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Noah's Compass [Paperback]

Anne Tyler (Author)
3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (48 customer reviews)
RRP: £7.99
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Book Description

Publication Date: 19 Aug 2010

Liam Pennywell has spent most of his life dodging issues and skirting adventure when suddenly, in his sixty-first year, something happens that jolts him out of his certainty and leaves him with a frightening gap in his memory.

In trying to piece together what took place on his first night in a new apartment, Liam finds instead an unusual woman with secrets of her own, and a late-flowering love that brings its own set of thorny problems...

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Product details

  • Paperback: 288 pages
  • Publisher: Vintage; Reprint edition (19 Aug 2010)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0099539586
  • ISBN-13: 978-0099539582
  • Product Dimensions: 12.9 x 1.7 x 19.8 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (48 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 31,459 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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› Visit Amazon's Anne Tyler Page
Anne Tyler
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Product Description

Review

"As exquisitely observed and quietly brilliant as the rest of Tyler's fiction" (Joanna Briscoe Guardian )

"Anne Tyler draws a comedy that is not so much brilliant as luminous - its observant sharpness sweetened by a generous understanding of human fallibility" (Jane Shilling Daily Telegraph )

"Noah's Compass is immensely readable. It displays many of Tyler's finest qualities: her sharp observation of humanity, her wry comedy; the luminous accuracy of her descriptions... a novel by Anne Tyler is cause for celebration" (Caroline Moore Sunday Telegraph )

"Anne Tyler is a novelist who has elevated pitch-perfect observation of everyday detail into an art form... a beautifully subtle book, an elegant contemplation of what it means to be happy and the consequences of a defensive withdrawal from other people" (Elizabeth Day Observer )

"One of my favourite authors, one of the very few I rush out to buy in hardback." (Craig Brown Mail on Sunday )

Review

‘her novels have a grace and an emotional depth that few romances can match’ - Sunday Times, Nick Rennison

‘Compassionate and funny dissection of the workings of the human heart’ - Woman & Home, Fanny Blake --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews
78 of 78 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars Magical 9 Aug 2009
By Lizzie B
Format:Hardcover
Have spent my weekend reading this, Anne Tyler's 18th novel and can say without doubt that it is one of the most beautiful, gentle novels I have ever read. A long time fan of Tyler's work, my expectations were high and were definitely met. The main character, Liam, is a gentle, bewildered man who invites great sympathy from the reader. At the beginning of the story, he is going through a time of great uncertainty in his life, having lost his job and downsized to a rather seedy apartment. His circumstances worsen when he is attacked by an intruder the very first night he spends in his new home. I won't take time retelling the story, but in short, he is more traumatised by the fact that he cannot recall the incident than by the physical attack, and sets about finding a rather novel solution to his memory problems... In the course of his search he meets Eunice, a delightfully eccentric woman, whom he is immediately drawn to. What follows is a lovely, meandering tale, which is both entertaining and also touching. Liam is constantly brow beaten by his (mainly dreadful) female relatives - his daughters, ex wife and sister and is generally treated with contempt by all except his teenaged daughter who stays with him during a difficult time. The conclusion to the novel is, although, not entirely satisfying, quite fitting. I was so sorry to reach the end, and Liam will stay with me for quite some time. Another magical tale from Anne Tyler, master storyteller and observer of human nature.
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34 of 34 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars Another gem from Tyler 7 Sep 2009
By BeachReader
Format:Hardcover
Like most of Anne Tyler's books, Noah's Compass was gently written and uncomplicated. No postmodern literary gimmicks for her, thank goodness. Just a straightforward story with a few surprises, and with eccentric characters who probably live down the street.

I love the way Tyler takes everyday happenings and makes the reader realize that nothing is really insignificant, that everything has meaning or value.While reading the book, you hardly realize the layers of character development that she has woven into the story. Her observations of the human condition are always so on-target, but she never makes judgments about what she sees.

The story is a year in the life of Liam Pennywell, sixty years old, who has just lost his teaching job. Liam has been widowed and divorced and has three daughters, so he lives in a world of women, most of whom he cannot comprehend! He is a drifter in the sense that he just lets life happen to him without doing much about anything. Not that he is incompetent, but he just prefers to "go along". Until his first night in his new and smaller apartment when something happens to upset his equilibrium. Tyler works her magic and Liam, while not transformed, at least broadens his approach to life.

While this will not rank up there with A Patchwork Planet, my very very favorite of Tyler's, it certainly was well worth reading and provides lots of food for thought. I am always astounded that her sweet and gentle books keep me thinking about them for so long afterwards.

