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242nd out of 1,297 books
—
10,683 voters
Noah's Compass
by
Anne Tyler
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...more
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...more
Hardcover, 288 pages
Published
January 5th 2010
by Knopf
(first published September 2009)
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As I read this book, I was often reminded of the television show, Seinfeld , which was purportedly about nothing, but beneath the surface there was usually more. I have read and enjoyed many of Anne Tyler's novels. They all seem to share the trend of family disharmony and often are similar in style, if not content.
Noah's Compass is a low-key, meandering story. While sleeping, Liam Pennywell sustained a head injury as a result of an attack by an assailant who broke into his room. This concus...more
Noah's Compass is a low-key, meandering story. While sleeping, Liam Pennywell sustained a head injury as a result of an attack by an assailant who broke into his room. This concus...more
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Anybody can write an interesting story about interesting people. But how about a good story about uninteresting people? That's a more difficult challenge. This novel meets that challenge.
This is a novel that features an normal person with ordinary abilities and no particular passion for life. Unmotivated readers (aging with nothing in particular to look forward to in life) will be able to identify with this story. It starts out a bit slow, but for the reader who makes it through to the end of th...more
This is a novel that features an normal person with ordinary abilities and no particular passion for life. Unmotivated readers (aging with nothing in particular to look forward to in life) will be able to identify with this story. It starts out a bit slow, but for the reader who makes it through to the end of th...more
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April 2010 - I have finished reading Noah's Compass by Anne Tyler, a story about a widower named Liam who is trying to adjust to retirement. It was a good read and I would recommend it.
The title is a reference to Noah in the Bible.* Liam tells his grandson about Noah. As he talks, the reader sees parallels between Noah's circumstance and Liam's life. On p. 219, Liam says: "There was nowhere to go. He was just trying to stay afloat. ... So he didn't need a compass, or a rudder, or a sextant..."
On...more
The title is a reference to Noah in the Bible.* Liam tells his grandson about Noah. As he talks, the reader sees parallels between Noah's circumstance and Liam's life. On p. 219, Liam says: "There was nowhere to go. He was just trying to stay afloat. ... So he didn't need a compass, or a rudder, or a sextant..."
On...more
The characters were well developed but I never really got to the POINT of the book until Liam's grandson was so ticked off at Noah for letting so many animals die and Liam was telling his grandson about Noah and the ark. These few paragraphs made the book make sense, albeit a little late. Maybe worth a re-read. Not a waste of time, I just didn't get it until the last few chapters.
My first Kindle book (tried on the school's iTouch) - I really enjoyed this convenient option for reading.
Anne Tyler is one of my all time favorite authors, but I haven't thought that her recent books are even close to the quality and enjoyment of her earlier works (Saint Maybe, Breathing Lessons, Dinner at the Homesick Rest., and The Accidental Tourist). I'd probably give this a 3 and a half stars, there was an interesting twist of plot and the usual assortment of quirkly, three-dimensional Bal...more
Anne Tyler is one of my all time favorite authors, but I haven't thought that her recent books are even close to the quality and enjoyment of her earlier works (Saint Maybe, Breathing Lessons, Dinner at the Homesick Rest., and The Accidental Tourist). I'd probably give this a 3 and a half stars, there was an interesting twist of plot and the usual assortment of quirkly, three-dimensional Bal...more
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I picked up this book because I thought the description on the cover sounded interesting and that it would make good light reading. The plot focused on a quiet, not very successful man in his own eyes, or one might assume, the eyes of society. His education and interest was in philosophy and he managed to work himself down from a job he liked to several he just endured, and when the school where he was teaching as an upper elementary teacher needed one less teacher, he accepted without argument...more
I found this book to be about how a terrible event can knock a person off the path of the life they loved leading, onto another and one does not know they've missed their life until it is too late. Liam, the central character, both widower and divorced, was a fifth grade teacher in a private school. He has recently been forced out, which he prefers to think of as retirement, and has moved into a smaller apartment to reduce expenses. On his first night in the new apartment he goes to bed and wake...more
A rather lovely elegy writ small, about a lonely man stumbling towards what might almost be called happiness. Liam at the age of sixty-one is uprooted - he loses his job at a second-tier Baltimore private school, and moves into a drab apartment in a community of loners, in the nether suburbs. On his very first night, he is attacked in his apartment, and wakes up in the hospital. He's been cut in the head and bitten in the hand; what's more alarming to Liam, he can recall none of the event.
This m...more
This m...more
This story was different than I expected. I enjoyed it more than I thought I would. Perhaps because I've learned to always expect something good from Tyler.
