Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Unavailable
    Noah's Compass: A Novel
    Unavailable
    Noah's Compass: A Novel
    Unavailable
    Noah's Compass: A Novel
    Audiobook9 hours

    Noah's Compass: A Novel

    Written by Anne Tyler

    Narrated by Arthur Morey

    3.5/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this audiobook

    From the incomparable Anne Tyler, a wise, gently humorous, and deeply compassionate novel about a schoolteacher, who has been forced to retire at sixty-one, coming to terms with the final phase of his life.

    Liam Pennywell, who set out to be a philosopher and ended up teaching fifth grade, never much liked the job at that run-down private school, so early retirement doesn't bother him. But he is troubled by his inability to remember anything about the first night that he moved into his new, spare, and efficient condominium on the outskirts of Baltimore. All he knows when he wakes up the next day in the hospital is that his head is sore and bandaged.

    His effort to recover the moments of his life that have been stolen from him leads him on an unexpected detour. What he needs is someone who can do the remembering for him. What he gets is-well, something quite different.

    We all know a Liam. In fact, there may be a little of Liam in each of us. Which is why Anne Tyler's lovely novel resonates so deeply.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPenguin Random House Audio
    Release dateJan 5, 2010
    ISBN9780739384787
    Unavailable
    Noah's Compass: A Novel

    More audiobooks from Anne Tyler

    Related to Noah's Compass

    Related audiobooks

    Literary Fiction For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      The William Trevor Reader: “Running Away”

      Apr 11, 2023

      I realize, writing this, that I sound annoyed, and I think I am, a little. The post The William Trevor Reader: “Running Away” appeared first on The Millions.

      3 min read

    • Article

      Books

      Feb 17, 2020

      It’s been a while since I’ve been completely blown away by a novel. Ocean Vuong’s devastatingly beautiful first offering is the coming-of-age story of Little Dog, a Vietnamese immigrant in the US. Framed as a letter from a writer in his 20s to his il

      5 min read

    • Article

      June’s BOOK CLUB

      Apr 30, 2020

      If you enjoy a good rom-com, you’ll love this feel-good debut novel. In a bid to keep her job at a TV and film agency, and save the company, Evie has to convince its biggest client to finish his script for a Hollywood film. The catch? He’ll only cont

      2 min read

    • Article

      Santa Montefiore

      Oct 1, 2020

      Santa Montefiore
      7 min read

    • Article

      Reviews Reader

      Aug 7, 2019

      BY AMBER LEE DODD Scholastic £6.99 REVIEW by Liza, age fourteen Amelia, the protagonist in Lightning Chase Me Home, is an intricately crafted character who shatters stigma about children with learning difficulties and empowers readers through

      3 min read

    • Article

      Looking For A Good Read?

      Feb 28, 2020

      Kate is what’s known as “a super recogniser”, meaning she never forgets a face. She puts this talent to good use working with the police to help pick criminals out on CCTV footage. But then she gets into a car accident and suffers a brain injury, whi

      3 min read

    • Article

      The Course Of True Love

      Dec 11, 2022

      The Course Of True Love
      3 min read

    • Article

      Book Club

      Mar 31, 2021

      As you’d expect from the popular comedian, Mel’s first work of fiction is brimming with hilarious scenes and one-liners. But it is also a redemptive book, and one of hope. We meet its protagonist, Sally Parker, at a time in her life when she’s wealth

      2 min read

    • Article

      Reading Corner

      Aug 20, 2023

      Reading Corner
      3 min read

    • Article

      Books

      May 25, 2020

      In this novel, set amid the Spanish Civil War, Isabel Allende gives us a short but incisive account of the horrors of war, as seen through the eyes of the Dalmau family from Barcelona, the Republican forces’ centre. It’s 1938, and the Republicans are

      5 min read

    • Article

      Editorial

      Aug 4, 2022

      I’ll willingly admit to being a bit of a scaredy-cat. Walking home alone at night, or in an empty house, I experience sharp prickles of fear. In these moments, I am five years old again and convinced the stories my sister told me of ghoulish dogs and

      1 min read

    • Article

      Book Of The Week

      Jun 10, 2022

      Lily is 17 and she’s a murderer. This the reader learns from the outset. What we don’t know is the identity of the victim or the reason for the killing. So begins this melodramatic “tale of revenge” set in Victorian London. Lily is a foundling who wa

