Rating: 
Summary: If you can read only one Anne Tyler, make it this one.
Review: This is Tyler at her best, showing characters that most people would pass by without noticing; unglamorous, borderline middle-income, without compelling jobs. Underneath the characters are quirky individuals, with emotional and family issues that percolate under the mundane surface of their lives.
In this book, the Baltimore rowhouse holds Jeremy, an agoraphobic, isolated artist whose closest relationship is to his quirky art. He lives in a boardinghouse and inherits the management of it when his mother dies. The boardinghouse is an odd but functional extended family. In comes Mary, a beautiful woman on the run from a lifeless marriage. Jeremy makes for him a tremendous leap; he marries Mary.
Can this marriage work? Ironically, the characteristics that drew Jeremy and Mary together (her warmth and caring, his need for it) ultimately risk pulling them apart.
Tyler uses alternate points of view wonderfully. You get a sense of the complexity of character hiding behind ordinary life.
Rating: 
Summary: An agoraphobic's perspective
Review: "Celestial Navigation" is about Jeremy,he's an agoraphobic,introvert,he's a pathetic soul who never leave his house and he's lonely. But after his mother died,he sort of forced to communicate with people because he has to let out his empty rooms in his house. He even met a woman.....Anne focus a lot on Jeremy's thoughts. I think it's intriguing. Once again Anne Tyler proved her ability to depict situation and envision. Her creation always filled with enchanting factors and she had a way to show empathy towards them through words. This novel is different, it showed how special is human relationship and the importance of understanding, about adjusting to changes and how sometimes some things just cannot be change.
Rating: 
Summary: Well-written but not her best
Review: "Celestial Navigation" is one of Tyler's most profound works, and my personal favorite of her books. Through a series of publically unimportant, though personally tragic human losses, two people meet who seem to have nothing in common except the most basic need of a mate. What they actually have in common, however, is their method of "navigating" life: their vision fixes on one goal, as ancient mariners fixed a telescopic gaze on a star, or the horizon, to guide them across the trackless oceans. The protagonists' desire to reach their goals in a world they do not understand determines every decision each one makes, even if it is wrong, will lead to disaster, or will ultimately break their hearts. The same may be said for almost every other character. You will not regret this read.
Rating:
Summary: Eyes Fixed on the Stars
Review: "Celestial Navigation" is one of Tyler's most profound works, and my personal favorite of her books. Through a series of publically unimportant, though personally tragic human losses, two people meet who seem to have nothing in common except the most basic need of a mate. What they actually have in common, however, is their method of "navigating" life: their vision fixes on one goal, as ancient mariners fixed a telescopic gaze on a star, or the horizon, to guide them across the trackless oceans. The protagonists' desire to reach their goals in a world they do not understand determines every decision each one makes, even if it is wrong, will lead to disaster, or will ultimately break their hearts. The same may be said for almost every other character. You will not regret this read.
Rating:
Summary: Multiple POV used to tell this story
Review: Anne Tyler is the Mistress of the Quirky Character, and Celestial Navigation is populated with nothing other than odd balls, the losers of life, those who just can't make it in the real world. They're all weird, not a redeemingly ordinary one among them. Tyler helps her readers realize that happiness doesn't mean the same thing to all people, and who are we to judge another person's paths in the seeking process?
This is a book of tenderness, compassion, and ultimately, contentment.
