Life After Life eBook: Kate Atkinson: Amazon.co.uk: Kindle Store

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Review

"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." (Hilary Mantel)

"

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.

" (Gillian Flynn,no1 New York Times author of Gone Girl, and Sharp Objects)

"Truly brilliant...Think of Audrey Niffenegger's The TimeTraveler's Wife or David Nicholl's One Day...[or] Martin Amis's Times Arrow, his rewinding of the Holocaust that was shortlisted for the Booker. Life After Life should have the popular success of the former and deserves to win prizes, too. It has that kind of thrill to it, of an already much-loved novelist taking a leap, and breaking through to the next level...This is a rare book that you want, Ursula-like, to start again the minute you have finished." (Helen Rumbelow The Times)

"What makes Atkinson an exceptional writer - and this is her most ambitious and most gripping work to date - 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." (Alex Clark Guardian)

"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." (Amber Pearson Daily Mail)

Product Description

WINNER OF THE COSTA NOVEL AWARD

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, Kate Atkinson finds warmth even in life's bleakest moments, and shows an extraordinary ability to evoke the past. Here she is at her most profound and inventive, in a novel that celebrates the best and worst of ourselves.

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Product details

Format: Kindle Edition
File Size: 906 KB
Print Length: 545 pages
Page Numbers Source ISBN: B00FALVOKY
Publisher: Transworld Digital (14 Mar 2013)
Sold by: Amazon Media EU S.� r.l.
Language: English
ASIN: B00AQIFNGM
Text-to-Speech: Not enabled

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Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars See all reviews (1,133 customer reviews)

Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #42 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)
- #14 in Books > Fiction > Contemporary Fiction
- #39 in Kindle Store > Books > Fiction

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More About the Author

Kate Atkinson won the Whitbread (now Costa) Book of the Year prize with her first novel, Behind the Scenes at the Museum. Her four bestselling novels featuring former detective Jackson Brodie became the BBC television series Case Histories, starring Jason Isaacs. Her latest novel Life After Life was shortlisted for the Women's (formerly Orange) Prize, the South Bank Sky Arts Literature Award, and won the 2014 Costa Novel Award. She was appointed MBE in the 2011 Queen's Birthday Honours List, and was voted Waterstones UK Author of the Year at the 2013 Specsavers National Book Awards.

Photography © Martin Hunter

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

66 of 68 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars A remarkable book 17 Jun 2013

By Bron

Format:Kindle Edition

A seemingly small event can change the direction of a life completely: a chance encounter with a stranger who harms you or a conversation that detains you which means you miss bumping into the person, a meeting with the German you fall in love with and marry or being helped up from a fall by an Englishman. Life is full of moments which change the direction a person travels in and we have all wished we could go back and change something, or do it over again in a different way. And Life After Life explores this theme intricately, with sympathy, compassion and superb writing and plotting.

Ursula keeps being born, in 1910, living, dying and being born again within the same family but her decisions and reactions to events change, sometime nudged by a sense that something must be avoided at all costs, and her life keeps going off in different directions as she lives through the turbulent events of the first half of the 20th century. Sometimes you desperately want her to die so that a particular cycle will end and in others you want her to fight through and succeed.

Atkinson crafts Ursula's repeated lives beautifully and you are with her, rooting for her, in every one. But it is not just Ursula we get to know through her successive lives but also her family, friends, brief acquaintances and villains. We see not only the different directions Ursula takes but the impact of life and events on the people around her. Even the characters who make brief appearances are rich with detail and the main characters continue to grow through Ursula's lives along with our greater intimacy with Ursula herself. How many times can we read of a character being born? Well the answer is many times and still never be tired of it. Read more ›

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31 of 32 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars Enjoyable but a tad confusing 23 Nov 2013

By Scoobs

Format:Kindle Edition|Verified Purchase

I read this book on my Kindle before looking at other readers' reviews. I'd never read Kate Atkinson's work before so didn't know what to expect. Now having read other people's reviews, I suspect it's not typical of her work.