      1 min read

    • Article

      Reading CORNER

      Apr 16, 2023

      A family is reeling in the wake of a desperate act This novel overflows with pain and despair. At times, it is an uncomfortable read – especially when you know that first-time Kiwi author Anne Tiernan was at least partly inspired by events in her own

      3 min read

    • Article

      Book Club

      Jul 29, 2020

      Book Club
      1 min read

    • Article

      Gareth Rubin

      Aug 3, 2023

      Gareth Rubin
      6 min read

    • Article

      Books

      Apr 13, 2023

      Tony Santorella/Atlantic Books From the ingenious premise to its irresistible climax, Bored Gay Werewolf is an ungodly joy from start to finish. Brian is struggling to get his shit together. After dropping out of college, he just about manages to kee

      3 min read

    • Article

      Comic Opera

      Oct 9, 2022

      Comic Opera
      2 min read

    • Article

      TV & REVIEWS

      Jul 4, 2023

      Previously available on ITVX, espionage thriller A Spy Among Friends arrives on ITV1 as a weekly series. Based on true events in the 1950s, the six-part drama stars Damian Lewis as Nicholas Elliott, an MI6 intelligence officer, who’s suspected of hel

      4 min read

    • Article

      Book Club

      Jun 22, 2022

      Dutch Island is a scorching-hot wasteland, inhabited by a feral clan of vigilantes, off limits to outsiders. Life turns upside down for a visiting American family, when Tom is stabbed as payback for a tragic hit-and-run accident, while Heather and he

      2 min read

    • Article

      Read It

      May 20, 2019

      Turning 70, Posy Montague has to make the agonising decision about her family home, Admiral House, set in the Suffolk countryside. Although full of memories of her idyllic childhood and of raising her own children, the house is in disrepair and the t

      2 min read

    • Article

      Book Club

      Jun 22, 2022

      Book Club
      5 min read

    • Article

      Book Club

      Jun 3, 2020

      Book Club
      1 min read

    • Article

      His Brilliant Career

      Mar 19, 2023

      His Brilliant Career
      9 min read

    • Article

      Reading CORNER

      Jan 15, 2023

      It’s time to kick back and lose yourself in romance Light and frothy reading is often called for at this time of year, as we relax as much as possible. Modelled on Lucinda Riley’s Seven Sisters series, this book definitely fits the bill. It’s the fir

      3 min read

    • Article

      On Loss

      Apr 17, 2023

      On Loss
      3 min read

    • Article

      How I Write

      Jan 7, 2021

      Award-winning crime writer Belinda Bauer wrote her first novel at 45. Her ninth book, Exit , sees pensioner Felix Pink on the run after making the biggest mistake of his life. Although my novels can be humorous, I don’t inject that as such – inject

