Anna Quindlen Books In Order

Standalone Novels In Publication Order

  1. Object Lessons (1991)
  2. One True Thing (1994)
  3. Black and Blue (1998)
  4. Blessings (2002)
  5. Rise and Shine (2006)
  6. Every Last One (2010)
  7. Still Life with Bread Crumbs (2014)
  8. Miller’s Valley (2016)
  9. Alternate Side (2018)

Non-Fiction Books In Publication Order

  1. Living Out Loud (1988)
  2. Thinking Out Loud (1993)
  3. How Reading Changed My Life (1998)
  4. Siblings (1998)
  5. A Short Guide to a Happy Life (2000)
  6. Loud and Clear (2004)
  7. Imagined London: A Tour of the World’s Greatest Fictional City (2004)
  8. Being Perfect (2005)
  9. Good Dog. Stay. / Life with Beau (2007)
  10. Naked Babies (2009)
  11. Lots of Candles, Plenty of Cake (2012)
  12. Nanaville: Adventures in Grandparenting (2019)

Children’s Books In Publication Order

  1. The Tree That Came to Stay (1992)
  2. Happily Ever After (1997)

Standalone Novels Book Covers

Non-Fiction Book Covers

Children’s Book Covers

Anna Quindlen Books Overview

Object Lessons

A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK OF THE YEAR’Elaborate and playful…
Honest and deeply felt…
. Here is the Quindlen wit, the sharp eye for the details of class and manners, and the ardent reading of domestic lives.’THE NEW YORK TIMESIt is the 1960s, in suburban New York City. Maggie and her family, are in the thrall of her powerful grandfather Jack Scanlan. In the summer of her twelfth year, Maggie is despertately trying to master the Object Lessons her grandfather fills her head with. But there is too much going on to concentrate. Everything at home is in upheaval, her grandfather is changing, and Maggie is unsure if what she wants is worth having…
. From the Paperback edition.

One True Thing

A mother. A daughter. A shattering choice.

From Anna Quindlen, bestselling author of Black and Blue, comes a novel of life, love and everyday acts of mercy.

‘A triumph.’
San Francisco Chronicle

From the Paperback edition.

Black and Blue

4 cassettes / 4 hoursRead by Lili TaylorWith this stunning novel about a marriage that begins in passion and becomes violent, the Pulitzer Prize winning journalist and bestselling author of One True Thing moves into a new dimension as a writer of superb fiction. With this stunning novel about a woman and a marriage that begins in passion and becomes violent, the Pulitzer Prize winning journalist and bestselling author of One True Thing and Object Lessons moves to a new dimension as a writer of superb fiction. ‘If literature were judged solely by its ability to elicit strong emotions,’ Kirkus Reviews said about One True Thing, ‘columnist novelist Quindlen would win another Pulitzer.’ And the same will be said about Black and Blue, a brilliant novel of suspense, substance, and importance. In Black and Blue, Fran Benedetto tells a spellbinding story: how at nineteen she fell in love with Bobby Benedetto, how their passionate marriage became a nightmare, why she stayed, and what happened on the night she finally decided to run away with her ten year old son and start a new life under a new name. Living in fear in Florida yet with increasing confidence, freedom, and hope Fran unravels the complex threads of family, identity, and desire that shape a woman’s life, even as she begins to create a new one. As Fran starts to heal from the pain of the past, she almost believes she has escaped it that Bobby Benedetto will not find her and again provoke the complex combustion between them of attraction and destruction, lust and love. Black and Blue is a beautifully written, heart stopping story in which Anna Quindlen writes with power, wisdom, and humor about the real lives of men and women, the varieties of people and love, the bonds between mother and child, the solace of family and friendship, the inexplicable feelings between people who are passionately connected in ways they don’t understand. It is a remarkable work of fiction by the writer whom Alice Hoffman has called ‘a national treasure.’

Blessings

This powerful new novel by the bestselling author of Black and Blue, One True Thing, Object Lessons, and A Short Guide to a Happy Life begins when a teenage couple drives up, late at night, headlights out, to Blessings, the estate owned by Lydia Blessing. They leave a box and drive away, and in this instant, the world of Blessings is changed forever. Richly written, deeply moving, beautifully crafted, Blessings tells the story of Skip Cuddy, caretaker of the estate, who finds a baby asleep in that box and decides he wants to keep her, and of matriarch Lydia Blessing, who, for her own reasons, decides to help him. The secrets of the past, how they affect the decisions and lives of people in the present; what makes a person, a life, legitimate or illegitimate, and who decides; the unique resources people find in themselves and in a community these are at the center of this wonderful novel of love, redemption, and personal change by the writer about whom The Washington Post Book World said, Quindlen knows that all the things we ever will be can be found in some forgotten fragment of family. From the Hardcover edition.

