Olive Kitteridge

Olive Kitteridge: A Novel in Stories, by Elizabeth Strout, 270 pages (2008).

I don't think that I've ever really read a book quite like this. I had heard that it was a collection of short stories, but I like the description given here on Goodreads..."A Novel in Stories." Basically, although each story could stand on its own, when they're put together in the book like this, it actually tells a much more complete story. The only character who is in every story is Olive Kitteridge. In some stories, she is the focus. In others, she's a very minor character, such as someone who happens to be eating in the restaurant where a particular story is taking place.

I really enjoyed this book. It was definitely something different, and I liked the fact that this style of the book kept the reader trying to fill in the gaps and discover the truth of the characters. Some of the individual stories were excellent, and others were just okay, but they all worked together in an intriguing way.

With this book, I seem to have broken my streak!  This book won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2009, yet I actually rather liked it.  :-)
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Number of books read in 2010:  1
Number of pages read in 2010:  270