      1 min read

    Reviews for Noah's Compass

    3.5/5

    500 ratings61 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 4/5
      What starts out as a reflective story of loss, identity, memory and family instead turns into, well, I don’t really know. I’m not sure where this story was supposed to have taken me.Liam, a 60ish, divorced, and recently laid off schoolteacher, decides to downsize into a smaller apartment. He moves in and is promptly assaulted. Liam doesn’t remember the nighttime break-in and his attempt to remember launches the story. Liam doesn’t do much growing and I think his memory was more the least of his problems; depression being a big one and his lack of direction another. But lack of direction doesn’t seem to be much of a concern for him, and as he explains to his young grandson, the Biblical Noah didn’t need a compass because Noah didn’t need to go anywhere, he just had to stay afloat. And so does Liam just remain afloat. But unfortunately, the story doesn’t go anywhere, either, until perhaps the very end.That being said, Ann Tyler’s writing is still lovely and I am never truly disappointed by her. She can write a sentence that will have you marveling at the simple truth and beauty of it. Her characters are quirky everymen and are likable in spite of themselves. Had the story concentrated more on the most interesting character, his youngest daughter, Kitty, and their relationship, I would have found the whole thing to be more satisfying. I’m certainly not sorry that I took the time to read it. However, anyone looking to try reading Tyler for the first time should look to another of her fine books.
    • 4/5
      Anne Tyler is one of my favorite authors. Her novels are always well-written and once again, she takes ordinary people and places them in ordinary situations, many of which (both the people and the situations) are not exciting or interesting. But that's what life is like!!Liam, a 61-year-old philosopher, has been downsized out of his job as a 5th-grade teacher, a job he settled for instead of philosophy. He's divorced, lives alone, and moves to a cheaper apartment. Ms. Tyler takes us through his experiences and how he deals with them. Some of his days are just plain boring and, while this is not a fast-paced novel, it moved quickly for me. I enjoyed some of the characters, mainly an ex-wife and a teen daughter. Liam's affair with Eunice was touching, up to a point!! The ending was unsatisfactory for me but I realize that life doesn't always turn out the way I want it to.
    • 3/5
      I enjoy Anne Tyler's novels. They always seem to deal with the lessons we learn through the rather mundane events of which our lives are assembled. At the end of Noah's Compass, I felt conflicted between wanting secrets revealed and wanting a happily-ever-after for Liam and wanting those things to remain elusive, as they so often are in real life. I find the presence of that conflict satisfying. I am glad Tyler didn't stoop to cheap drama.This novel is well suited for audiobook format.
    • 4/5
      Tyler's usual clear, direct storytelling style works well for this slight tale of an older man coming to terms with his age after an intruder gives him temporary amnesia. Very readable; some lovely real and poignant moments. However, "slight" is probably the best description - it is not a hugely memorable book. Pleasant rather than profound - much like Liam himself.
    • 3/5
      This is my second Anne Tyler book, the first being Ladder of Years. "A simple, straight-ahead story...", my sentiments exactly. In the Conversation with Anne Tyler at the back of the book, Anne is asked, "Have any of your experiences with your own family influenced the relationships between Liam and his family?" Anne answers, "By definition, anything that happens to me personally will not be appearing in a novel." Maybe it is this that makes me feel that there isn't a soul connection in the charactors that I've met so far. She is "imagining" herself within these "experiences". I wonder how her real experiences in life would read?
    • 3/5
      Quite possibly the most boring thing I've ever read and yet... I finished it just to see if it was going to get any more exciting lol
    • 3/5
      Anne Tyler books are all character driven novels whose main characters are usually hapless, white suburbanites (Digging to America was an exception about an Iranian Family who adopt a Korean child), emotionally disconnected types who are surrounded by quirky family members or friends, and are at a turning point in their lives. This book is no exception. While this novel is perhaps not quite as good as some of her previous work, she remains a keen observer of the foibles of humans, retains her keen ear for dialog, and her continues her wonderful use of metaphors and similes.

      Her novels always show that life is complicated, even for the hapless and clueless, and there are no easy answers. In this case, Liam Pennywell, the 60 year-old, layed-off school teacher, begins a relationship with 38 year-old, Eunice Dunstead, (the Rememberer), initially in the hope that she might be able to help him remember what happened to him when he is knocked unconscious by a robber in his apartment. While she doesn’t help him in recovering his memory of the robbery, the relationship does trigger his memory of his 2 “failed” marriages, and his relationships with his 3 daughters.

      In the end Liam starts a new chapter in his life working at a Jewish day-care center as a Zada (grandfather), even though he was not much of a father to his 3 daughters. So perhaps he does learn something from one of the characters in the book who misquotes, "Those that forget the past are doomed to regret the present."

      Anne Tyler fans should be happy with this latest installment, but those looking for an action packed novel will be sorely disappointed and bored stiff.
    • 5/5
      I haven't read an Anne Tyler for a while, so I anticipated this vacation read and it didn't let me down! When I read Tyler I am struck by the ordinariness of the world she creates. It makes me want to open my eyes wider and look around at my own life and see what is happening!The irony is that Liam, the main character in this story, is utterly unable to notice the world around him. He has recently been let go at the school where he was teaching 5th grade, he should have complained that he had seniority, but why bother. Because of his shrinking salary he moved to a much smaller and less desirable apartment, and the first night he spends in this new apartment he is attacked by a thief and wakes in the hospital.When he awakes, he remembers nothing of the attack. Because he can't remember the events that brought him to the hospital he is utterly fixated on his memory loss. Fixated in a way that he has not experienced before. The reader finds that out as his ex-wife and three daughters enter his hospital room and his apartment and his life. Liam was clearly not a part of their lives - at least not on purpose!And so this story follows Liam as he 'wakes' up to mess he has created by not being present even when he was. I loved this book. I love the way Tyler creates her characters. I have a feeling I would not really like Liam if I were to meet him in my work. But on the pages, it is completely different! Instead, I loved the way Liam relished in his aloneness until he was really alone and in that moment he understood what he had missed. I loved the relationship that he created with Eunice Dunstead, a professional rememberer. And I loved his relationships with his daughters - each one completely different and yet quite the same.This is a quiet book about a huge event. And I loved it!!
    • 5/5
      Liam, the main character, shows us it is never to late to grow, mature, and learn to really love and be involved in your own life. the story unravels at a good pace, no wasted words. a very very enjoyable read!
    • 4/5
      Unmemorable and very quick, imo. I mean, she's a good writer who creates interesting characters, but when I put this down I was ready to move on.
    • 3/5
      Not Tyler's best book, but still a pleasant read. Nothing surprising in it--pretty much exactly what I expected when I opened the book.
    • 3/5
      Liam Pennywell is a 60 year old teacher who has just been fired from his current teaching position. Subsequently has just moved into a small, modest apartment and on his first night there suffers a break-in. Waking up the next morning in a hospital bed rather than in his own, he has no memory of the incident. Trying to recall what happened that night he instead travels down the road of evaluating his life. When his 17-year old daughter Kitty suddenly moves in with him and then he meets Eunice, a new love interest there is not much time left for evaluating - Liam has to get on with actually living.