Rise and Shine

From Anna Quindlen, acclaimed author of Blessings, Black and Blue, and One True Thing, a superb novel about two sisters, the true meaning of success, and the qualities in life that matter most.

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 truth telling reverberates through both 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, in very different ways, 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 the powerful connection between them that even the worst tragedy cannot shatter.

Every Last One

In this breathtaking and beautiful novel, the 1 New York Times bestselling author Anna Quindlen creates an unforgettable portrait of a mother, a father, a family, and the explosive, violent consequences of what seem like inconsequential actions. Mary Beth Latham is first and foremost a mother, whose three teenaged children come first, before her career as a landscape gardener, or even her life as the wife of a doctor. Caring for her family and preserving their everyday life is paramount. And so, when one of her sons, Max, becomes depressed, Mary Beth becomes focused on him, and is blindsided by a shocking act of violence. What happens afterwards is a testament to the power of a woman’s love and determination, and to the invisible line of hope and healing that connects one human being with another. Ultimately, in the hands of Anna Quindlen s mesmerizing prose, Every Last One is a novel about facing Every Last One of the the things we fear most, about finding ways to navigate a road we never intended to travel, to live a life we never dreamed we d have to live but must be brave enough to try. From the Hardcover edition.

Living Out Loud

‘A books that brings a most refreshing message home with substance as well as style…
Quindlen integrates memories of her childhood and observations of adulthood in such a way that make her just the sort of friend you wish you’d kept in touch with.’BOSTON HERALDThe voice is Anna Quindlen’s. But we know the hopes, dreams, fears, and wonder expressed in all her columns, for most of us share them. Now you can enjoy ‘Life in the 30’s’ anytime with the wonderful collection of essays and opinions in this volume. Other collections include OBJECT LESSONS and THINKING OUT LOUD.’A reporter by training, a storyteller at heart, her writing is personal, humorous, and thought provoking.’SEATTLE POST INTELLIGENCER

Thinking Out Loud

‘A splendid collection…
Eloquent, powerful, compassionate and droll. There is considerable variety in the subjects she addresses…
. Compelling.’
THE CLEVELAND PLAIN DEALER
Thinking Out Loud is what Anna Quindlen does best. A syndicated columnist with her finger on the pulse of women’s lives, and her heart in a place we all share, she writes about the passions, politics, and peculiarities of Americans everywhere. From gays in the military, to the race for First Lady, to the trials of modern motherhood and the right to choose, Anna Quindlen’s views always fascinate.
More of her views can be found in LIVING OUT LOUD, and OBJECT LESSONS.

How Reading Changed My Life

THE LIBRARY OF CONTEMPORARY THOUGHT is a groundbreaking series where America’s finest writers and most brilliant minds tackle today’s most provocative, fascinating, and relevant issues. Striking and daring, creative and important, these original voices on matters political, social, economic, and cultural, will enlighten, comfort, entertain, enrage, and ignite healthy debate across the country.

A Short Guide to a Happy Life

‘Life is made of moments, small pieces of silver amidst long stretches of tedium. 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 now to live, really live…
to love the journey, not the destination.’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. ‘Knowledge of our own mortality is the greatest gift God ever gives us,’ Quindlen writes, ‘because unless you know the clock is ticking, it is so easy to waste our days, our lives.’ Her mother died when Quindlen was nineteen: ‘It was the dividing line between seeing the world in black and white, and in Technicolor. The lights came on for the darkest possible reason…
.I learned something enduring, in a very short period of time, about life. And that was that it was glorious, and that you had no business taking it for granted.’ But how to live from that perspective, to fully engage in our days? In A Short Guide to a Happy Life, Quindlen guides us with an understanding that comes from knowing how to see the view, the richness in living.

Loud and Clear

In this remarkable book, Anna Quindlen, one of America’s favorite novelists and a Pulitzer Prize winning columnist, once again gives us wisdom, opinions, insights, and reflections about current events and modern life. Always insightful, rooted in everyday experience and common sense…
Quindlen is so good that even when you disagree with what she says, you still love the way she says it, said People magazine about her number one New York Times bestseller Thinking Out Loud, and the same can be said about Loud and Clear. With her trademark insight and her special ability to convey the impact public events have on ordinary lives, Quindlen here combines commentary on American society and the world at large with reflections on being a woman, a writer, and a mother. In these pieces, first written for Newsweek and The New York Times, Loud and Clear takes on topics ranging from social change to raising children, from the political and emotional aftermath of September 11 to personal values, from the impact on individuals of global events to the growth that can be gained by spending summer days staring into the middle distance. Grounding the public in the private, connecting people to each other and to the greater world, Quindlen encourages us to develop authentic lives, even as she serves as a catalyst for political and social change. Anna Quindlen s beat is life, and she s one hell of a terrific reporter, said Susan Isaacs, and Quindlen s unique qualities of understanding and discernment, everywhere evident in her previous bestsellers, including A Short Guide to a Happy Life and Living Out Loud, can be found on every page of this provocative and inspiring book. From the Hardcover edition.

