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Life After Life

The global bestseller, now a major BBC series

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Life After Life

By: Kate Atkinson
Narrated by: Fenella Woolgar
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What if you had the chance to live your life again and again, until you finally got it right?

During a snowstorm in England in 1910, a baby is born and dies before she can take her first breath.

During a snowstorm in England in 1910, the same baby is born and lives to tell the tale.

What if there were second chances? And third chances? In fact an infinite number of chances to live your life? Would you eventually be able to save the world from its own inevitable destiny? And would you even want to?

Life After Life follows Ursula Todd as she lives through the turbulent events of the last century again and again. With wit and compassion, she finds warmth even in life’s bleakest moments, and shows an extraordinary ability to evoke the past. Here isKate Atkinson at her most profound and inventive, in a novel that celebrates the best and worst of ourselves.

 20th Century Fiction Genre Fiction Historical Historical Fiction Literary Fiction War & Military Women's Fiction Romance Heartfelt England
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Critic reviews

Kate Atkinson’s new novel is a box of delights. Ingenious in construction, indefatigably entertaining, it grips the reader’s imagination on the first page and never lets go. If you wish to be moved and astonished, read it. And if you want to give a dazzling present, buy it for your friends.
There aren't enough breathless adjectives to describe Life After Life: Dazzling, witty, moving, joyful, mournful, profound. Wildly inventive, deeply felt. Hilarious. Humane. Simply put: it's ONE OF THE BEST NOVELS I'VE READ THIS CENTURY.
Truly brilliant...Think of Audrey Niffenegger's The TimeTraveler's Wife or David Nicholl's One Day...[or] Martin Amis's Times Arrow...This is a rare book that you want, Ursula-like, to start again the minute you have finished.
Absolutely brilliant...it reminded me a bit of her first book Behind the Scenes at the Museum, which is one of my most favourite books ever.
What makes Atkinson an exceptional writer...is that she does so with an emotional delicacy and understanding that transcend experiment or playfulness. Life After Life gives us a heroine whose fictional underpinning is permanently exposed, whose artificial status is never in doubt; and yet one who feels painfully, horribly real to us.
Merging family saga with a fluid sense of time and an extraordinarily vivid sense of history at its most human level. A dizzying and dazzling tour de force.
Deliriously inventive, sharply imagined and ultimately affecting...Atkinson has written something that amounts to so much more than the sum of its (very many) parts. It almost seems to imply that there are new and mysterious things to feel and say about the nature of life and death, the passing of time, fate and possibility.. . [a]magnificently tender and humane novel.
Brilliant...more than just a terrific story about the impact of one existence on another. Atkinson can knock the socks off any rival in terms of skill and style...The tour de force of the book, though, is Atkinson's recreation of the Blitz...unputdownable
Stunned with tiredness thanks to Kate Atkinson's LIFE AFTER LIFE. Couldn't stop reading. Terrific novel, may be her best yet. So enthralling, so well written, so beautifully constructed. Really, I can't fault it. Will be one of my books of the year.
World events, reimagined characters and second chances told with warmth, wit and consummate skill. (Fanny Blake)
All stars
Most relevant
I generally enjoyed this story but it was very slow to start. Also, the concept is interesting but it ultimately doesn't seem to go anywhere.

Interesting but slow

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What did you like most about Life After Life?

Wonderful book! Moving, thought-provoking and original. It's just my sort of novel. I highly recommend it.

Listened to this twice

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Ursula lives her life over and over again. I was wondering how this would work as an audio book, and it worked brilliantly. I kind of "let go" of having to studiously retain details and let the magical rhythm that the story has unfold. Beautifully written, perfectly narrated, I was sad when it finished, and delighted to find its sister novel "A God in Ruins".

Beautifully woven and clever story

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Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?

I read this book about a year ago and thoroughly enjoyed it, although I found the ending unsatisfying. The performance of this narrator was excellent and it was very pleasurable to listen. I think the book makes more sense the second time through, and listening to it really brings it alive.

What did you like best about this story?

The central character is very likeable, and all the characters are believable and have depth. The way the story explores different paths through life, what might have happened had something quite trivial been done differently or different decisions been taken, is fascinating. The social history is also very well done - informative without being didactic.

Which character – as performed by Fenella Woolgar – was your favourite?

It has to be Ursula, although Izzy came a close second.

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

No.

Very engaging performance.

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wonderful book ...the best I've read this year ...confirms so much. Superior Narrator which makes all the difference in audiobooks....

Superb

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