Saint Maybe by Anne Tyler: This book is about sin, guilt, and penance, or atonement. It’s also about burdens becoming joys. When Ian Bedloe tells his brother, Danny, he suspects Danny’s wife of cheating, Danny kills himself. Not too much longer, Lucy (Danny’s wife) dies of possible suicide. Ian, mostly out of guilt, leaves college to help his parents take care of the three kids left.

While the Bedloes appear to be the perfect family with an optimistic view of life, things fall apart. It turns out that the family isn’t perfect (a common theme for Tyler) and everything’s not turning out alright, as they always thought it would.

However, in the midst of this, unexpected joy arises from the commitment Ian makes to his family. What he first does as a burden later becomes out of love. And you begin to wonder, how could it be different? Would you want it different?

Tyler makes you consider both the choices you’ve made and your life happenstance and choose to "count it all joy" (to use a little Paul).

The Church of Second Chances–In Saint Maybe, Ian begins attending The Church of Second Chances, a small group of people on the fringe of society. On the one hand, there’s some strange theology going on. The pastor tells Ian that Jesus won’t step in until Ian’s done all he can. In other words, when Ian goes for forgiveness for telling Danny something rash about Lucy, the pastor says no, Ian has to make it right first. Obviously, I don’t agree with this. Jesus trades burdens with us, and he tells us his burden is light. From Jesus, we receive forgiveness and rest.

On the other hand, this small group of people serve each other and people in their neighborhoods like very few churches do. They exude love and acceptance in the middle of some off-beat theology.

A Patchwork Planet by Anne Tyler: This is the story of a 30-yr-old black sheep of the family. While the rest of his family appears to be the responsible upper-echelon of society managing companies and generous foundations, Barnaby Gaitlin is an ex-con doing manual labor.

But he’s not ordinary ex-con. While most break into houses to steal material goods, Barnaby broke in to steal memories. He rifled through photo albums and stored letters as a juvenile. Now he works for a company called Rent-A-Back, which provides manual labor for the elderly and the homebound. They do everything from putting up Christmas trees to organizing attics. Barnaby makes a point to keep his nose out of his clients’ business. He doesn’t want to be the juvenile delinquent (though at times he can’t help but overhear things–like the man at the train station begging people to carry a mysterious package).

This book is about figuring out who you are despite and because of expectations. It begins with the line, "I am a man you can trust, is how my customers view me," and the rest of the book explores that notion. Of course, it wouldn’t be Tyler without the broken family, the stereotypical family roles turned on their heads, and the realization that this family is your family, no matter what.

She wrote it in 1st person, which is unusual for Tyler. It’s much more intimate and immediate, and I like it.

So there are two more books to add to your list, if you like the character-driven, slice of life type books. There are few authors you can’t go wrong with, and Anne Tyler’s one of them.