Every time I pick up an Anne Tyler novel, I feel my age.

And am quite happy about my place in time.

Tyler was just 22 when her first novel was published. “If Morning Ever Comes” came out in 1964, when I was still getting into Dennis the Menace comic books. So it took awhile for me to get to the stage where I was ready for the work of the woman who settled her unique characters so neatly into Baltimore, the Minnesota native and Columbia University graduate’s adopted city.

I had just graduated from the University of Maryland, and was making plenty of trips 30 miles north. I became a regular at Orioles games, at the old Memorial Stadium. A lifelong Mets fan, I suddenly had an American League team for which to root, quite happy to spell out the nickname as the crowd joined in with superfan Wild Bill Hagey. I began driving up on Sundays to see the Colts, too, incredulous that I could walk up to the window on game day and buy a seat on the 20-yard-line.

And I discovered the big, bustling novel “Morgan’s Passing.” Tyler’s eighth novel came out in 1980, a long story about a hardware store owner who encounters s a pair of young newlyweds. I don’t remember the exact trigger that steered me to her work, but I know that the way she described her unique characters, how they looked at life with a slightly eccentric eye, the everyday things she had them do as her stories unfolded, made me love her words even more than I did the Orioles.

I went back and read the earlier work. And I kept up with each release, happy every couple of years. “Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant” in 1982 fueled my passion, this tale of a mother who invites her grown children back home to see the past through different eyes. “The Accidental Tourist,” in 1985, was turned into a popular movie starring William Hurt.

Tyler kept putting her characters into little moments that led to big discoveries about life. I kept reading.

I fell a little behind on the latest. “The Beginner’s Goodbye ,” Tyler’s 18th, actually was published last year. Fortunately, I snatched it off the shelf at the Syracuse library’s Paine Branch to have on hand for the Labor Day weekend.

At 71 years old, Tyler just keeps doing what she does best. In this slim novel — 198 pages is enough to get this tale told — she delivers us Aaron, a middle-aged Baltimore editor who’s mourning the death of his wife. A doctor, Dorothy was Aaron’s senior by a decade, and they were truly opposites. As Aaron moves along in life — as he must — he starts seeing Dorothy around town. Little by little, he puts together the pieces of his past and unlocks the door to his future.

Smart. Odd. Small on major movement. Big on ah-ha moments.

Perfect for a guy in his mid-50s, a time ripe for reflection of all those chapters in the past, as well as cool-headed planning and great anticipation for what’s still ahead.