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Life after life : a novel

by Atkinson, Kate,

Format: Large Print 2013
Availability: Available at 9 Libraries 9 of 10 copies

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CLP - Main Library First Floor - Large Print Stacks FICTION Atkinson
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CLP - South Side Large Print Books FICTION Atkinson
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Collection  Large Print Books
 
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Community Library of Castle Shannon Large Print LARGE PRINT Fic Atkinson
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Jefferson Hills Public Library Large Print LP FIC ATK
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Northern Tier Regional Library Large Print LP FIC ATKIN
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Northland Public Library Large Print FIC ATKINSON LP
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Call Number  FIC ATKINSON LP
 
 
Shaler North Hills Library Large Print LARGE PRINT ATKINSON
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South Park Library Large Print F-M ATK
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Upper St. Clair Township Library Large Print Fiction FICTION ATKINSON Kate
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CLP - East Liberty Large Print Books ILL RETURNED
Location  CLP - East Liberty
 
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Summary
What if you could live again and again, until you got it right?

On a cold and snowy night in 1910, Ursula Todd is born to an English banker and his wife. She dies before she can draw her first breath. On that same cold and snowy night, Ursula Todd is born, lets out a lusty wail, and embarks upon a life that will be, to say the least, unusual. For as she grows, she also dies, repeatedly, in a variety of ways, while the young century marches on towards its second cataclysmic world war.

Does Ursula's apparently infinite number of lives give her the power to save the world from its inevitable destiny? And if she can -- will she?

Darkly comic, startlingly poignant, and utterly original: this is Kate Atkinson at her absolute best.
Published Reviews
Booklist Review: "*Starred Review* In a radical departure from her Jackson Brodie mystery series, Atkinson delivers a wildly inventive novel about Ursula Todd, born in 1910 and doomed to die and be reborn over and over again. She drowns, falls off a roof, and is beaten to death by an abusive husband but is always reborn back into the same loving family, sometimes with the knowledge that allows her to escape past poor decisions, sometimes not. As Atkinson subtly delineates all the pathways a life or a country might take, she also delivers a harrowing set piece on the Blitz as Ursula, working as a warden on a rescue team, encounters horrifying tableaux encompassing mangled bodies and whole families covered in ash, preserved just like the victims of Pompeii. Alternately mournful and celebratory, deeply empathic and scathingly funny, Atkinson shows what it is like to face the horrors of war and yet still find the determination to go on, with her wholly British characters often reducing the Third Reich to a fuss. From her deeply human characters to her comical dialogue to her meticulous plotting, Atkinson is working at the very top of her game. An audacious, thought-provoking novel from one of our most talented writers. HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: Atkinson's publisher is pulling out all the stops in marketing her latest, which will no doubt draw in many new readers in addition to her Jackson Brodie fans.--Wilkinson, Joanne Copyright 2010 Booklist"
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Publisher's Weekly Review: "Atkinson's new novel (after Started Early, Took My Dog) opens twice: first in Germany in 1930 with an English woman taking a shot at Hitler, then in England in 1910 when a baby arrives, stillborn. And then it opens again: still in 1910, still in England, but this time the baby lives. That baby is Ursula Todd, and as she grows up, she dies and lives repeatedly. Watching Atkinson bring Ursula into the world yet again initially feels like a not terribly interesting trick: we know authors have the power of life and death. But as Ursula and the century age, and war and epidemic and war come again, the fact of death, of "darkness," as Atkinson calls it, falling on cities and people-now Ursula, now someone else, now Ursula again-turns out to be central. At heart this is a war story; half the book is given over to Ursula's activities during WWII, and in its focus on the women and civilians usually overlooked or downplayed, it gives the Blitz its full measure of terror. By the end, which takes us back to that moment in 1930 and beyond, it's clear that Atkinson's not playing tricks; rather, through Ursula's many lives and the accretion of what T.S. Eliot called "visions and revisions," she's found an inventive way to make both the war's toll and the pull of alternate history, of darkness avoided or diminished, fresh. Agent: Kim Witherspoon, Inkwell Management. (Apr. 2) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved."
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Additional Information
Subjects Reincarnation -- Fiction.
Large type books.
Great Britain -- History -- 20th century -- Fiction.
Alternative histories (Fiction)
Humorous fiction.
Publisher New York, NY :Little, Brown and Company,2013
Edition Large print.
Language English
Notes "A Reagan Arthur book."
Description xi, 683 pages (large print) ; 25 cm
ISBN 9780316233927 (large print)
0316233927 (large print)
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