Kate Atkinson’s LIFE AFTER LIFE tops Best Books of 2013

December 05, 2013 | News about
• Kate Atkinson

LIFE AFTER LIFE by award winning author Kate Atkinson has topped several Best Books of 2013 including The New York Times Book Review, Time, Good Reads and Publisher’s Lunch.

LIFE AFTER LIFE tells the story of Ursula Todd, the third child of a wealthy family born on a cold night in 1910. Ursula dies before she can take her first breath and yet on that same night, Ursula Todd is born again; letting out a lusty wail and embarking upon a life that is far from typical. As Ursula grows, she also dies, repeatedly in numerous ways, for in Ursula rests the fate of civilization.

Time Magazine said of the title, “Life After Life rhymes and chimes and harmonizes with itself, adding layers of complexity as it goes, in a bravura performance as great as anything published so far this millennium. Particularly as it all serves a story that is, in its essence, primally simple: like all of us, Ursula wishes only to live her best life, to be who she ought to be — watching her try and fail and ultimately triumph in this basic human task is the most thrilling and moving experience fiction has to offer this year.”

Kate Atkinson was born in York and now lives in Edinburgh. Her first novel, Behind the Scenes at the Museum, won the Whitbread (now Costa) Book of the Year Award and she has been an international bestselling author ever since with over a million copies of her books sold in the U.S. She is the author of a collection of short stories, Not the End of the World, and of the critically acclaimed novels Human Croquet, Emotionally Weird, Case Histories, One Good Turn and many more.

LIFE AFTER LIFE was first published by Little Brown & Co. in April 2013. Kate Atkinson is represented by Kimberly Witherspoon.

Praise for LIFE AFTER LIFE by Kate Atkinson:

“An audacious, ambitious book that challenges notions of time, fate and free will, not to mention narrative plausibility…[Atkinson’s] writing is funny and quirky and sharp and sad - calamity laced with humor - and full of quietly heroic characters who offer knowing Lorrie Moore-esque parenthetical asides…Atkinson’s true genius is structure…Each version is entirely and equally credible.” - Sarah Lyall, New York Times

“An exercise in narrative gutsiness; a meditation on history, contingency, and free will; and the best new novel I’ve read this year.” - Kathryn Schulz, New York Magazine

“A densely layered, century-sprawling work that is a formidable bid for the brass ring of the U.K.‘s prestigious Man Booker Prize. Life After Life is a drama of failures and providential rebirths…High-concept premise…A deft and convincing portrayal of an English family’s evolution across two world wars…Marvelous…Not only does she bring characters to life with enviable ease, she has an almost offhand knack for vivid scene-setting ...Her storytelling prowess is on fullest display in a gorgeous and nerve-racking novella-length chapter set during the Blitz ... It’s spellbindingly done.” - Sam Sacks, The Wall Street Journal

“Fascinating… A tour de force that ponders memory and déjà vu-and puts history on a very human scale.” - Parade