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Olive, Again

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Olive, Again

By: Elizabeth Strout
Narrated by: Kimberly Farr
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About this listen

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

Family Life Fiction Genre Fiction Literary Fiction Women's Fiction Heartfelt

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
I loved Olive Kitteridge and Olive, Again does not disappoint. Such profound observations drawn from such ordinary lives. A book to read more than once, for its humanity and its wisdom, as well as for the joy of such empathetic characters.

The perfect successor to Olive Kitteridge

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This author does a great job every time. The characters are complex and the issues she covers are terrific. More people need to write and read these kind of books. It would illuminate many of the readers’ lives. We’d all understand each other, and where we are headed, so much more. Thanks to Elizabeth Strout for her insight and mastery.

Masterful writing

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I have listened to this book 3 times now, and it kills me every time. Poignant and human, these characters are full of pathos and their private triumphs heroic. Strout is the best author I have ever had the pleasure to read.

Heartbreaking beauty

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I loved the humanity of this book - it was almost meditative to listen to. Just a life with beauty and pain in its ordinariness. A subject rarely tackled - old age, loneliness and estrangement from one’s children. Beautifully narrated. I will definitely listen to more from this insightful author and this narrator.

Beautiful listening

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I was unexpectedly drawn into this book. I’m an older reader and I find most material trivial. This however, was to me, full of honest discussions of real life, mixed with a heartfelt understanding revaling things i have seen a thousand times but never really ‘seen’. It’s rare for me to find a book worth finishing but this was one of them.
Perhaps, I do think you need to reach a certain age where it is most valuable but it is nevertheless provoking and well told. The ‘voices’ were wonderfully engaging and I compliment the reader for such a beautiful portrayal

Totally absorbed by its candor

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