Olive, Again
Elizabeth Strout, Kimberly Farr
Audio CD
(Random House Audio, Oct. 15, 2019)
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER ā¢ OPRAHāS BOOK CLUB PICK ā¢ Pulitzer Prize winner Elizabeth Strout continues the life of her beloved Olive Kitteridge, a character who has captured the imaginations of millions.āStrout managed to make me love this strange woman Iād never met, who I knew nothing about. What a terrific writer she is.āāZadie Smith, The GuardianāJust as wonderful as the original . . . Olive, Again poignantly reminds us that empathy, a requirement for love, helps make life ānot unhappy.āāāNPR NAMED ONE OF THE TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY PEOPLE AND ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY Time ā¢ Vogue ā¢ NPR ā¢ The Washington Post ā¢ Chicago Tribune ā¢ Vanity Fair ā¢ Entertainment Weekly ā¢ BuzzFeed ā¢ Esquire ā¢ Real Simple ā¢ Good Housekeeping ā¢ The New York Public Library ā¢ The Guardian ā¢ Evening Standard ā¢ Kirkus Reviews ā¢ Publishers Weekly ā¢ BookPage Prickly, wry, resistant to change yet ruthlessly honest and deeply empathetic, Olive Kitteridge is āa compelling life forceā (San Francisco Chronicle). The New Yorker has said that Elizabeth Strout āanimates the ordinary with an astonishing force,ā and she has never done so more clearly than in these pages, where the iconic Olive struggles to understand not only herself and her own life but the lives of those around her in the town of Crosby, Maine. Whether with a teenager coming to terms with the loss of her father, a young woman about to give birth during a hilariously inopportune moment, a nurse who confesses a secret high school crush, or a lawyer who struggles with an inheritance she does not want to accept, the unforgettable Olive will continue to startle us, to move us, and to inspire usāin Stroutās wordsāāto bear the burden of the mystery with as much grace as we can.āPraise for Olive, AgaināOlive is a brilliant creation not only because of her eternal cantankerousness but because sheās as brutally candid with herself about her shortcomings as she is with others. Her honesty makes people strangely willing to confide in her, and the raw power of Ms. Stroutās writing comes from these unvarnished exchanges, in which characters reveal themselves in all of their sadness and badness and confusion. . . . The great, terrible mess of living is spilled out across the pages of this moving book. Ms. Strout may not have any answers for it, but she isnāt afraid of it either.āāThe Wall Street Journal