I like Anne Tyler's books. I think of them in the same category as Joanna Trollope and Mary Wesley - comfortable, quirky characters, stories that weave their way through a family's life. They're the sort of books I read when I want to feel cozy and contented. I don't spend days thinking about them after I've read them, but they burrow their way into my mind, and I find myself recalling scenes from them months later.
Digging to America is Tyler's latest, focussing on two children from Korea and the sometimes complex relationship between their two adoptive familes. Actually, the relationship between the families is the focus rather than the children themselves - we barely know the children by the book's end, but we know their parents and grandparents very intimately. That's what I love about these books - the drama all happens in the complex threads of people's relationships with each other, and I think that's enormously difficult to do. I admire writers who can entertain me with a story which might seem mundane if you were presented with a precis, but comes alive when you read it.
I don't think I'm explaining myself terribly well. If you like Tyler, I'm sure you'll enjoy Digging to America. If you've never read her before, I'd probably pick one of her novels to begin with; my favourite of her books so far has been Saint Maybe.
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