      This book contains no mind-boggling insights, no shoot-em-up action and only one significant plot twist, yet is very readable and enjoyable. Despite his scratchy outer layer I got to like Liam throughout the course of this book. Turning the last page seemed like seeing a friend off at the door and I want to wish him well.
    • 4/5
      I begin each new Tyler novel with trepidation - can she still work the magic? The answer here is a resounding yes. Featuring another of her characters who has buried their emotions to avoid hurt, the aging Liam struggling to make sense of his life, his three children and two marriages, Noah's Compass is full of humour and concern for humanity. A Tyler novel doesn't shout its moral at you but is full of perceptive detail about what makes us tick. Towards the end I suddenly found myself unexpectedly in tears and thinking about my own past - Tyler does this to you, and she also makes you value the ostensibly very tiny things that make life worth living. Makes it sound like a tract, but it's pure Tyler - life-enhancing and sheer pleasure
    • 4/5
      "In the sixty-first year of his life, Liam Pennywell lost his job." Well, now, you can't get much more timely than this. I'm a bit older than Liam, and so was my husband when the same thing happened to him, but still at a point in life when it leaves you wondering "Am I really finished with work? Am I ready to retire? Do I have other options?" Liam hasn't set the world on fire, to say the least, and now he's thinking he might just relax into his rocking chair with his books and wait for the end. Except that his rocking chair isn't all that comfortable, as it turns out. And everyone keeps asking him what he’s going to do “next”. And the first night he spends in his new, cheaper apartment he forgets to lock the patio door, and gets knocked out by an opportunistic burglar. (Not such a great opportunity for the burglar, either---Liam doesn't own one thing worth stealing.) He wakes up in the hospital with a bandaged head and no memory of anything past settling comfortably into his tightly made bed. He is much more disturbed by the lack of memory than by any other aspect of the event, a fact which neither his family, his doctor nor his friend Bundy seem to grasp. They all feel he should be grateful not to have a memory of being assaulted in his own apartment, but to Liam it’s an ongoing source of frustration. There isn’t a lot of plot in this novel; Tyler gives us life’s mundane moments, touched with a bit of short-lived excitement and a lot of introspection on the fly. As she has done before, (in The Accidental Tourist, for example) she creates a slightly disconnected male character who has functioned well enough up to a point in his life, but seems to have no inner core of support when life stops being routine, and who finds himself drawn to a woman whose appeal is that she fits no familiar pattern. Unfortunately, he rather pins his hopes for recovering his memory and turning his life around on this woman, who clearly isn’t wrapped too tightly at the core herself. I almost always enjoy Anne Tyler’s characters, even when I want to give them a good shake and a swift kick in the butt. This time was no exception.Review written in January 2016
    • 5/5
      I begin each new Tyler novel with trepidation - can she still work the magic? The answer here is a resounding yes. Featuring another of her characters who has buried their emotions to avoid hurt, the aging Liam struggling to make sense of his life, his three children and two marriages, Noah's Compass is full of humour and concern for humanity. A Tyler novel doesn't shout its moral at you but is full of perceptive detail about what makes us tick. Towards the end I suddenly found myself unexpectedly in tears and thinking about my own past - Tyler does this to you, and she also makes you value the ostensibly very tiny things that make life worth living. Makes it sound like a tract, but it's pure Tyler - life-enhancing and sheer pleasure
    • 4/5
      I always like Tyler. I thought this one needed some tightening though. It's a tough theme and I thought it had more potential. Some real loose ends and wasted opportunities.
    • 4/5
      Tyler is a master at taking the most ordinary of people and their lives and using them to explore the human condition. She is another of my most favorite always authors.
    • 2/5
      Normally I love Anne Tyler's work, but I finally gave up on this book about 3/4 of the way through. My feelings about the characters ranged from mild dislike all the way to hate. The plot couldn't keep my attention. Her works are typically about the minutia of life, but this got too fine grained.
    • 3/5
      A nice, quiet Anne Tyler novel. An unprepossessing man struggles to makes sense of his life and winds up working in a preschool. Starting over? A quiet, pleasant read.
    • 4/5
