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Olive, Again

From the Pulitzer Prize-winning, Booker Prize-shortlisted author

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Olive, Again

By: Elizabeth Strout
Narrated by: Kimberly Farr
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Summary

Brought to you by Penguin.

THE INSTANT SUNDAY TIMES AND NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER FROM THE PULITZER PRIZE-WINNING, BOOKER-SHORTLISTED AUTHOR

SHORTLISTED FOR THE WOMEN'S PRIZE 2025

It’s autumn in Maine, and the town lawyer Bob Burgess has become enmeshed in an unfolding murder investigation, defending a lonely, isolated man accused of killing his mother. He has also fallen into a deep and abiding friendship with the acclaimed writer, Lucy Barton, who lives nearby in a house next to the sea. Together, Lucy and Bob talk about their lives, their hopes and regrets, and what might have been.

Lucy, meanwhile, befriends one of Crosby’s longest inhabitants, Olive Kitteridge, now living in a retirement community on the edge of town. They spend afternoons together in Olive’s apartment, telling each other stories. Stories about people they have known – “unrecorded lives,” Olive calls them – reanimating them, and, in the process, imbuing their lives with meaning.

Brimming with empathy and pathos, TELL ME EVERYTHING is Elizabeth Strout operating at the height of her powers, illuminating the ways in which our relationships keep us afloat. As Lucy says, “Love comes in so many different forms, but it is always love.”

'Stunning, deeply felt and profoundly intelligent' Guardian

'A superbly gifted storyteller and a craftswoman in a league of her own' Hilary Mantel

'A terrific writer' Zadie Smith

'Strout’s ability to reveal the wonder in unrecorded lives continues to astonish' Telegraph

OPRAH'S BOOK CLUB PICK: 'A beautiful read reminding us that there is extraordinary love in ordinary actions' Oprah Winfrey

© Elizabeth Strout 2019 (P) Penguin Audio 2019

Anthologies & Short Stories Family Life Fiction Genre Fiction Literary Fiction Short Stories Small Town & Rural Women's Fiction Heartfelt Inspiring Thought-Provoking
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Critic reviews

A novel to treasure... Olive, Again, like Strout's first book, delivers roughly five hours of spine-tingling pleasure.
Olive, Again is a tour de force. With extraordinary economy of prose - few writers can pack so much emotion, so much emotion, so much detail into a single paragraph - Strout immerses us in the lives of her characters, each so authentically drawn as to be deserving of an entire novel themselves. Compassionate, masterly and profound, this is a writer at the height of her powers
Emotionally honest, psychologically piercing and ultimately life-affirming
Her writing is exquisite; her vision is boundless. What a sublime book.
A superbly gifted storyteller and a craftswoman in a league of her own. In Olive, Again, she teaches us that there is always more to know about human beings, even the ones we are closest to.
There's no simple truth about human existence, Strout reminds us, only wonderful, painful complexity. 'Well, that's life,' Olive says. 'Nothing you can do about it.' Beautifully written and alive with compassion, at times almost unbearably poignant. A thrilling book in every way.
Strout again demonstrates her gift for zeroing in on ordinary moments in the lives of ordinary people to highlight their extraordinary resilience
She gets better with each book
Glorious
A perfect novel
All stars
Most relevant
Eleven years ago Elizabeth Strout published "Olive Kitteridge" set in ordinaryville, Crosby, in Maine, which finished with strident, all-seeing Olive at 70.

"Olive Again" takes Olive further: widowed, into a second marriage with Jack (overweight and not the man he was since his prostate surgery); into old age with all its alone-ness, frustrations and indignities - and a second widowhood. That sounds beyond depressing, but these inter-linked, powerfully charged stories in which characters come and go tug at the heartstrings with such poignancy, such insights - and humour - that we're drawn right in.

These are ordinary characters living ordinary lives but Strout makes them matter, and makes us feel the magnitude of their apparently insignificant disappointments and sadnesses. A grandmother plagues her uninterested visitor with pictures of her grandchildren on her phone, rattling on at length about their cuteness. "Oh I talk too much about them," she gushes. "Yes, you do," replies the visitor and the grandmother's world collapses.

The tragic failures of relationships are explored with infinite subtlety - between Olive and her grown-up son and his hostile step children who stare sullenly; the silent, alienated old couple who have divided their living space with tape. "Tell your father to take you out because I'm not!" says the wife to the dog.

I loved this and the narrator Kimberly Farr's presentation of the dialogue and Olive's thoughts is masterly..

Every-day lives made to matter

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The first Olive book depressed me. This one had hope and understanding and I loved it. The ending was truly moving and made me think about where I'm going in my life. The narration was very good and really captured the different characters. Wish there was another book to listen to.

You will love Olive and get weepy at the end

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Read this book twice, back to back, as it was so difficult to put down... so moving and touching. It really grips the heart.

Poignant

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Wonderfully detailed writing and character study, superbly read by someone who's truly understood the author's intent

Stupendous

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Just like the original Olive Kitteridge this is well written, thought provoking and heart warming. It offers so many human insights, without being in the least bit 'preachy', and the first class narration makes it very easy to listen to. First class.

Love this book!

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