Audiobooks by Anna Quindlen

"'Candid and complex - and ultimately quite hopeful' Claire Lombardo 'Beautiful and deeply moving' J. Courtney Sullivan 'A story of abiding hope' Mary Beth Keane When Annie Brown dies suddenly, her husband, her four young children and her closest friend are left to struggle without the woman who centred their lives. Bill Brown finds himself overwhelmed, and Annie's best friend Annemarie is lost to old bad habits without Annie's support. It is Annie's daughter, Ali, forced to try to care for her younger brothers and even her father, who manages to maintain some semblance of their former lives for them all, and who confronts the complicated truths of adulthood. Yet over the course of the next year, while Annie looms large in their memories, all three are able to grow, to change, even to become stronger and more sure of themselves. The enduring power Annie gave to those who loved her is the power to love, and to go on without her. Written in Quindlen's emotionally resonant voice, and with her deep and generous understanding of people, After Annie is a story that ends with hope, a beautiful novel about how adversity can change us in profound ways. Praise for Anna Quindlen 'Leaves the reader feeling grateful, wide awake, lucky to be alive' Michael Chabon 'Simply impossible to forget' Alice Hoffman 'Qualities and shades of love are this writer's strong suit, and she has the unusual talent for writing about them with so much truth and heart' Elizabeth Jane Howard 'Breathtaking... Quindlen writes superbly about families, grief and betrayal. I was completely mesmerised' Lisa Jewell 'Engaging, immaculately constructed storytelling' Guardian 'One of our most astute chroniclers of modern life' New York Times Book Review 'Brave and beautiful' The Times 'Her storytelling is exemplary' Sunday Telegraph 'With relentless and dazzling brilliance, Quindlen grapples with the lancing pain and the swirls of disorientation experienced by anyone who has loved and lost' Daily Mail 'A wise, closely observed, achingly eloquent book' Huffington Post 'Overwhelmingly moving' New York Times"

Anna Quindlen (Author), Gilli Messer (Narrator)

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Nanaville: Adventures in Grandparenting

"NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The perfect gift for new parents and grandparents this Mother’s Day: a bighearted book of wisdom, wit, and insight, celebrating the love and joy of being a grandmother, from the Pulitzer Prize–winning columnist and #1 bestselling author “This tender book should be required reading for grandparents everywhere.”—Booklist (starred review) “I am changing his diaper, he is kicking and complaining, his exhausted father has gone to the kitchen for a glass of water, his exhausted mother is prone on the couch. He weighs little more than a large sack of flour and yet he has laid waste to the living room: swaddles on the chair, a nursing pillow on the sofa, a car seat, a stroller. No one cares about order, he is our order, we revolve around him. And as I try to get in the creases of his thighs with a wipe, I look at his, let’s be honest, largely formless face and unfocused eyes and fall in love with him. Look at him and think, well, that’s taken care of, I will do anything for you as long as we both shall live, world without end, amen.” Before blogs even existed, Anna Quindlen became a go-to writer on the joys and challenges of family, motherhood, and modern life, in her nationally syndicated column. Now she’s taking the next step and going full nana in the pages of this lively, beautiful, and moving book about being a grandmother. Quindlen offers thoughtful and telling observations about her new role, no longer mother and decision-maker but secondary character and support to the parents of her grandson. She writes, “Where I once led, I have to learn to follow.” Eventually a close friend provides words to live by: “Did they ask you?” Candid, funny, frank, and illuminating, Quindlen’s singular voice has never been sharper or warmer. With the same insights she brought to motherhood in Living Out Loud and to growing older in Lots of Candles, Plenty of Cake, this new nana uses her own experiences to illuminate those of many others. Praise for Nanaville “Witty and thoughtful . . . Nanaville serves up enough vivid anecdotes and fresh insights—about childhood, about parenthood, about grandparenthood and about life—to make for a gratifying read.”—The New York Times “Classic, bittersweet Quindlen . . . [Her] wonder at seeing her eldest child grow into his new role is lovely and moving. . . . The best parts of Nanaville are the charming vignettes of Quindlen's solo time with her grandson.”—NPR"

Anna Quindlen (Author), Cynthia Farrell (Narrator)

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Alternate Side: A Novel

"NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • “Captures the angst and anxiety of modern life with . . . astute observations about interactions between the haves and have-nots, and the realities of life among the long-married.”—USA Today A provocative novel that explores what it means to be a mother, a wife, and a woman at a moment of reckoning, from the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Miller’s Valley and Still Life with Bread Crumbs. Some days Nora Nolan thinks that she and her husband, Charlie, lead a charmed life—except when there’s a crisis at work, a leak in the roof at home, or a problem with their twins at college. And why not? New York City was once Nora’s dream destination, and her clannish dead-end block has become a safe harbor, a tranquil village amid the urban craziness. The owners watch one another’s children grow up. They use the same handyman. They trade gossip and gripes, and they maneuver for the ultimate status symbol: a spot in the block’s small parking lot. Then one morning, Nora returns from her run to discover that a terrible incident has shaken the neighborhood, and the enviable dead-end block turns into a potent symbol of a divided city. The fault lines begin to open: on the block, at Nora’s job, and especially in her marriage. Praise for Alternate Side “[Anna] Quindlen’s quietly precise evaluation of intertwined lives evinces a keen understanding of and appreciation for universal human frailties.”—Booklist (starred review) “Exquisitely rendered . . . [Quindlen] is one of our most astute chroniclers of modern life. . . . [Alternate Side] has an almost documentary feel, a verisimilitude that’s awfully hard to achieve.”—The New York Times Book Review “An exceptional depiction of complex characters—particularly their weaknesses and uncertainties—and the intricacies of close relationships . . . Quindlen’s provocative novel is a New York City drama of fractured marriages and uncomfortable class distinctions.”—Publishers Weekly"