      Twenty years ago, I read nearly every book Tyler wrote. The last one I read was "Saint Maybe," which I found flat and rather boring. Her books seemed to follow a sort of pattern: quirky main character who doesn't fit in, eventually has an epiphany, and changes. The quirkiness began to seem too predictable, and I stopped reading her books. My wife had a copy of this book on the shelf, for her book club. I decided to see what she was writing like these days. Like most novels, this one begins with a life-changing event: Liam (the main character) loses his job at age 60. But unlike most books where the protagonist has some burning desire, some need, something that drives him forward, Liam seems to be someone who has just accepted whatever life has handed him, and losing his job is just one more event that he passively accepts. His family treats him like a piece of furniture. They are mostly "flat" characters, all copies from a single mold, except for his youngest daughter, Kitty. What drives the novel in the beginning is that Liam's apartment is burglarized, and he is struck unconscious by the thief. He wakes up in a hospital with no memory of the attack. By the end of the book (which could easily be read in an evening - it's quite short), I realized that this event symbolizes his life: every death, divorce, disappointment is quickly forgotten. At 60, he realizes he's passively passed through life without letting it affect him. He meets someone who has the effect of reawakening his memories of his life. Like Noah in the Bible, he has just been trying to stay afloat, letting the ship go where it will, rudderless. No need for a compass, since he has no destination. So, it is only at the end that this protagonist comes to want something: connection with his family. It's backwards from most books, and may be why many readers find the book hard to get into. But I found Liam likable. He was someone I could relate to, so I did find his journey interesting. I thought the middle section, where he is trying to regain his memory of the attack, kind of clunky and forced. His reawakening didn't seem quite convincing, to me. And the members of his antagonistic family didn't appeal at all. I certainly wouldn't have wanted to re-connect with any of them. All through the book I kept hoping he would tell them off, and discover a new life somewhere else, with new people. That's what I would have done, given this group of unlikeable people. So the ending didn't feel right to me.
    • 4/5
      I almost decided I didn't want to finish it. I agreed to be part of a bookray for this book. I was a fourth of the way into the story and I wasn't interested at all. I didn't care about the characters, I realized; I'll just close the book and send the book on to the next reader.Only there was no sending the book on. I was the last reader and theinstructions specified that the last reader was to keep the book and passit on as she wished.It just didn't seem respectful to pass on a book that I didn't like enoughto finish. What to do? What to do?So it was with great reluctance that I read on.And I warmed to the story, slowly, slowly, with every page read starting tolike the story more. As I read on, I could feel the Anne Tyler-ness of thestory start to build, the loneliness of the characters, the quirkiness ofthe characters, and the way the characters finally were able to overcometheir loneliness and quirkiness by finding other lonely, quirky people tolove.And, in the end, I liked it very much. A satisfying read. Not my favorite Anne Tyler, but a satisfying read.
    • 4/5
      I don’t believe that Anne Tyler is capable of writing a bad book, but some I like more than others and, unfortunately, this isn’t one of those. It’s the story of a man with very little to live for: a middle-aged out-of-work schoolmaster with two failed marriages behind him, three children who don’t like him very much, and almost no friends. When he’s attacked in his own apartment, there’s nobody to bring him home from hospital but his ex-wife, who does so only out of duty. He strikes up a relationship with a younger woman whose own life is almost as empty as his, but she’s wary and secretive with, as it turns out, good reason. He ends up reconciling with his family to some degree, and finding himself a job of sorts, and seems perfectly happy with his lot – in fact, he never seems particularly discontented; he appears to have very low expectations – but I found the whole thing quite depressing. Oddly, the Daily Telegraph review quoted on the back cover refers to the book as a ‘comedy’, and the strapline on the cover is “You might just find more than you lose …” Possibly I missed something. (Also, I fail to see what the cover image has to do with anything.)This struck a chord though, although not a very harmonious one: “I’m always thinking, Why don’t I have any hobbies? Other people do. Other people develop their passions; they collect things, or they birdwatch, or they snorkel. They join book groups, or they re-enact the Civil War. I’m just trying to make it through to bedtime every night.”
