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  • Life After Life: A Novel
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Life After Life: A Novel Audible Audiobook – Unabridged

Kate Atkinson (Author), Fenella Woolgar (Narrator), Bond Street Books (Publisher)
4.0 out of 5 stars 27,202 ratings

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Here is Kate Atkinson at her most profound and inventive, in a novel that celebrates the best and worst of ourselves.

What if you had the chance to live your life again and again, until you finally got it right?

During a snowstorm in England in 1910, a baby is born and dies before she can take her first breath.

During a snowstorm in England in 1910, the same baby is born and lives to tell the tale.

What if there were second chances? And third chances? In fact an infinite number of chances to live your life? Would you eventually be able to save the world from its own inevitable destiny? And would you even want to?

Life After Life follows Ursula Todd as she lives through the turbulent events of the last century again and again. With wit and compassion, she finds warmth even in life's bleakest moments and shows an extraordinary ability to evoke the past.

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Previous slide of product details
  1. Book 1 of 2
    Todd Family
  2. Listening Length
    15 hours and 29 minutes
  3. Author
    Kate Atkinson
  4. Narrator
    Fenella Woolgar
  5. Audible release date
    Sept. 18 2018
  6. Language
    English
  7. Publisher
    Bond Street Books
  8. ASIN
    B07G8NL28Y
  9. Version
    Unabridged
  10. Program Type
    Audiobook
Next slide of product details

Product details

Book 1 of 2 Todd Family
Listening Length 15 hours and 29 minutes
Author Kate Atkinson
Narrator Fenella Woolgar
Audible.ca Release Date September 18 2018
Publisher Bond Street Books
Program Type Audiobook
Version Unabridged
Language English
ASIN B07G8NL28Y
鶹 Rank

Customer reviews

4 out of 5 stars
27,202 global ratings

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Customers say

Customers find the content marvellous, captivating, and entertaining. They describe the writing style as brilliant, precise, and stunning. Readers appreciate the complex worlds and multi-layered aspects of many stories/outcomes. They find the characterizations beyond wonderful and the concept interesting. Readers also appreciate the witty dialogue and excellent command of language. However, some find the storyline confusing and strange.

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ContentEntertainingWriting styleCharacter developmentDetailedConceptLanguageComplexity
57 customers mention "Content"44 positive13 negative

Customers find the content marvellous, wonderful, and captivating. They say the book is well-written, flows well, and keeps their interest. Readers also say the book does an excellent job of rendering various impressions of different people from different nations.

"Amazing! How did she keep all the strands organized? A wonderful read." Read more

"I thought the book was well written; it flowed well and kept my interest...." Read more

"This is a wonderful book. I wasn't familiar with Kate Atkinson and am so glad I discovered her...." Read more

"Painfully boring book. What a waste. Loved the idea in the description, but the actual book hurts to keep reading it's so dull...." Read more

23 customers mention "Entertaining"23 positive0 negative

Customers find the book entertaining, thrilling, and thought-provoking. They say the writing is exciting, flows well, and keeps their interest. Readers describe the premise as satisfying on so many levels and a sheer pleasure. They also appreciate the detailed and imaginative storytelling of English life during the great wars.

"...All are clever, entertaining and compulsive reading. The author is incapable of writing a dull page...." Read more

"...The writng is exciting with good and varied use of words, and the author has a fertile imagination as she carries us with her on the journey of a..." Read more

"...When we see life through Ursula the child's eyes, it is both funny and terrifying. And that is about the size of it throughout the book...." Read more

"...It is not a time travel story, rather it uses time as an interesting device to tell the story/stories of a family and the wars they experienced,..." Read more

21 customers mention "Writing style"16 positive5 negative

Customers find the book brilliantly written and stunning. They also appreciate the precision of Kate Atkinson's writing.

