Breaking News for LIFE AFTER LIFE

My book group is discussing Kate Atkinson's Life After Life this evening so I googled the title to do a little more background reading and made this discovery!

Twilight’ Producers to Adapt Kate Atkinson’s ‘Life After Life’

Click on the headline for more details from Variety.

Available Today! - LIFE AFTER LIFE

I have already declared this book my favorite of 2013. Read it and tell me what YOU think.

LIFE AFTER LIFE (2013)

Life After Life by Kate Atkinson
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

"On a cold and snowy night in 1910, Ursula Todd is born, the third child of a wealthy English banker and his wife. Sadly, she dies before she can draw her first breath. On that same cold and snowy night, Ursula Todd is born, lets out a lusty wail, and embarks upon a life that will be, to say the least, unusual." 

Bottom Line: This is Kate Atkinson's masterpiece as far as I am concerned. From now on I will read absolutely anything she writes without having to know anything about it in advance.

I've obviously put off writing this review. Is it harder to write about a book you really loved? Several other reviewers have said as much. It's that feeling that you won't do honor to what you have personally experienced. Anyway I am going to let that be my excuse.

I have been a fan of Kate Atkinson since Stephen King raved about Case Histories a number of years ago in Entertainment Weekly. Her earlier books are mostly literate mysteries featuring Jackson Brodie, former police inspector now a private investigator. I loved them all.

But what if you could live again and again, until you got it right?

That is the fascinating question posed by Kate Atkinson in her Life After Life. There are very few books I read a second time but I know this will join that short list. The first time through I devoured the story without much savoring of the many fine details in this beautifully written and constructed palimpsest. (You can even check out Pinterest for images that play a part in the story.)

Atkinson has a way of putting words together that constantly strike you as unique but right. Her detailed observations and allusions draw the reader in while creating an unsettled feeling of dread..

Through the use of repetition and overlapping circumstances, the author shows us how small decisions can change the course of lives. Ursula Todd lives and dies with a vague sense of knowing things that other people don't know. Some of her lives are terrible. She asks herself the question we all think about. Is there a purpose? Is there something I am here to accomplish?

I have been surprised by a number of original books I've read recently: Gillian Flynn's Gone Girl and Herman Koch's The Dinner for example, but nothing comes close to Kate Atkinson's Life After Life. It is remarkable.

Disclaimer: A copy of Life After Life was provided to me by Reagan Arthur Books/Netgalley for review purposes.

Title: Life After Life

Author: Kate Atkinson

Genre: Literate fiction

Publisher: Reagan Arthur Books

No. of Pages: 544 pages

Copyright: April 2, 2013

ISBN: 0316176486

Rating: 5 out of 5 stars

Source: NetGalley

Kate Atkinson's first novel, Behind the Scenes at the Museum, was named the UK's Whitbread Book of the Year in 1995. Since then, she has written seven more ground-breaking, bestselling books, most recently Started Early, Took My Dog. She lives in Edinburgh. 

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Started Early, Took My Dog

Started Early, Took My Dog by Kate Atkinson

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

A book by Kate Atkinson featuring Jackson Brodie is always a treat. The writing is clever but not forced. Here's an excerpt that caught my fancy:

"He considered, and rejected, the idea of playing a mindless game on his phone and was eventually driven to look for a Gideon Bible in the bedside drawers, but when he found one he realized he wasn't that desperate yet. A yellow Post-it note fluttered out of the Bible. In pencil, someone had written, "The Treasure here is you." Jackson stuck the Post-it note on his forehead and died of boredom."

There are lots of characters to follow in this intricately plotted story with the narrative jumping from present to past and back again (but then that's typical Atkinson). If you pay attention, you'll have a sense of what's happening. And I suppose you could read these titles out of sequence but I get great delight from recognizing allusions to earlier characters and situations.

If you find the title unusual, like I did, you are probably not as familiar with Emily Dickinson's poetry as you thought. Check the whole poem out HERE. If that illuminates the story for you, please share your insights with me.

And there are strands that are not answered at the end. I can only deduce that this foreshadows a future book. But isn't that like life?



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A Converation with Kate Atkinson (2006)

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Nancy Pearl spoke with Kate Atkinson in 2006. I thought I wouldn't want to watch almost a half hour of conversation from that many years ago, but I was charmed! If you love Kate and have the time, I recommend sitting in.

Nancy describes Kate's work as 'intelligent' and 'humorous', with 'complex plots'. They agree to refer to her books as 'comedies of manners' although readers may think of them as 'literate mysteries'.

Book Lust with Nancy Pearl featuring Kate Atkinson 12/4/2006 29:23

Nancy Pearl's guest on this episode of Book Lust is British author Kate Atkinson. Atkinson was born in York in 1951 and studied English Literature at Dundee University. She began writing for women's magazines after winning the 1986 Woman's Own Short Story Competition. Her first novel, Behind the Scenes at the Museum (1995), won the 1995 Whitbread Book of the Year award, beating Salman Rushdie's The Moor's Last Sigh and Roy Jenkins' biography Gladstone. Her latest books are Case Histories (2004), and One Good Turn (2006).

When Will There Be Good News? (2008)

When Will There Be Good News?: A Novel by Kate Atkinson


My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Starting with an horrific event, everything in Kate Atkinson's story collides and those who survive are not left unscathed.

"Case Histories introduced her readers to Jackson Brodie, former police inspector turned private investigator, and won the Saltire Book of the Year Award and the Prix Westminster."

The Jackson Brodie series includes:

1. Case Histories (2004)
2. One Good Turn (2006)
3. When Will There Be Good News (2008)

You'll want to read them all. Visit Kate Atkinson's offical website here.

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One Good Turn by Kate Atkinson

This turned out to be the perfect cure to Leif Enger's underwhelming second book. I read Case Histories a couple of years ago after Stephen King wrote in Entertainment Weekly that he felt it was the best book he had read that year. I enjoyed it immensely. The author, Kate Atkinson grabs you from the first and never lets go. It's the same with One Good Turn.

On the crowded streets of Edinburgh during the Fringe Festival, an unexpected and seemingly undeserved incident of road rage starts a string of incidents. Even though the coincidences range all over the place, the author never loses her way. Interesting characters, many that we come to care about, include two were in Case Histories. Jackson Brodie is back and has accompanied actress Julia Land, who he met in the earlier book, to the festival where she is performing in a dismal play he ended up funding.

Another bit of fun comes from identifying the popular allusions although I must confess I don't get them all. Doesn't matter. This is great storytelling.