Life After Life cover art

Life After Life

The global bestseller, now a major BBC series

 Preview

Get 30 days of Standard free

$8.99/mo after trial ends. Cancel anytime
Try for $0.00
More purchase options

Life After Life

By: Kate Atkinson
Narrated by: Fenella Woolgar
Try for $0.00

Auto-renews at $8.99/mo after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Buy Now for $19.38

Buy Now for $19.38

Summary

What if you had the chance to live your life again and again, until you finally got it right?

During a snowstorm in England in 1910, a baby is born and dies before she can take her first breath.

During a snowstorm in England in 1910, the same baby is born and lives to tell the tale.

What if there were second chances? And third chances? In fact an infinite number of chances to live your life? Would you eventually be able to save the world from its own inevitable destiny? And would you even want to?

Life After Life follows Ursula Todd as she lives through the turbulent events of the last century again and again. With wit and compassion, she finds warmth even in life’s bleakest moments, and shows an extraordinary ability to evoke the past. Here isKate Atkinson at her most profound and inventive, in a novel that celebrates the best and worst of ourselves.

 20th Century Fiction Genre Fiction Historical Historical Fiction Literary Fiction Romance War & Military Women's Fiction England

Continue the series
A God in Ruins cover art
A God in Ruins By: Kate Atkinson

Critic Reviews

Kate Atkinson’s new novel is a box of delights. Ingenious in construction, indefatigably entertaining, it grips the reader’s imagination on the first page and never lets go. If you wish to be moved and astonished, read it. And if you want to give a dazzling present, buy it for your friends.
There aren't enough breathless adjectives to describe Life After Life: Dazzling, witty, moving, joyful, mournful, profound. Wildly inventive, deeply felt. Hilarious. Humane. Simply put: it's ONE OF THE BEST NOVELS I'VE READ THIS CENTURY.
Truly brilliant...Think of Audrey Niffenegger's The TimeTraveler's Wife or David Nicholl's One Day...[or] Martin Amis's Times Arrow...This is a rare book that you want, Ursula-like, to start again the minute you have finished.
Absolutely brilliant...it reminded me a bit of her first book Behind the Scenes at the Museum, which is one of my most favourite books ever.
What makes Atkinson an exceptional writer...is that she does so with an emotional delicacy and understanding that transcend experiment or playfulness. Life After Life gives us a heroine whose fictional underpinning is permanently exposed, whose artificial status is never in doubt; and yet one who feels painfully, horribly real to us.
Merging family saga with a fluid sense of time and an extraordinarily vivid sense of history at its most human level. A dizzying and dazzling tour de force.
Deliriously inventive, sharply imagined and ultimately affecting...Atkinson has written something that amounts to so much more than the sum of its (very many) parts. It almost seems to imply that there are new and mysterious things to feel and say about the nature of life and death, the passing of time, fate and possibility.. . [a]magnificently tender and humane novel.
Brilliant...more than just a terrific story about the impact of one existence on another. Atkinson can knock the socks off any rival in terms of skill and style...The tour de force of the book, though, is Atkinson's recreation of the Blitz...unputdownable
Stunned with tiredness thanks to Kate Atkinson's LIFE AFTER LIFE. Couldn't stop reading. Terrific novel, may be her best yet. So enthralling, so well written, so beautifully constructed. Really, I can't fault it. Will be one of my books of the year.
World events, reimagined characters and second chances told with warmth, wit and consummate skill. (Fanny Blake)
All stars
Most relevant
Don't be like me; I don't like to read the dust-jackets of books in case they give too much away. However in this instance I should have! This is a beautifully written and wonderfully performed book but I got confused with various lives starting and re-starting in the story. My mistake!

Life after life

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

Where does Life After Life rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?

This is one of the best books I've listened to! I've been subscribed for over 2 years but Fenella Woolgar has been one of my favourite narrators. She really brings the characters to life. I loved every moment of this and couldn't stop listening!

What did you like best about this story?

I am a big fan of metaphysical narratives which are well written. This reminded me of David Mitchell novels. It was complex and many layered and beautiful to read.

Which scene did you most enjoy?

The part about the Blitz really stayed with me.

A new favourite

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Wonderful story - rather KM Peytonesque but with extra punch. Favourite book since A Gentlemen in Moscow. Oh, and brilliantly read too!

Superb.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
very well written story almost forgot it was fiction. The narrotor spoke wonderfully

beautiful touching story

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Loved the performance from Fenella Woolgar! Absolutely perfect. Also liked the story a lot but the ending was really ... just annoying to be honest! It should have ended several pages earlier rather than where it did. Anyway. I still deeply enjoyed this book.

Brilliant story

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
See more reviews
In the spirit of reconciliation, Audible acknowledges the Traditional Custodians of country throughout Australia and their connections to land, sea and community. We pay our respect to their elders past and present and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples today.