Olive Kitteridge: Fiction |  | Author: Elizabeth Strout
Publisher: Random House Trade Paperbacks
List Price: $14.00
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Seller: jasonbookstore
Rating:  279 reviews
Sales Rank: 63
Media: Paperback
Edition: Reprint
Pages: 304
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.3
Dimensions (in): 7.9 x 5 x 0.8
ISBN: 0812971833
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
EAN: 9780812971835
ASIN: 0812971833
Publication Date: September 30, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
At times stern, at other times patient, at times perceptive, at other times in sad denial, Olive Kitteridge, a retired schoolteacher, deplores the changes in her little town of Crosby, Maine, and in the world at large, but she doesn’t always recognize the changes in those around her: a lounge musician haunted by a past romance; a former student who has lost the will to live; Olive’s own adult child, who feels tyrannized by her irrational sensitivities; and her husband, Henry, who finds his loyalty to his marriage both a blessing and a curse.
As the townspeople grapple with their problems, mild and dire, Olive is brought to a deeper understanding of herself and her life–sometimes painfully, but always with ruthless honesty. Olive Kitteridge offers profound insights into the human condition–its conflicts, its tragedies and joys, and the endurance it requires.
Praise for Olive Kitteridge:
“Perceptive, deeply empathetic . . . Olive is the axis around which these thirteen complex, relentlessly human narratives spin themselves into Elizabeth Strout’s unforgettable novel in stories.”
–O: The Oprah Magazine
“Fiction lovers, remember this name: Olive Kitteridge. . . . You’ll never forget her. . . . [Elizabeth Strout] constructs her stories with rich irony and moments of genuine surprise and intense emotion. . . . Glorious, powerful stuff.”
–USA Today
“Funny, wicked and remorseful, Mrs. Kitteridge is a compelling life force, a red-blooded original. When she’s not onstage, we look forward to her return. The book is a page-turner because of her.”
–San Francisco Chronicle
“Olive Kitteridge still lingers in memory like a treasured photograph.”
–Seattle Post-Intelligencer
“Rarely does a story collection pack such a gutsy emotional punch.”
–Entertainment Weekly
“Strout animates the ordinary with astonishing force. . . . [She] makes us experience not only the terrors of change but also the terrifying hope that change can bring: she plunges us into these churning waters and we come up gasping for air.”
–The New Yorker
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| Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 1-5 of 279
Olive Kitteridge November 21, 2009
ajr (Milford, NH)
An interesting collection of characters, but all sad. The writing and character development make this a good, but depressing, read.
 olive kittridge November 19, 2009
waymar (San Rafael CA)
This Book kept me interested and it had very good insights into small town Main life but I swear I was beginning to think Olive was bipolar or something. And I also did not like the political smart ass comments.
Surprisingly bitter main character November 17, 2009
Judy Gruen (Los Angeles, CA United States)
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
I picked up this book in part because it won a Pulitzer, but I was disappointed. The main character, Olive Kitteridge, is a tense, often-angry woman with no ability to self-censor her thoughts. While main characters need not be perfect, I never really got to like her, though she grows more sympathetic as she grows older. She lacks humor, making it even more puzzling that Strout would choose someone so basically unlikeable as the focus of these stories. Also, while all the stories supposedly have Olive as some sort of focal point, or give her relevance, two only mention her by name, and those stories seem not connected at all to the town of Crosby, Maine, where most of the action takes place. Finally, Olive's slams at former president GW Bush as a "moron" and as someone who looks "retarded" did nothing to further endear her to me, though it probably did some members of the Pulitzer committee. Her bona fides as someone sassy and opinionated were already well-documented; sticking in her political opinions seemed tacked on and irrelevant. What was the point? Three stars for Strout's excellent writing, though.
[...]
 Olive; An Everywoman. November 16, 2009
Kiki (Birmingham, Alabama)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I just loved this book. I can see why it won the Pulitzer. Strout so beautifully shows the many conditions of the human heart, including its pain and its joy.
A collection of short stories, Olive Kitteridge is a large woman in more than one way--thought, word and physical being in her small Maine town of Crosby. While Olive usually makes at least a brief appearance in every story, many of the stories are about her specifically and her life.
Some of the stories are sad, some funny, some heartbreaking all truthful. They are about life, death, aging and disappointment. Like Shakespeare, Elizabeth Strout seems to be able to encompass it all in this beautifully written, slim book. Excellent reading, and hard to put down. I loved it.
Deserved the Pulitzer November 13, 2009
Robert E. Long III (Mount Kisco, NY USA)
This book got Elizabeth Strout the Pulitzer, and I can see why.
A wonderful tapestry of tales told from multiple perspectives, and a distrurbing and honest view of many of the foibles that make people so unpredictable and complex. Read it, you won't be sorry. Like all really great books, it engenders some complex and ambivalent reactions. I found it a bit thick in terms of mental illness, as one example. Overall, though, I found it uplifting, since these are real characters, dealing with real issues; morality, murder, jealousy, insecurity, but ultimately overcoming insecurity, fear and hatred through love.
Showing reviews 1-5 of 279
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