Imagined London: A Tour of the World’s Greatest Fictional City

Anna Quindlen first visited London from a chair in her suburban Philadelphia home. ”The city streets were filled with fog and the cobbled pavers were slightly slick with moisture, so that the man and woman struggling down the street slid on its surface. It was just after the war, and some of the buildings were empty holes left over from the blitz.’ The book describing this was by Patricia Wentworth, one of a series of mystery novels she wrote that wind up always, inevitably, in the capital, at the cozy flat of the essential English spinster.’Quindlen has been to London countless times since, in the pages of books. From Dickensian London, rich with narrow alleyways and jocular street vendors, to the London of Conan Doyle and Margery Allingham, with its salt of the earth police officers and crowded train stations. She visited Victoria Station, Hyde Park, Soho, and Kensington in her imagination long before ever setting foot in the city. By the time Quindlen actually visited London in 1995, it was less like an introduction and more like a homecoming. Here, she thought, is where Evelyn Waugh’s bright young things danced until dawn. Here is where foolish Lydia Bennett eloped with the dastardly Wickham. Here is where Oliver Twist sought his fortune, and where Adam Dalgliesh has his private flat. New York, Paris, and Dublin are vividly portrayed in fiction, but London has always been the star, both because of the primacy of English literature and the specificity of the city’s descriptions. In Imagined London, Quindlen walks through the city, moving within blocks from the great books of the 18th century to the detective stories of the 20th to the new modernist tradition of the 21st. Her book is about traveling and reading in a city in fact and a city in fiction and where and how the two cities intersect.

Being Perfect

A few times in your life, someone will tell you something so right, so deeply true that it changes you forever. That is what Anna Quindlen, author of the timeless bestseller A Short Guide to a Happy Life, does here. In Being Perfect, she shares wisdom that, perhaps without knowing it, you have longed to hear: about the perfection trap, the price you pay when you become ensnared in it, and the key to setting yourself free. Quindlen believes that when your success looks good to the world but doesn t feel good in your heart, it isn t success at all. She asks you to set aside your friends advice, what your family and co workers demand, and what society expects, and look at the choices you make every day. When you ask yourself why you are making them, Quindlen encourages you to give this answer: For me. Because they are what I want, or wish for. Because they reflect who and what I am…
. That way lies dancing to the melodies spun out by your own heart. At the core of this beautiful book lies the secret of authentic success, the inspiration to embrace your own uniqueness and live the life that is undeniably your own, rich in fulfillment and meaning.

Good Dog. Stay. / Life with Beau

‘The life of a good dog is like the life of a good person, only shorter and more compressed.’

So writes Pulitzer Prize winning author Anna Quindlen about her beloved black Labrador retriever, Beau. With her trademark wisdom and humor, 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, Good Dog. Stay. 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.

Naked Babies

In Naked Babies, Nick Kelsh and Anna Quindlen collaborate to produce a unique view of babies one that owes nothing to tradition, sentimentality, or the cult of the cute. Unlike traditional baby photographs, Nick Kelsh’s amazing black and white pictures focus on specific aspects of babies the perfection of a hand, the swirls of a cowlick, the smoothness of skin on the neck and all are honest, exquisite, and invitingly tactile.

Anna Quindlen s essays are as graceful, snappy, perceptive, and personal as anything she has ever written. They muse on what it is about babies that causes our hearts to crinkle and fold: The meaning of life is in them.

You ll share some of the things that Quindlen has learned as a mother, such as: From time to time, I would lie on the floor with my babies to see exactly what they were seeing when it looked as though they were just wasting time and…
The next time you re sitting in a meeting after three cups of coffee, badly needing to go to the bathroom but instead doodling dutifully, crossing your legs and watching the clock, remember that if you were a baby, you would have gone by now, and no one would be the wiser.

Kelsh s photographs and Quindlen s text complement each other perfectly. Two masters of their craft have created an unusual meditation and wondrous book a totally original gift for every parent or parent to be.

The Tree That Came to Stay

With excitement and anticipation, two young boys and their baby sister await the arrival of their Christmas tree. In this warm Christmas story for the whole family, author Anna Quindlen sensitively evokes the emotions all children feel at Christmas. Full color.

Happily Ever After

One day, while holding her treasured baseball mitt, Kate makes a wish. And poof! she turns into a princess in a fairy tale. But being a princess isn’t at all what Kate imagined. Before long, she’s fighting off dragons, entertaining witches, and teaching the ladies in waiting how to play baseball. With Kate around, fairy tale land will never be the same again!

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