"Noah's Compass is 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...more
"Noah's Compass is 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...more
I’m putting Noah’s Compass squarely in the half of Anne Tyler books that I really enjoy. She covers familiar territory through her protagonist Liam Pennywell. He’s a retired teacher, a man who has worked hard at making his life smaller and nevertheless ends up in some complicated situations. At the beginning of the book Liam suffers short term memory loss following an attack by an intruder. In the wake of the attack his family relationships become entangled and his desire to recover his lost mem...more
The novel Noah's Compass by Anne Tyler, starts out with the 61 yr old Liam Pennywell experiencing a memory loss after suffering a concussion when assaulted in his apartment on his first night after having moved there. He can remember going to bed but everything else is a blank until the moment he wakes up in a hospital room the next morning with his head and one of his hands bandaged. He begins a quest to try to regain his memory of what happened and in the process becomes involved in a relation...more
Apr 10, 2012
Doreen
rated it
3 of 5 stars
Recommends it for:
anyone looking for a quick read
Recommended to Doreen by:
meriden library book club selection
I liked this book well enough. The story moves along easily from Liam's 'forced' retirement at the book's beginning, to his profession as a 'zayda' at the book's conclusion.
Here is a man who has lived his life passively. He never is truly engaged in his relationships with family/friends, nor in his circumstances. Everything in his life simply 'happens', lacking any activity or thought from him. The book is a snippet in time, a window of only a few months from his life. This reminded me of Stewa...more
Here is a man who has lived his life passively. He never is truly engaged in his relationships with family/friends, nor in his circumstances. Everything in his life simply 'happens', lacking any activity or thought from him. The book is a snippet in time, a window of only a few months from his life. This reminded me of Stewa...more
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Jul 26, 2011
Stuart
added it
I liked this book a lot. It is very simply written, about a man who is very ordinary. I liked that. It’s nice to sometimes read about someone who is not a superhuman being, who knows how to parachute out a plane with just an umbrella or some such. The main character, Liam, at age 61, has just lost his job, not that he liked it much anyway, and has moved to a small apartment, and seemingly has no-one in his life and little to do. But suddenly and then in growing numbers, people begin to populate...more
Liam Pennywell is 61 years old and has lost his job teaching 5th grade history in a private boy's school. The terms of his job loss were clearly unfair, but he is, in his, as we discover, passive way, "accepting" this with a stiff upper lip and moving on. Except he moved to a neighborhood where he got smashed in the head the first night of his arrival by an intruder. The subsequent amnesia obsesses him throughout of the novel.
For the most part, Anne Tyler usually makes me really sad. Too much...more
For the most part, Anne Tyler usually makes me really sad. Too much...more
Liam is an unremarkable 61 year old man who has been fired from his teaching job and forced to retire, although he rationalizes that it doesn't really matter because he wasn't particularly good at teaching fifth graders, and his real passion is philosophy. He is a man who is aware that he didn't make much of himself; he is lonely, and passively defeated. On the first night of his moving into a small apartment, he is attacked by a burglar, and the next day he finds himself in a hospital with brui...more
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Anne Tyler is one of my favorite authors. Her quirky, off-center characters are appealing in their individuality, strengths, and weaknesses. And since I went to college in the Baltimore area, my familiarity with the setting adds to the enjoyment. In this book, Liam Pennywell has been downsized from his job as a 5th grade teacher in a private school. It certainly wasn't that he enjoyed the job--he didn't. It's just that he seems to be continuing to drift along in life--he drifted into private sch...more
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I think I've read all of Anne Tyler's books and this is probably the weakest. In other books her characters tend to live on the fringes of society, outwardly losers, but through Tyler's eyes we get to like them and understand their often odd behaviour. Liam Pennywell, the main protagonist of Noah's Compass, provokes none of this sympathy. With his grumpy disconnection from the modern world, deliberate obtuseness in conversation and total lack of concern for his family he is a weak, unlikeable an...more
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I love that Tyler has such a clear and personal voice in literature. I could have turned to any page of this book with no idea who it was by and figured it out after reading just one paragraph.
Anne Tyler has mastered the art of the lovable loser. In this latest book it is personified in Liam Pennywell. Twice married, (once widowed, once divorced) father of three grown daughters, recently laid off from the latest in a string of teaching positions, Liam wakes up one day in a hospital bed, apparen...more
Anne Tyler has mastered the art of the lovable loser. In this latest book it is personified in Liam Pennywell. Twice married, (once widowed, once divorced) father of three grown daughters, recently laid off from the latest in a string of teaching positions, Liam wakes up one day in a hospital bed, apparen...more
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I guess I am missing something here. I don't know the relevance of the book title considering the story. Liam is in his 60s, losses his job, was married twice, once divorced and once widowed. He has three daughters but never really was a part of thier lives....in short he is a sad sack! Whe he loses his job he considers retirement and scales back on living expenses, not that he had much to scal back on. During his first night he is assualted in his new place and has no memory of the incident. He...more
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Liam is forcibly retired from teaching and begins a process of simplifying his life. He moves to a smaller apartment and contemplates his next step. The move has left Liam tired and as he falls asleep the first night in his new place, he enjoys the scent of the pines outside his bedroom window. But, when he wakes, he finds himself in a hospital wearing a "helmet" of bandages, unable to remember what happened and unable to make peace with this new faulty memory. As the title suggests, this novel...more
It had been a long time since I'd read an Anne Tyler novel and I'd almost forgotten how much I like them. I'm always able to identify with her quietly quirky characters (say that ten times fast), but maybe that says more about me than them!
