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A Spool of Blue Thread

A Novel

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A Spool of Blue Thread

Written by: Anne Tyler
Narrated by: Kimberly Farr
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About this listen

 "It was a beautiful, breezy, yellow-and-green afternoon..." This is how Abby Whitshank always begins the story of how she fell in love with Red that day in July 1959. The Whitshanks are one of those families that radiate togetherness: an indefinable, enviable kind of specialness. But they are also like all families, in that the stories they tell themselves reveal only part of the picture. Abby and Red and their four grown children have accumulated not only tender moments, laughter, and celebrations, but also jealousies, disappointments, and carefully guarded secrets. From Red's father and mother, newly arrived in Baltimore in the 1920s, to Abby and Red's grandchildren carrying the family legacy boisterously into the 21st century, here are four generations of Whitshanks, their lives unfolding in and around the sprawling, lovingly worn Baltimore house that has always been their anchor.

Brimming with all the insight, humor, and generosity of spirit that are the hallmarks of Anne Tyler's work, A Spool of Blue Thread tells a poignant yet unsentimental story in praise of family in all its emotional complexity. It is a novel to cherish.

©2015 Anne Tyler (P)2015 Random House Audio Fiction Genre Fiction Literary Fiction Witty Baltimore

What the critics say

"Tyler show[s] once again that she's a gifted and engrossing storyteller." ( Publishers Weekly)
"...Tyler is as fleet and graceful as a skater, her prose as transparent as ice... We get swept up in the spin of conversations, the slipstream of consciousness, and the glide and dip of domestic life, then feel the sting of Tyler's quick and cutting insights into unjust assumptions about class, gender, age, and race... Tyler's long dedication to language and story [is] an artistic practice made perfect in this charming, funny, and shrewd novel of the paradoxes of self, family, and home." (Donna Seaman, Booklist)
"It is wonderful to pick up a novel from a bonafide literary superstar. A Spool of Blue Thread is Anne Tyler's 20th novel and it shows in every flawless sentence... A stunning novel about family life which just rings so true - it depicts the bonds and the tensions, the love and the exasperation beautifully... A terrific novel." ( The Bookseller, UK (Book of the Month))
"Narrator Kimberly Farr's experience with character-driven novels is evident from her nuanced performance of this compelling story.... One key to Farr's success with this audiobook is the wide range of emotions she employs to capture the characters' individual temperaments as they cope with marriage, parenthood, aging, and adult sibling rivalry." ( AudioFile)

What listeners say about A Spool of Blue Thread

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Not quite stitched together

Some lovely and original description and characters set in a lovingly crafted time and place. Some characters are well drawn, others merely sketched out.
“A Spool if Blue Thread” tells the tale of a particular era and its social mores but has holes where meaningful characterization should be. This book was interesting but not satisfying.

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My bad

A harlequin romance set in middle class( upper entitled) USA.
Predictable, entitled with touches of Christian colours.
Not worth the read.

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