Started Early, Took My Dog by Kate Atkinson

This seals the deal:  I love Kate Atkinson's books. 

This book meandered between 1975 and the present, unveiling layers of the story with each installment. I just loved the novel. 

If you like a good mystery that reveals itself bit by bit letting you in on just enough to make some good guesses on your own, you'll love Started Early, Took My Dog. This is the fourth of her books featuring Jackson Brodie but the first I read (maybe I read one other but don't remember the character). Anyway, I loved this book!

Book Read:  Started Early, Took My Dog
Author:  Kate Atkinson

Life After Life by Kate Atkinson

I read Life After Life by Kate Atkinson recently and found it puzzling and wonderful! This novel deals with the life (lives) of Ursula Todd. I was puzzled throughout by the many chances the author gives Ursula to live. In the beginning, Ursula dies in childbirth. Her next life allows her to live a bit longer, and then longer still. Each previous life is in the back of poor Ursula's mind, bits here and there, as if she has been there before because of course, she has. 

This review on Amazon sums up the Atkinson's writing in Life After Life so well:

"Yes, many themes do permeate the story of Ursula Todd - everything from Plato's "Everything changes and nothing remains still," Buddhist principles of fate and reincarnation, Nietzsche's "amor fati" (Love of Fate), to Jungian explanations of "déjà vu," "synchronicity" and "collective unconsciousness," and that's just to name a few - but what really makes this novel stand out, what really makes it so amazing is how lightly, even unassumingly, and yet so impeccably Kate Atkinson treats such sophisticated and intellectual subject matter."

If you've read any of Kate Atkinson's novels you know what a stellar writer she is. If not, you're in for a treat!

Book Read:  Life After Life

Author:  Kate Atkinson