 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for Breathing Lessons and the 1985 National Book Critics Circle Award for The Accidental Tourist.

Sources: pulitzer.org (opens in a new tab)bookcritics.org (opens in a new tab)

What is Anne Tyler’s literary legacy?

Tyler’s legacy is her transformation of ordinary family life into compelling literary fiction. Critics especially emphasize her focus on American families, quiet comedy, and vividly eccentric characters, qualities associated with her broad appeal.

Source: uipress.uiowa.edu (opens in a new tab)