"...The author is indisputably an excellent writer, but in this book she was allowed to wander on too long and throw too many ingredients into the stew..." Read more

"It is an amazing book. A real page turner. So well written. Very descriptive. Most of the time i could visualize what was occurring...." Read more

"I like her writing style, but the storyline was confusing, and in the end, I found it a frustrating read." Read more

"This is a rather peculiar reading experience as Ursula, the central character, dies a number of times in settings and situations that revolve..." Read more

12 customers mention "Character development"12 positive0 negative

Customers appreciate the character development in the book. They mention the author has created messy, complex worlds in this novel. Readers also appreciate the intricate plot-line that crosses genres and the multi-layered aspect of many stories/outcomes held together by a common thread. However, some say the narrative skips from decade to decade leaving them wishing for more.

"...through her many "births" and "deaths" and progresses character-wise, adding and subtracting along the way different adventures and..." Read more

"...Some characters were developed well, but others, even some central ones, remained one-dimensional...." Read more

"Kate Atkinson has created messy, complex worlds in this novel, with each time and place not only crafted in painterly detail, but evoked...." Read more

"The main reason I liked this book was due to the richness of the characters especially that of Ursula"the heroine" of the book and many of..." Read more

9 customers mention "Detailed"7 positive2 negative

Customers find the book detailed and imaginative. They say the writer adds more details and learns interesting details about the London Blitz. Readers also appreciate the wonderful characterizations.

"...of the novel dealing with the bombing of London in World War two are detailed, harrowing and brilliantly researched...." Read more

"...The characterizations are beyond wonderful. The dialogue has a consistency which is absolutely convincing. You know and care about the characters...." Read more

"...Slowly but soon enough the writer adds more details and its really fascinating...." Read more

"Pretentious vocabulary in places and a complicated plot. It was an unusual premise I can appreciate, but the execution left me wanting...." Read more

7 customers mention "Concept"7 positive0 negative

Customers find the concept interesting, clever, and entertaining. They also appreciate the fabulous plot structures.

"Interesting concept although not very well written. Could have been much better executed by a superior writer...." Read more

"...All are clever, entertaining and compulsive reading. The author is incapable of writing a dull page...." Read more

"...It was an interesting point of view and also something that we can sometimes think about in the back of our minds... What if?..." Read more

"...Well developed characters, fluid writing, a fascinating premise, and an excellent command of language.....one of the best books I have read in years..." Read more

6 customers mention "Language"6 positive0 negative

Customers appreciate the language of the book. They mention the author has a way with words and ideas. Readers also appreciate the witty dialogue and quotes within the story.

"...The characterizations are beyond wonderful. The dialogue has a consistency which is absolutely convincing. You know and care about the characters...." Read more

"A marvellous novel. The precision of Kate Atkinson's writing, her love of words, her thrilling, recognition inducing observations take the reader to..." Read more

"...characters, fluid writing, a fascinating premise, and an excellent command of language.....one of the best books I have read in years....and I read..." Read more

"...I loved the witty dialogue and quotes within the story." Read more

4 customers mention "Complexity"0 positive4 negative

Customers find the storyline confusing and strange.

"It is a strange start to the story...only at beginning of book so I hope it is what I expect it to be and lives up to what I would expect out of the..." Read more

"Pretentious vocabulary in places and a complicated plot. It was an unusual premise I can appreciate, but the execution left me wanting...." Read more

"I like her writing style, but the storyline was confusing, and in the end, I found it a frustrating read." Read more

"One of the worst books I have tried to read! Story makes no sense at all. Couldn't figure out what the book is about...." Read more

Book quality
1 out of 5 stars
Book quality
Not impressed with the page finish of this book. I didn't pay for an imperfect copy!
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Top reviews from Canada