I am in the U.S. and I have no sense of deferred gratification when it comes to this author's books, so I bought it last month from the UK.

Being familiar with the area of Baltimore where Tyler's books are all set makes her books even more enjoyable.... Read more ›
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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful
2.0 out of 5 stars Disappointing 25 Nov 2010
By Silver Surfer
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
I totally agree with all those who gave this book a negative review. Anne Tyler is my favourite author and I have read every one of her novels, but this one left me very disappointed and flattened. It is, as another reviewer said, worrying to think that maybe she has now reached the stage of churning out novels to satisfy her publisher. I would rather wait ten years for a novel of the standard of her early greats, than read something as thin as this. I couldn't relate to any of the characters, and the plot was neither convincing nor absorbing. If you want to enjoy Anne Tyler start with her early novels and by the time you have worked through them she may have come up with another masterpiece.
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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars As expected, as close to perfection as ever 24 Aug 2009
By A Common Reader TOP 50 REVIEWER VINE™ VOICE
Format:Hardcover
The fact that I have read 11 of Anne Tyler's 18 novels suggests that I think highly of this fine author. She is one of the few writers whose books I pre-order and then devour, putting everything else aside for a few days, and then finding that for the next two weeks or so her characters keep coming back to me.

Noah's Compass was no disappointment, being up there with the best of Tyler's work. The book focuses on another troubled man, recently retired Liam Pennywell, a teacher of classics who has been recently let-go in a down-sizing exercise. He feels the need to simplify and down-size his life and moves into a small apartment where on his first night disaster happens and Liam ends up in hospital with gaps in his memory.

On his release, his family are remarkably unsympathetic to his quest to remember what happened. They all have their own concerns and "do their duty" in visiting and phoning, but simply don't have the time or inclination to help Liam work through his worries. And then he meets Eunice, a much younger woman who works as a "rememberer" for an elderly businessman who is losing his own memory (and every Tyler book features at least one career you've never heard of before!). Through chance meetings, Liam strikes up a relationship with Eunice and for a while they both help each other unpack the difficulties of their lives.

At the end of her book, Tyler leaves us with unresolved questions, but also with a sense of hope. Life never comes in neat packages, and yet the solutions to one stage, often lead to a more creative approach to the problems of the next.... Read more ›
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars Sympathetic and insightful
Once again Anne Tyler gives us an absorbing story woven around everyday lives, old and young and the interplay between them, mis understandings and forgiveness, all told with wry... Read more
Published 4 days ago by Margaret M. Thom
3.0 out of 5 stars Noah's Compass
Still trying to figure out why I enjoyed this novel quite as much as I did. Must be the authors insight into the complexities of the human condition, her depiction of family... Read more
Published 10 months ago by Petty Witter
2.0 out of 5 stars Underwhelming
I have read a lot of Anne Tyler's work, and bar one other, have loved them all. So I was really looking forward to Noah's Compass. Oh how disappointed I was. Read more
Published 11 months ago by Sue Donim
3.0 out of 5 stars Battening down the hatches in Tylerworld
The title of this book is perfect and fits the world Anne Tyler has created: physically in Baltimore but mentally inside the minds of characters who are drifting around aimlessly,... Read more
Published 12 months ago by John Fitzpatrick
2.0 out of 5 stars boring
Maybe, given that I have only read the first quarter of this novel, I have not given it enough of a chance, but life is too short to stick with boring books. Read more
Published 12 months ago by Ms. K. J. Waghorn
1.0 out of 5 stars Disappointed
I've read and enjoyed most of Anne Tyler's books but found this one disappointing. I found the main character uninteresting, even tedious with no redeeming features. Read more
Published 13 months ago by F Wapple
3.0 out of 5 stars Review
I ordered this item for a friend - she was happy with the product so I can only assume it was all OK.
Published 13 months ago by Bic
5.0 out of 5 stars Great writing; gentle story
Anne Tyler always manages to create such life-like characters, many of them with characteristics or attitudes you can admire, and all of them interesting in their own way. Read more
Published 13 months ago by DEG
1.0 out of 5 stars Inconsequential drivel
One of the dullest books I have ever read. Only when I had finished and looked at the back cover did I see that it was supposed to be a comedy!
Published 14 months ago by Rupert Young
4.0 out of 5 stars Anne Tyler on Form
I have been a fan of Anne Tyler for many years and this book lived up to my expectations. As usual her characters are quirky and live on in the memory long after one has read the... Read more
Published 22 months ago by Hili
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