Anna Quindlen Books In Order

Publication Order of Standalone Novels

Publication Order of Non-Fiction Books

Publication Order of Children's Books

Publication Order of Anthologies

Anna Quindlen is one of the well known authors of America who has written various bestseller novels in her writing career based on the Literature & Fiction and the Memoir genres. Apart from being a writer, she is also a popular journalist and an opinion columnist. One of the columns that she wrote in the New York Times column known as Public and Private has won the Pulitzer Prize in the year 1992 in the category of Best Commentary. Anna started working as a journalist before becoming an author and began her career as a reporter in the year 1974 in the New York Post. After working there as a reporter for a period of three years, she got promoted. And between the years 1977 and 1994, she worked for The New York Times and held various positions in the company.

Anna left The New York Times in the year 1995 and also quit journalism in order to become a full time novelist. After struggling for a few years, she joined the Newsweek in the year 1999 and began writing bi-weekly columns. Later, she announced her semi-retirement in the year 2009, until then she wrote a number of columns on various topics for the magazine. Author Anna is very well known to be a critic of the increasingly materialistic and the fast-paced nature of the modern life of America, as she perceives it. When she was just 19 years old, she lost her mother due to ovarian cancer at the age of 40. Since then, most of the personal writings of author Anna are centered around her mother. Her writing career has been a prosperous one because of the 5 bestselling novels that she has written over the course of her writing career. Two of those bestselling novels have also been adapted into successful movies.

One of the novels titled ‘One True Thing’ was adapted into a feature film in the year 1998. The actress of the film, Meryl Streep had received a nomination in the category of Best Actress at the Academy Awards. Two of author Anna’s other novels titled ‘Blessings’ and ‘Black and Blue’ were made into television movies in the years 2003 and 1999 respectively. Anna was born on July 8, 1953 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. Her father was an Irish while her mother was an Italian. She went on to graduate from the South Brunswick High School located in South Brunswick, New Jersey in the year 1970. After that, author Anna attended the Barnard College and earned her graduate degree in the year 1974. During the time of her college studies, Anna met with Gerald Krovatin and got married to him later. Gerald went on to become one of the prominent attorneys of New Jersey. Other than writing novels, author Anna Quindlen participates in the LearnedLeague and uses the name ‘QuindlenA’. Throughout her writing career, Anna has faced a lot of criticism for some of her writing works and actions.

One of the critics named Lee Siegel has described her an example of the monsters of empathy in his column in The New Republic. He has said that Anna domesticates, assimilates, and self subjugates every distant tragedy. He has described the phenomenon with the word ‘The Quindlen Effect’ because of one of the columns written by author Anna in The New York Times in December 1992 in which she is said to have assailed the 4 alleged perpetrators involved in the Glen Ridge rape. Siegel has even gone on to write that the kind of scathing indignation actions that Anna has taken would not be defended by any sane reader of the Times. In one of the other events, author Anna was protested during the annual commencement address of the Villanova University in the year 2000. She faced severe hatred of a group of students, who had anti-abortion beliefs, against her position on reproductive rights. After withdrawing as the speaker of the event, Anna emailed her speech to one of the graduate students who was disappointed to see the situation. The speech had spread like a wildfire all over the internet and was expanded into one of Anna’s titled ‘A Short Guide to a Happy Life’, after a few months.

One of the initial novels written by author Anna Quindlen was published under the title ‘Black and Blue’. It was released in the year 1998 by the Delta Publishing. The plot of the novel revolves around the lives of the main characters named Fran Benedetto and Bobby. Author Anna has made use of her daring and compassion for weaving a harrowing and forceful portrait of a marriage and a woman. This portrait captures all the profound intricacies of passion, rage, love, and violence. Due to this, the novel seems to be utterly riveting and heartbreaking, depicting the brilliant achievement and the extraordinary work of fiction of author Anna. In the opening sequence of the plot of the novel, Fran Benedetto is shown as living with Bobby for 18 years and hiding her secrets and bruises from him. She loved her son very much and wanted him to have a father, which is the only reason why she kept her secrets from Bobby. However, she was forced to run away from the lives of her dearest son and her loving husband as she could not bear the look that her 10 year old son had on his face during one night. The novel went on to become a huge success and helped author Anna to become a famous novelist. With her excellent work in the novel, she is believed to have taken a place beside the prominent authors like Rosellen Brown and Alice McDermott. Anna received a lot of praises for bringing the acclaimed and beloved contemporary classics of these authors to a whole new audience.

One of the other initial and successful novels written by author Anna Quindlen was published by the Random House Trade Paperbacks publishing house in the year 2006. It was titled as ‘One True Thing’ and the main characters in the form of Ellen Gulden and Kate Gulden. In the opening sequence of the plot of the novel, Ellen Gulden is shown as living a successful life in New York as one of the prominent journalists. But she leaves everything and returns to her mother’s house in order to care for as she is diagnosed with cancer. Her mother, Kate Gulden, expresses her desire to spend all the time that is left in her life with her daughter and so, Ellen does not think twice before coming to her. As the awkward, tender, and revealing relationship between the mother and daughter seems to deepen, Ellen is confronted with several painful truths about her father whom she used to adore a lot. And after the death Kate, Ellen Gulden turns from a devoted daughter into the prime suspect of killing her mother, as she gets accused of mercy killing.