Anna Quindlen (Author), Ellen Archer (Narrator)

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Miller's Valley: A Novel

"A novel about family and the secrets that we keep—a young woman learning to love and leave home and realizing that, maybe, she never quite left. From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Still Life with Bread Crumbs and Rise and Shine.This story begins in the 1960s, and explores how Mimi Miller comes of age, over and over again.As a young girl in Miller’s Valley, an ordinary farming town that may be facing its final days, Mimi is observing adults, selling corn, growing up and changing, and watching the world around her change, too.As the years go by, the unthinkable starts to seem inevitable. Anna Quindlen’s novel takes us through the changing eras of Mimi and her family, as secrets are revealed, and the heartbreaks of growing up and falling in love with the wrong man are overcome.A deeply moving, inspiring story of a young woman learning to love and leave, the place and family from which she comes."

Anna Quindlen (Author), Brittany Pressley (Narrator)

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Still Life with Bread Crumbs: A Novel

"A superb love story from the #1 New York Times bestselling author Anna QuindlenStill Life with Bread Crumbs begins with an imagined gunshot and ends with a new tin roof. Between the two is a wry and knowing portrait of Rebecca Winter, a photographer whose work made her an unlikely heroine for many women. Her career is now descendent, her bank balance shaky, and she has fled the city for the middle of nowhere. There she discovers, in a tree stand with a roofer named Jim Bates, that what she sees through a camera lens is not all there is to life.Brilliantly written, powerfully observed, Still Life with Bread Crumbs is a deeply moving and often very funny story of unexpected love, and a stunningly crafted journey into the life of a woman, her heart, her mind, her days, as she discovers that life is a story with many levels, a story that is longer and more exciting than she ever imagined."

Anna Quindlen (Author), Carrington MacDuffie (Narrator)

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Lots of Candles, Plenty of Cake: A Memoir of a Woman's Life

"In this irresistible memoir, the New York Times bestselling author and winner of the Pulitzer Prize Anna Quindlen writes about looking back and ahead-and celebrating it all-as she considers marriage, girlfriends, our mothers, faith, loss, all the stuff in our closets, and more. As she did in her beloved New York Times columns, and in A Short Guide to a Happy Life, Quindlen says for us here what we may wish we could have said ourselves. Using her past, present, and future to explore what matters most to women at different ages, Quindlen talks about Marriage: "A safety net of small white lies can be the bedrock of a successful marriage. You wouldn't believe how cheaply I can do a kitchen renovation." Girlfriends: "Ask any woman how she makes it through the day, and she may mention her calendar, her to-do lists, her babysitter. But if you push her on how she really makes it through her day, she will mention her girlfriends. Sometimes I will see a photo of an actress in an unflattering dress or a blouse too young for her or with a heavy-handed makeup job, and I mutter, 'She must not have any girlfriends.' " Stuff: "Here's what it comes down to, really: there is now so much stuff in my head, so many years, so many memories, that it's taken the place of primacy away from the things in the bedrooms, on the porch. My doctor says that, contrary to conventional wisdom, she doesn't believe our memories flag because of a drop in estrogen but because of how crowded it is in the drawers of our minds. Between the stuff at work and the stuff at home, the appointments and the news and the gossip and the rest, the past and the present and the plans for the future, the filing cabinets in our heads are not only full, they're overflowing." Our bodies: "I've finally recognized my body for what it is: a personality-delivery system, designed expressly to carry my character from place to place, now and in the years to come. It's like a car, and while I like a red convertible or even a Bentley as well as the next person, what I really need are four tires and an engine." Parenting: "Being a parent is not transactional. We do not get what we give. It is the ultimate pay-it-forward endeavor: We are good parents not so they will be loving enough to stay with us but so they will be strong enough to leave us." From childhood memories to manic motherhood to middle age, Quindlen uses the events of her own life to illuminate our own. Along with the downsides of age, she says, can come wisdom, a perspective on life that makes it satisfying and even joyful. Candid, funny, moving, Lots of Candles, Plenty of Cake is filled with the sharp insights and revealing observations that have long confirmed Quindlen's status as America's laureate of real life."

Anna Quindlen (Author), Anna Quindlen (Narrator)

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Every Last One

"2011 Audie Award Finalist for Fiction Beloved blockbuster storyteller Anna Quindlen's powerhouse new novel, her first since the #1 bestseller Rise and Shine , confirms her status as an incomparably accurate and compassionate observer of families and the tragedies they face. This moving, suspenseful, and surprising new novel by beloved author Anna Quindlen is about a suburban family and the unintended, explosive consequences of what seem like small, casual actions. Quindlen returns to the subject of family, and family in turmoil, a subject she's explored with great success in all of her previous novels thanks to her insightful, compassionate understanding of the intricacies of human relationships."

Anna Quindlen (Author), Hope Davis (Narrator)

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Good Dog. Stay.

"'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."

Anna Quindlen (Author), Anna Quindlen (Narrator)

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Blessings

"Late one night, a teenage couple drives up to the big white clapboard home on the Blessing estate and leaves a box. In that instant, the lives of those who live and work there are changed forever. Skip Cuddy, the caretaker, finds a baby girl asleep in that box and decides he wants to keep the child . . . while Lydia Blessing, the matriarch of the estate, for her own reasons, agrees to help him. Blessings explores how the secrets of the past affect decisions and lives in the present; what makes a person or a life legitimate or illegitimate and who decides; and the unique resources people find in themselves and in a community. This is a powerful novel of love, redemption, and personal change by the Pulitzer Prize–winning 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.”"

Anna Quindlen (Author), Joan Allen (Narrator)

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