    • 4/5
      Noah's Compass is the story of a man Liam who is forced out of his job do to downsizing. He moves into his new place and is attacked. He doesn't remember anything about the attack. He goes to sleep and wakes up in the hospital and the last thing he remembered was going to sleep the night before.Liam's family, his grown children, ex-wife and sister all worry about him living in his new place. Liam is a very quiet person who likes being alone. I found that I could relate to him since I am going through a divorce and will be downsizing my living accommodations. Plus I also like to be alone at times. The nice quiet times are just very relaxing and a chance to just reflect on life in general.
    • 4/5
      Liam Pennywell has been fired from his job, and decides to downsize his life, essentially retiring early. Moving into a new apartment, he is attacked by a burglar, and then in the following weeks he is obsessed by regaining his lost memory of the attach. His personality and life slowly is revealed to the reader as he interacts with family members and with Eunice, a woman who falls in love with him.Liam is an alarmingly passive person who allows his life to drift, his career trending downwards, and his personal life almost nonexistent. It's not so much that Liam has given up, but rather that he underchallenges himself, and has no deep enthusiasm or commitment. He is cared for by a number of strong women, but seems to hardly care for them in return. Even his favorite daughter, Kitty, is treated by Liam more with detachment than love. And his relationship with his first daughter is alarmingly, even abusively, distant. However, Liam's relationships with Kitty and Eunice offer hope of a restart for his life. Liam's search for his lost memory seems contrived and unconvincing. His relationships with Eunice and Kitty are more entertaining. In the end, though, we come to understand Liam only after learning about the outcomes of his first two marriages and about his parent marriage. Unlike most fictional characters, Anne Tyler's characters are always "real" people with true-to-life personalities. This is true of Liam as well. The book is not the best of Tyler's books (say, The Accidental Tourist, or Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant, or Breathing Lessons) --- mostly due to the difficulty of liking the main character. Nonetheless, it is an interesting, thought provoking read.
    • 4/5
      12 Jan 2011Anne Tyler's new novel, about a divorced man who's been made redundant moving in to his new flat. An act of violence leads to a quest for lost memories and an encounter with a woman who helps to find them. Unfortunately, this was underwhelming. Some lovely touches with the family scenes but it left me wanting too much more, and the romance did not seem believeable. An OK novel, but not a good Anne Tyler novel.
    • 4/5
      Highly entertaining novel whose protagonist I found myself identifying with. I'd forgotten how much I enjoy Anne Tyler's books.
    • 4/5
      Excellent read. Good narrative and great story. Like the minimal style.
    • 3/5
      I liked her presentation of melancholy as a gentle companion.
    • 3/5
      I usually enjoy Anne Tyler's work, but I found I liked this less than her other books. I imagine the slow pace and general drabness is a mirror of the main character Liam Pennywell.
    • 3/5
      Mmm. I didn't dislike this one, but it was very vague. Perhaps that's how she meant it to be.It took me a long time to get used to the lead character being called Liam, when I was expecting a Noah. He was a very vague character, which was odd because he was apparently so unemotional that he ought to have been definate.Liam Pennywell is sixty years old and having just lost his job as a teacher he is moving to a rental complex opposite a shopping centre, something his grown up daug hters feel is a bad sign and a big symbol of his vagueness. On his first night there he is attacked and wakes up in hospital with no memory of what happened. In his quest to find out he meets Eunice, a woman he feels can help him regain his lost memories, but Eunice is quite vague herself, despite the mystery that surrounds her and her unusual job.All the characters were likeable and recognisable as belonging to Anne Tyler's world, but the vagueness of them all meant I found it hard to really get fond of them in the way that I became fond of other characters in other books by her (Elizabeth and Matthew Emerson, Morgan and Emily, Macon Leary, Bitsy and Jin-Ho Dickinson-Donaldson to name a few).It was a comfortable read and a gentle way to pass the time, but it was less then I have come to expect from Anne Tyler even though her stories of nothing much or nothing unusual are usually so full of everything.