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Olive Kitteridge: Fiction | 
 enlarge | Author: Elizabeth Strout
Publisher: Random House
Category: Book
List Price: $25.00
Buy Used: $8.95
You Save: $16.05 (64%)
New (35) Used (22) Collectible (2) from $8.95
Avg. Customer Rating:  36 reviews
Sales Rank: 86841
Media: Hardcover
Edition: 1
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 288
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.1
Dimensions (in): 9.5 x 6.3 x 1.2
ISBN: 140006208X
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
EAN: 9781400062089
ASIN: 140006208X
Publication Date: March 25, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
In a voice more powerful and compassionate than ever before, New York Times bestselling author Elizabeth Strout binds together thirteen rich, luminous narratives into a book with the heft of a novel, through the presence of one larger-than-life, unforgettable character: Olive Kitteridge.
At the edge of the continent, Crosby, Maine, may seem like nowhere, but seen through this brilliant writer’s eyes, it’s in essence the whole world, and the lives that are lived there are filled with all of the grand human drama–desire, despair, jealousy, hope, and love.
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 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 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.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 31 more reviews...
 A Wonderful Audiobook September 12, 2008
OLIVE KITTERIDGE was an audio book I picked up on a whim, as I generally do not like short stories. I am so happy I listened to this one. It was such a treat.
In this book of short stories we are introduced to Olive Kitteridge, a retired math teacher in Maine. She's married to Henry, a sweet pharmacist and they have one son. Olive, is something else, quite a character to say the least. She is large, stubborn, highly opinionated, and enjoys speaking her mind. The thirteen stories concern her relationship with all the people in her life: husband, son, neighbors and her former students. Olive is such a complex and feeling individual, more that it may seem on the surface; she struggles with the changes in her life.
What I loved most about this book was that the characters were everyday people with issues you as a reader/listener could relate to. Olive was so memorable; at the end of the book I wanted more of Olive.
A Beautiful Sorrow September 11, 2008
Elizabeth Strout amazes readers not just with her ability to make words dance across the page but also with her efforts to grasp the reader's heart within her gentle hand.
These stories, unified by setting and characters like Olive, are filled with much sorrow. We cry as the characters cry in private. Strout's words have the ability to break one's heart. But within these New Englanders' pain, we recognize our own agonies, our own disappointments, our own regrets.
Though the characters' sorrow weighs us down, it is only because the writer can touch us so deeply. I cried. I laughed. I shuttered. But only because I was moved. And, in the book's final chapter, I smiled at Olive's hope. I saw a new beginning for her and for us all.
This piece is the first of Strout's works I have read, and I crave more of her writing.
one of the best books ever August 26, 2008
I can't remember the last time I read a book I loved so much. I couldn't stop reading--even though I wanted to, to slow down to notice how incredible the writing is (so incredible you don't notice it) and to make it last. My only consolation as I came to the end was that I could start it again--which is what I did.
Grateful to be literate August 11, 2008
This lovely book makes me grateful I can read. Each beautifully written story works as a set piece, but what impressed me so deeply about the collection is how each new story builds on the previous one, until the accumulated power nearly takes you off your feet. What an accomplishment. Olive is blunt in appearance and character; she is unlovely and often mean; and yet we cannot help but want to understand her, owing to the shimmering force of Elizabeth Strout's empathy. --Monica Wood
Luminous, lovely, one of my favorites ever August 6, 2008
One of my favorite books of all time, one I was sorry to get to the end of. This is a collection of short stories which adds up to a kind of novel, since Olive Kitteredge shows up in all of them and is the main character in several. Strout's writing is luminous and gorgeous; her dialogue sounds real, her descriptions of the landscape build the mood appropriately--understated, in language that is original and vivid. The mood is often painfully melancholy, but not always:
"She leaned forward, peering out the window: sweet pale clouds, the sky as blue as your hat, the new green of the fields, the broad expanse of water--seen from up here it all appeared wondrous, amazing. She remembered what hope was, and this was it. That inner churning that moves you forward, plows you through life she way the boats below plowed the shiny water, the way the plane was plowing forward to a place new, and where she was needed."
Strout portrays characters who sound like people you know. It's been said in the reviews: Olive sounds like a monster in the beginning, but by the book's end, you've gotten close to her soul and you can't get enough of her. She's a prickly woman: no-nonsense would be an understatement. In her heart is a mixture of love and great bitterness; overall, she's a stoic, disliked by many in her small northeastern town, and the feeling is mutual. But some of her acquaintances do know her well enough to appreciate and value her, and her husband--the devoted, also stoic, Henry--indeed loves her even though she most often behaves harshly toward him, annoyed by his unflappable sweet nature. She has her reasons for the sharp edges.
The story would seem to be irredeemably sad, but keep reading. Strout's other book, Abide With Me, was about pain and redemption, and that theme is repeated here, only much more readably.
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