Nanaville

Praise

“In Nanaville, Quindlen shares her honest and funny experiences with maneuvering through new territory as she learns the importance of stepping back, allowing Arthur’s parents to take the lead and carving a new role for herself.”—Time

“Grandparenting is new territory for this bestselling novelist and beloved former columnist, and as always in her warmly candid nonfiction, Quindlen voices concerns and celebrates high points with sensitivity and insight. As her life fills with unbreakable dishes, scattered Legos, and bite-sized treats, Quindlen savors a shared book, a held hand, a child’s laugh, and a relationship built on mutual love and respect. This tender book should be required reading for grandparents everywhere. . . . Quindlen has established a close rapport with readers as she shares her life experiences, and her latest will thrill loyal fans and draw a new audience.”—Booklist (starred review)
 
“In this wise and endearing book, former New York Times columnist Quindlen . . . addresses the subject of grandparenting, sharing her own experiences and advice. . . . The book is filled with Quindlen’s playful sense of humor (if her baby daughter had wanted to sleep upside down “like a bat,” she would have let her), along with thoughtful reflections on how parenting and grandparenting have changed (for instance, fathers are more involved, there’s a lot more baby gear to buy, and more people are living long enough to become grandparents). This heartfelt and delightful work will especially appeal to readers already living within their own versions of Nanaville.”—Publishers Weekly 
 
“A first-time grandmother discovers joy and self-knowledge in her new role. Pulitzer Prize–winning novelist, columnist, and memoirist Quindlen . . . celebrates the gift of being a grandmother: a new experience, she writes, that gives her ‘a second chance, to see, to be, to understand the world, to look at it and reimagine my place in it, to feel as though I’ve made a mark.’ Besides reporting sweet anecdotes about her toddler grandson, the author reflects on her changing relationship with her son and daughter-in-law, an inevitable shift from being central in the lives of her children to a ‘peripheral place’ in a new family dynamic. . . .The author was sixty-four when her grandson was born; her grandmother was forty-seven when she had her first grandchild, yet grandparents seemed so much older then: ‘Our grandmothers were pre-gym, pre-Botox, pre–skinny jeans.’ They never kissed, hugged, or praised; they would never have gotten down on the floor to play with their dozens of grandchildren. . . . The author imparts sensible advice with self-deprecating humor and sincere gratitude for the bounty of her life. A warmhearted memoir sure to appeal to other new grandmothers—and Quindlen’s many fans.”—Kirkus Reviews