Rating:
Summary: Well-written but not her best
Review: As the title suggests, this is a novel about people trying to navigate their own lives with the tools they have been given. Many of these tools are woefully inadequate. Jeremy Pauling, for example, is painfully shy, even agoraphobic, and has been made to fear people all the more by the codependent relationship he shared with his similarly agoraphobic mother. When he dies, Jeremy has to take over running the boarding house he shared with his mother. The house is filled with a host of lonely misfits. When a young mother and her four-year-old daughter rent a room, Jeremy finds a companion, if not a soul mate. My favorite theme in this novel was the failure of people who love each other to communicate. Mary and Jeremy are obviously in love, but each accentuates a weakness in the other. Mary's no-nonsense, take-charge attitude allows Jeremy to become all the more withdrawn from the rest of society, while Jeremy's insecurities force Mary to take charge even when she doesn't want to. Yet they never discuss their problems, and these problems are ultimately left completely unresolved. Every character in this novel suffers from the same communications failures--from Jeremy's overbearing sister Amanda, to the boarder Olivia, to Mary's ex-husband Guy. The one character who actually breaks down any communication barriers is Miss Vinton. She does so only for a brief moment, but it is her shining moment. I found this book to be more like a character study in a psychology textbook than a novel. It was well written, and the characters were well developed, but there was essentially no plot, and no characters except Miss Vinton seemed to make any progress. I could listen to Ms. Tyler's beautiful prose for hours, but would rather do so in one of her later novels like Ladder of Years or The Accidental Tourist. Here, she shows us a glimpse of the fantastic author she became in later years. Ultimately, those stories are fuller and more complete--they have the interesting characters and the compelling storyline. While I enjoyed reading Celestial Navigation, I was left ultimately unsatisfied after its abrupt and achingly sad conclusion.
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Summary: She paints a wonderful tale once again.
Review: Celestial Navigation is definitely one of my favorite books by Anne Tyler. With her extrordinary talent, she has become the master of modern contemporary writers. There is no one whose books I'd rather find myself reading than hers. Celestial Navigation is simply touching; the character of Jeremy Pauling is moving in his awkward attempt at gaining the love of the woman he so greatly admires. However, don't be fooled. Tyler's stories aren't entirely about love; they are about life and the strength needed to get past the everyday struggles that we all undoubtably face. Anne Tyler's novels are like fantastic jewels, both rare and precious. I only hope that in the remaining books I have yet to read by Tyler, that I find the joy I have found thus far.
Rating:
Summary: One of Tyler's Best!!!
Review: I found Celestial Navigation to be Tyler's best book because it is just so beautifully written as she describes human nature.The little love story is really very cute & the whole story will touch your heart as it twists & turns & you can't help but love this book.It may not be full of interesting events,but it is really a very wonderful book that I can't get enough of & Tyler makes the ordinary so interesting somehow.
Rating:
Summary: Tender, lovely heartbreaking story.
Review: No...no... there must be more! I wanted to shout when I arrived at the ending of this book. I still remain under the impression of this story thinking over and again about the characters, searching for clues and trying to understand how everything about their description and evolvement has built up to such a conclusion. I am even a bit displeased with Anne Tyler of choosing to end the book in such a way. I negotiate with her in my mind but have to conclude she was right...
Celestial Navigation is presented from different perspectives. Each chapter has the voice of a different person and Anne Tyler manages to give each personality its own unique tone and its special, different thoughts. Jeremy for example thinks in colors shapes and contours. He is always being "told about" and not presented in his own voice like the other women characters. Maybe because his mind is so confused that the readers, like the people surrounding him, will not be able to understand it if his "inside" was presented. The writer sort of "explains him" to us.
There are no good or bad characters (well - the writer and the readers do not really appreciate Olivia but we understand her. We know where she is coming from) - all are human beings and you can understand what "makes them tick. Every character has flaws that are seen only when you look from the outside. When people think from the inside out they can think about personal faults that no one else seems to notice.
Jeremy's personality is explained very well and although he is totally different you feel you know him. Mary seems to be more easy to figure out but its with her we are surprised when we learn what other people think and feel about her actions.
These characters are so achingly real it hurts. These are no hot shots. We have a group of real life losers. When I say losers I mean if they are judged according to society strict rules of success and happiness. Anne Tyler however wants to tell us that happiness is not always what you see on the surface and people can sometimes know only after that they were happy. Also communication is the essence of it all and can be done in a variety of ways, as long as its done...
Tender, lovely heartbreaking story.
Rating:
Summary: Mysterious ways
Review: On the other hand, as this novel clearly points out - for woolgatherers like us life is a continuous struggle, a long chain of necessary sacrifices, the forced reconciliation with the demands and limits every day imposes on us. Snip: (...)
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