A Spool of Blue Thread

A novel

By: Anne Tyler

Narrated by: Kimberly Farr

Short-listed for the Man Booker Prize

“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 twenty-first 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.

A must-read spool

My first Anne Tyler book. Enjoyed her descriptive phrases. Chose this novel after reading the positive review in the New York Times on Sunday, February 15, 2015. Everyone has characters like this in their own families.

Disappointed

I'm not sure what I thought this book was going to be like, however I thought it was very disjointed and jumped around way too much. Then all if the story lines just ended.

Satisfactory

This was a fast listen because I wanted to know what happened to the Whitshank family, but I kind of felt the ending somewhat unsatisfactory.

Good Story

The Spool of Blue thread was my first audiobook. A good story and so enjoyed the freedom of my hands and eyes.

Eh

This was really good storytelling. That's about it. I kept expecting it to go somewhere but it never really did. It was kind of like listening to somebody tell their story why you're sitting next to him on the train and when it ended it just ended and that was that. Not very profound.