  • David Davies
    5.0 out of 5 stars Kate Atkinson's latest novel is sublime.
    Reviewed in Canada on May 8, 2013
    Verified Purchase
    I have read all of Kate Atkinson's novels and very much enjoyed her books to date.
    The last four were brilliant detective novels all based on Jackson Brodie, a former private eye who made it his business to investigate the murders and disappearances of young women and girls. All are clever, entertaining and compulsive reading. The author is incapable of writing a dull page.
    In my view LIfe after Life is her best book to date which I consider to be very high praise considering her excellent track record.
    The novel reviews much of the period from 1910 to post world war two in England by telling of the variety of lives lived by the central female character in various alternative contexts with varied outcomes to dramatic situations. Sounds a little weird but as a literary and narrative technique it works wonderfully well. The sections of the novel dealing with the bombing of London in World War two are detailed, harrowing and brilliantly researched. What if the heroine could have prevented the death and suffering of millions in wartime Europe? The author handles this possibility, and many others, with genuinely brilliant aplomb. A novel not to be missed by anyone who enjoys first -rate writing and fabulous plot structures!
    7 people found this helpful
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  • Valerie Simmons
    4.0 out of 5 stars An original piece of writing which uses an unconventional concept of time and place
    Reviewed in Canada on April 6, 2014
    Verified Purchase
    This novel has been highly praised by numerous professional critics. As a very ordinary reader I found it to be in the "un-put-downable" category as the main protagonist goes through her many "births" and "deaths" and progresses character-wise, adding and subtracting along the way different adventures and aspects of her personality.

    The writng is exciting with good and varied use of words, and the author has a fertile imagination as she carries us with her on the journey of a long life, or lives, according to how one views the book.

    I recommend this tale to readers who are looking for a new fictional experience.
    One person found this helpful
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  • M.E. Cameron
    3.0 out of 5 stars Needs the firm hand of an editor
    Reviewed in Canada on January 24, 2019
    Verified Purchase
    I have to agree with many of the other reviewers of this peculiar book. The author is indisputably an excellent writer, but in this book she was allowed to wander on too long and throw too many ingredients into the stew pot. Some characters were developed well, but others, even some central ones, remained one-dimensional. I enjoyed the parts about Ursula's life during the Blitz, and thought her alternate life as a wife and mother in wartime Germany was a particularly good contrast to her many English lives. Other lives, though, could just as easily have been cut -- her murder by a different, abusive English husband for example -- and I thought the ending, with the vaguely-sketched-in Nancy reunited with the resurrected Teddy was rushed and contrived. (So did Teddy's mother also survive that time around?) And I found the assassination that acted as bookends for the novel puzzling and with no clear point. Which of the many Ursulas was that?

    While very much enjoying and admiring the author's writing ability, to me the book appeared to have been dreamed up when an old file folder of parts of other novel attempts, half-written and abandoned, had been discovered, and the author thought, "Suppose I make all the heroines the same person with the same family, and then run all these sketches together in a string of 'What might have happened if X had not happened?', just to use them up?" It reminded me irresistibly of my mother, a generally excellent cook, preparing either stew or meat loaf for Saturday dinner by cleaning out the refrigerator leftovers and tossing everything in. It was always quite edible, but some versions of her "Saturday Surprise" worked much better than others. This book would have been more compulsively unput-downable and -- dare I say it? -- less tedious, if a good editor with a firm hand had taken over the manuscript and pruned it into something less muddled and meandering.
    2 people found this helpful
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  • A. Reader
    5.0 out of 5 stars The richness of lives revealed
    Reviewed in Canada on March 7, 2014
    Verified Purchase
    Kate Atkinson has created messy, complex worlds in this novel, with each time and place not only crafted in painterly detail, but evoked. Ursula Todd is born, again and again, in the winter of 1910. Her life loops thru various scenarios from childhood until her eventual death right after retirement in the '60's. It's a complex book about bearing witness, about trying, about human relationships. When we see life through Ursula the child's eyes, it is both funny and terrifying. And that is about the size of it throughout the book. Different human perspectives and situations are both humorous and awful, except when they are only tragic, such as the different versions of 16 yr old Rebecca's meeting of her brother's friend on the stairs, or desperate, like her interludes in Nazi Germany. And while you are intimately acquainted with Rebecca and the workings of her mind, you see that she and her mother never understand each other, and that they are essentially mysterious to each other. In fact, while we know Rebecca in so many contexts, it is clear that others never really understand her. It's kind of an interesting by-product of this conceit: again and again the life is lived, and while the reader learns more and goes deeper into the character, no one in the book is really any further ahead, putting the human condition into even sharper relief.
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  • 鶹 Customer
    5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent novel!
    Reviewed in Canada on May 12, 2025
    Verified Purchase
    Wonderful storytelling, this book has got me hooked on Kate Atkinson!
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  • Sandra
    4.0 out of 5 stars Life After Life is a confusing read at the beginning ...
    Reviewed in Canada on September 26, 2015
    Verified Purchase
    Life After Life is a confusing read at the beginning but once you get through a few chapters you begin to understand the journey you are taking. This book works well for a reading group. My group gave it 10 thumbs up which is very rare because the members' reading preferences are quite diverse.
    One person found this helpful
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Top reviews from other countries