I've given the novel three stars because I sort of enjoyed it. It was well written and I didn't ever think of giving up, which some other readers did.

However, I was confused because Ursula (the main character) died early on in the novel, only to reappear in the next chapter when older. The first time it happened, I thought perhaps she hadn't died at all and that all would be revealed in due course. Throughout the novel she seemed to be reincarnated again and again, each time to die in different circumstances and at different ages.

The penny eventually dropped and I realised that the novel was exploring what might have happened if Ursula (a) had not died or (b) had made different choices in life. Perhaps if I hadn't been reading on a Kindle, I would have grasped the point more quickly because I would have flicked back to re-read previous sections and get some clues as to what the book was about. The other explanation is that maybe I'm a bit thick.

I found the later chapters slightly bewildering as the same characters reappeared in Ursula's different 'lives' in various situations. That said, I felt compelled to read on and finish the book.

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264 of 283 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars `Don't you wonder sometimes,' Ursula said. `If just one small thing had been changed, in the past...' 13 Mar 2013

By L. H. Healy TOP 100 REVIEWER VINE VOICE

Format:Hardcover

`Don't you wonder sometimes,' Ursula said. `If just one small thing had been changed, in the past, I mean....surely things would be different.'

I admit I am a big fan of Kate Atkinson's writing, having read most of her previous novels, with a particular fondness for the Jackson Brodie stories, my favourite probably being `When Will There Be Good News?'. I was therefore so excited to hear about a new novel coming from her and filled with great anticipation upon starting to read.

Life After Life didn't disappoint me; I think this is a very special book in many ways. It is imbued with the sparkling prose and the dark humour that is so often evident in Kate Atkinson's works. But this book features something rather clever and wonderful in terms of the structure and storyline.

The main character, Ursula Todd is born in 1910, during a heavy snowstorm, but sadly dies immediately, there's no time for the doctor to reach her. Then we read that Ursula Todd is born in 1910 during a heavy snowstorm, and lives. She has another chance, another start at life, and this pattern, this unique quality, stays with her as she lives, and lives again, and changes the direction of her life, having chance after chance to get it just right. What a premise!

We accompany Ursula as she lives through many of the major events of the twentieth century, with her personal highs and lows recounted, then changed, as she has another chance at her life, and then another. She takes a different route, and a different course is set. Kate Atkinson writes of the personal experiences of one woman in a way that makes for compelling reading. I loved Ursula's family and thought they were also all vividly brought to life, in particular her mother Sylvie. Read more ›

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113 of 121 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars A fascinating read, but I can't recommend it unreservedly. 11 May 2013

By L. J. Roberts TOP 500 REVIEWER

Format:Hardcover

First Sentence: A fug of tobacco smoke and damp clammy air hit her as she entered the café.

Ursula is born...and dies...and is born again. Each life lasts a little longer. With some, we pick up where the previous left off. With others, she has been able to change her course and, possibly, the course of history.

Atkinson uses her unique voice to tell us a story of reincarnation, but not in the usual woo-woo sense. In fact, she does not follow the classic philosophy of reincarnation as the character of Ursula is always reborn at the same point in time as the same person. You know each life will end; you know the next life will show zen-like progression. The difference, however, is that there are times when Ursula can alter an event which will then change the course for that life.

This is no romantic fantasy; some lives are decidedly unpleasant. What the book lacked, for me, is a sense of connection. The one certain element, in real life, is that life will end. Whether there is reincarnation or eternity, we don't know and it is the not knowing which gives life import and significance. Atkinson has removed that gravitas. While this makes the reading of each life interesting, it does remove some sense of really caring about the fate of the character. What is also missing is any real sense of how Ursula's life fits in with those around her; how she impacts them, and they her.

That's not to say, one doesn't become involved. Absolutely, you do but almost in the way of watching an inevitable accident. In that, it reminded me of "The Time Traveler's Wife" as one chapter is painfully grim. In another, Ursula commits an act which could have changed world history. Read more ›

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