This is a magnificent and wonderful book. All of which praise, I must say, is absolutely justified. The list of awards it has won and been shortlisted for (and the quality of the novels which beat it) is impressive: it won the 2013 Costa Award, was shortlisted for the Bailey’s Women Prize, Waterstone’s Book of the Year and was nominated in a clutch of other Books of The Year lists. As well as the praise and publicity which the book received. Perhaps the fact that the copy of Life After Life I have is the pristine white of the picture has helped overcome that reaction. I responded to the sight of the rotting book with a visceral repulsion which I appear to have transferred to the whole of Kate Atkinson’s opus. And it was water-warped, crinkled, coffee stained and genuinely mouldering. But the truth is, that with Kate Atkinson, I was that man! And I can remember where this irrational aversion came from: as a young and impressionable fellow, I distinctly recall a copy of Behind The Scenes At The Museum languishing on the corner of our bath. Like that chap in the village I grew up in who always crossed the road when he saw my mother to avoid talking to her. I put my hands up, it was and has been deeply unfair of me. Kate Atkinson is one of those authors who I have been aware of but avoided for a while.
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