Kate Atkinson recommendations

Yes, her books are very immersive to read. I very rarely buy hardbacks but will be buying her new one next year.

Thanks to this thread I've started reading our after life again and this is the first time EVER I e read a book for the second time. Read it a few years ago and loved it. Also listened to A god in ruins. You really feel like you're in the books, loving them.

@MargotMoon was it Labyrinth by Kate Mosse that you read years ago and had since confused with Kate Atkinson?

A God in Ruins is my favourite of hers that I've read.

Announced today - her new book is out next September:

www.thebookseller.com/news/new-kate-atkinson-novel-transcription-coming-next-year-687491

I prefer her earlier ones ( Human croquet, behind the scenes, and yes Emotionally Weird as I grew up on the outskirts of Dundee in the 1970s/80s ;-)) but over time her books got darker and darker, culminating in When Will There Be Good News, which I loved but is very hard going at times.

Life after Life was excellent, much bigger than all her earlier books in every sense of'the word.

The Jackson Brodie books are great, but I agree they are very different. Having a male protagonist changes everything I think.

I don't especially like Behind the Scenes but everything else is wonderful.

Emotionally Weird is especially funny for anyone who was at a Scottish university in the 1970s.

Me midlife

Behind the scenes has to be my favourite ever book, It's just woven so cleverly, love human croquet too and also have the audio book which I listened to in the car to and from work. It enabled me to survive a job I detested and loathed. Also loved life after life but actually preferred a god in ruins - utterly heart breaking. I LOVE Kate Atkinson.

I read Behind the Scenes when it first came out and thought it was amazing. Have enjoyed all the rest but none were as good as that IMO.

Anyone else have a crush on Jackson Brodie?!

*A God in Ruins

Life after life is my favourite Kate Atkinson book, I love it and recommend it to everyone. I didn't think much of god of ruins.

I also like the Jackson Brodie series

elkiedee but she gave the female character a huge backstory/reasons for why she was like she was and treated her quite tenderly toward the end. I thought it was very clever how you are set up to dislike Viola, then the big reveal towards the end makes you realise where it all stems from. I found it very moving, there was a lot of compassion for the little girl that grew up to be Viola.

It's all wonderful, she's one of my favourite writers. Human Croquet hasn't been mentioned much but is really excellent too, very weepy in parts (as they all are).

In think teddy liked the woodcraft folk though ? She has so many wonderful female characters generally but the daughter theme was so real

I also loved how Louise seemed so hard but looked after her women in WETBGN

I am biased though

I need to go back and reread her earlier books, as I read them quite a long time ago.

I also preferred Life after Life to A God in Ruins - my problem with the latter was the daughter character. Not just that she was unlikeable. If the author of the novel had been male, I would have wonderered why he dislikes women so much. As I grew up in Woodcraft Folk and now have kids in WF in London, and I had a bad experience with Brownies, I also didn't like the rather negative treatment of the Woodcraft Folk in the book. Obviously that's a specific issue which would probably only affect a few readers, though!

Every single one ! I truly love them all for different reasons

I am re reading them all this month

The Jackson Brodie ones are more contemporary but yet have their dark and loving moments. I so wanted Louise and JAcksona to get it on

LIfe after life is just staggering

Human croquet and Behind the scenes are real slow burners reading them as an older reader after 15 years was interesting

I love her

Jackson Brodie books have been filmed as Case Histories with Jason Issac as Jackson and they were excellent, as are the books. Definitely lighter than her novels. I loved Life After Life, haven't read God In Ruins yet.

we must remember these people when we are safely in the future
Spine tingling quote.

Agree re the audiobook of Life after Life. It transformed my commute into my fave part of the day. But I also loved the audiobook of A God in Ruins.

What else was good narrated by fenella woolgar?

I love all of KA's stuff to be honest. I heard her speak once, she was formidably intelligent.

I am half way through Life after Life having given upon it once before after a few pages. Loving it.
My only regret is having it in paperback rather than kindle as I find so many exquisite lines I want to highlight. I may do it anyway it was only £1 from the charity shop

Funny so many of us have the same issues with A God in Ruins.

Someone upthread mentioned audio books - if you like those at all then the audio book for Life After Life is hands-down my favourite of all time. You would think that such a complex narrative would suffer in this format, but actually in my opinion it is enhanced. It's read by Fenella Woolgar and I've deliberately searched out other things she's narrated since I first heard it.

KA had a character refer to Dewsbury in disparaging terms back in BTSATM so I think it was a call back to that, with an update, so not necessarily throwaway. I couldn't read her crime books - the first one began with a crime that was too closely based on a real kidnapping that I remembered from the news at the time and I wasn't comfortable with it at all so understand where you are coming from.

I liked Kate Atkinson, until one of her later books (can't remember which)in an early chapter had a throwaway line of someone haveing a link to Dewsbury "..where the women sell their children" or something very similar.

It was after the S Matthews case, and it was a cheap,crappy line tossed out to refer to modern events and making a crap sweeping generalisation.

I feel the Jackson Brodie books started to be written like a TV series, think she was hoping to get more serialised.

Think Margaret Atwood is a lot better!