This time it's Liam Pennywell, a sixty-one year old who has just lost his job as a fifth grade teacher. Educated as a philosopher, he never cared all that much for teaching anyway and is coming to terms with his forced retirement. He moves into a smaller apart...more
This time it's Liam Pennywell, a sixty-one year old who has just lost his job as a fifth grade teacher. Educated as a philosopher, he never cared all that much for teaching anyway and is coming to terms with his forced retirement. He moves into a smaller apart...more
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I Have read every one of the Anne Tyler books. I love her ordinary characters living ordinary lives, and the quirky ways in which they do. This book was particularly "ordinary," although odd and quirky and strange as ordinary life always is. It made me very, very sad, but it felt right. I don't know that I'll recommend it to many people. You'd have to be in a good place to find it charming or bearable or whatever adjective I'm searching for. Yet I read it in three sittings. I am going to write t...more
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Anne Tyler is another American writer with a long bibliography and sensitivity to the malaise of modern life. Noah’s Compass (Doubleday $32.95) is the story of Liam Pennywell who has at 60 has just been down-sized from his teaching job at a private boy’s school. His first wife suicided and his second wife left him. He is moving into a smaller apartment, hoping for quiet days to read his philosophy books. This would make for a pretty dull story except he is mugged the first night in his new digs...more
The latest book by Anne Tyler was a quick, pleasant read. Having read her books over the years, this one seemed briefer and covered a shorter passage of time than most others but, in a way, I enjoyed that as, even though Tyler has the knack of making passive people sympathetic, I still have the desire to give some of the characters a good smack at times.
In this case, instead of the entire meandering life of the character, we join him for the end of his passive journey and his re-engagement with...more
In this case, instead of the entire meandering life of the character, we join him for the end of his passive journey and his re-engagement with...more
I became so immersed in this book and its characters that I had trouble taking a break from it to eat and sleep. Yes, we may have seen the male character in previous novels. He is flawed, living a claustrophobic life, perhaps depressed. Tyler's writing, however, her ear for dialogue between family and friends, brings insights that change Liam Pennywell's life. The novel is full of irony, unexpected moments of humor,kindness and forgiveness, perhaps as everyone's is, rescuing all of us from we th...more
Noah's Compass finds Liam, a 60-year-old recently retired (sort-of) teacher shifting into a new apartment, who awakens to find himself in hospital after a blow to the head.
From this point we follow Liam, as he struggles to regain his memory, initiates a romance with a younger (married) woman, juggles the advice giving attentions of his daughters and deals with an awkward relationship with his ex-wife.
The prose of Noah's Compass is plain-speak and easy to read, however the author occasionally ind...more
From this point we follow Liam, as he struggles to regain his memory, initiates a romance with a younger (married) woman, juggles the advice giving attentions of his daughters and deals with an awkward relationship with his ex-wife.
The prose of Noah's Compass is plain-speak and easy to read, however the author occasionally ind...more
Anne Tyler's novels all take place in Baltimore, and to a former Baltimorean ("Baltimoron"...) who has a real fondness for the city, reading one of her books is the next best thing to being there, Hon. I've read most of her books and think her real strength is in her writing - it just goes down so easily and effortlessly. A weak plot makes no difference - they're still fun and so authentically Baltimore, or rather a certain Baltimore locale, happily where I lived so it's all very familiar.
"Noah'...more
"Noah'...more
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Anne Tyler was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota, in 1941 and grew up in Raleigh, North Carolina. She graduated at nineteen from Duke University and went on to do graduate work in Russian studies at Columbia University.
The Beginner's Goodbye
is Anne Tyler's nineteenth novel; her eleventh,
Breathing Lessons
, was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 1988. She is a member of the American Academy of Arts and...more
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“Liam really enjoyed a good movie. He found it restful to watch people's conversations without being expected to join in. But he always felt sort of lonesome if he didn't have someone next to him to nudge in the ribs at the good parts.”
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7 people liked it
“Either she was admirably at ease anywhere or she suffered from a total lack of discrimination; Liam couldn't decide which.”
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4 people liked it
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