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Books

16th Sep 2024

The one book you need to add to your reading list this September

Kat O'Connor

You need to add this book to your September reading list

Autumn is slowly creeping in and I’m so ready to do nothing but curl up with a book and switch off from reality.

The evenings are getting darker and I’m so ready for cosier evenings but where do we start with September book releases?

It feels like 101 books have been released this month, but there’s one at the top of my reading list.

If you’re looking for something endearing to read then the latest book by Elizabeth Strout is perfect for you.

The Pulitzer Prize-winning author never fails to write emotional and eye-opening novels.

Her latest release Tell Me Everything is one of the best books I’ve read this year so far.

Strout whisks you away with her intricate descriptions of Maine in the autumn and makes you feel like you’re living inside the pages of the book.

Lucy Barton returns as the protagonist in this moving story about accepting how our lives change as our children grow up and no longer need us the way they used to.

There’s something so emotional about witnessing Lucy go on this journey, especially as a younger reader. The mum is feeling lost as she enters another phase of her life and grapples with feeling unwanted and not needed in a role she was once so familiar with.

You can read the full synopsis below but trust me when I say this is one of the most beautiful pieces of contemporary fiction I’ve read in a long time.

Tell Me Everything by Elizabeth Strout

‘It’s autumn in Maine, and the town lawyer Bob Burgess has become enmeshed in an unfolding murder investigation, defending a lonely, isolated man accused of killing his mother. He has also fallen into a deep and abiding friendship with the acclaimed writer, Lucy Barton, who lives down the road in a house by the sea with her ex-husband, William.

‘Together, Lucy and Bob go on walks and talk about their lives, their fears and regrets, and what might have been. Lucy, meanwhile, is finally introduced to the iconic Olive Kitteridge, now living in a retirement community on the edge of town. Together, they spend afternoons in Olive’s apartment, telling each other stories.

‘Stories about people they have known – “unrecorded lives,” Olive calls them – reanimating them, and, in the process, imbuing their lives with meaning.’

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