Olive, Again

By: Elizabeth Strout

Narrated by: Kimberly Farr

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

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

Olive Again

Kimberly Farr's mssterly narration brings to life Olive and the host of attendant characters in both unforgettable Olive novels.

Indomitable Olive

Elizabeth Strout does it again
Strout is such an insightful and generous writer and in Olive she has created someone we can all relate to. Olive has insight enough but no real inclination to change her ways and it is, I think, this unwillingness or inability to people-please I admire most about her. There are many poignant moments in this book and I will never forget the visceral thwack I felt as I listened to the chapter entitled The Poet. The poem is brutal and honest but Olive really is indomitable and she always picks herself up, dusts herself off and starts all over again.
Walking with Olive, I feel less out of step with the world. Strout shows us human nature in all its complexity and shines a light on all of us.

Olive,

How wonderful to meet you again! So tender, wistful, hilarious, brash and whimsical. Thank you, Elizabeth Strout❤️

A Masterpiece

Elizabeth Strout writes love letters to all of us with these two novels. Olive Kitteridge, and the people in Olive’s orbit, are mundane, flawed, and often frustrating. Yet in Strout’s eyes they are beautiful. We are beautiful.

Very good

It’ astonishing how Elizabeth Strout manages to convey the ambiance, the smells, the colors of day-to-day life. You can feel yourself there, in that town of Crosby, Maine.
I have been to Maine once and I just loved it.
My congratulations to the author and to the narrator. She’s excellent. A must-read, absolutely.