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  • James
    5.0 out of 5 stars Satisfaite
    Reviewed in Belgium on September 27, 2024
    Verified Purchase
    Loisir
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  • Miezekatze
    5.0 out of 5 stars Gelungen
    Reviewed in Germany on January 3, 2016
    Verified Purchase
    "Life After Life" hat mich gefesselt. Mit Spannung hab ich Ursulas unterschiedliche Lebenswege verfolgt - und da ist wirklich alles dabei, was man sich für die Zeit zwischen 1910 und dem Ende des 2. Weltkriegs vorstellen kann. Die Lebenswege starten bei Ersticken durch die Nabelschnur, beinhalten die Spanische Grippe, gewalttätige Ehemänner, Verhungern im Berlin vor der Kapitulation und vor allem dem Bombenhagel des London Blitz. So gelingt es der Autorin, die damalige Zeit in ein gewaltiges Sittengemälde einzufügen und Ursula in ihr Zentrum zu stellen als die Figur, die alles (grandios Historische, aber auch häuslich Triviale) durchlebt.
    Im Gegensatz zu anderen Rezensenten fand ich Ursulas Erfahrungen mit dem Dritten Reich höchst gelungen. Ihr Blick auf den Führer, ihre Wahrnehmung des BDM, ihre Freundschaft mit Eva Braun, ihr Leben in den Kriegsjahren in Berlin, ihre Entschlossenheit, die Wurzel allen Übels durch ein Attentat zu beseitigen - mir hat's sehr gefallen. Für mich wurde dadurch das Herzstück des Romans, der Blitz auf London, umso dreidimensionaler, Ursulas unermüdlicher Einsatz umso verständlicher. Kein Buch hat mir bisher den alltäglichen Umgang mit den Bombenangriffen so nahebringen können wie "Life After Life".
    Aber nicht nur das historische Setting ist gelungen, sondern auch die Entwicklung der Figuren. Nicht nur Ursula entwickelt sich weiter, lässt Passivität hinter sich und nimmt ihr Leben in die Hand, auch ihre Eltern und Geschwister werden immer dreidimensionaler in ihren unterschiedlichen Lebensentwürfen.
    Ein gelungenes Buch, selbst das Ende passt in seine Zeit. 5 Sterne.
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  • B. Capossere
    5.0 out of 5 stars Great concept greatly executed
    Reviewed in the United States on May 25, 2013
    Verified Purchase
    What is it that drives us to pick up and complete a novel? A plot that carefully mortars brick upon brick, each clicking neatly together giving us no choice but to wonder "but then what?" until we look up surprised to find ourselves at the end? A character so intriguing we feel compelled to follow along wherever their thoughts and actions lead us? The range and depth of emotions that buffet us as we're swept along? Any one or two or all of these?

    What in the world, then, is Kate Atkinson thinking in her newest work, Life After Life? In giving us Ursula Todd, who struts not just one life on the stage but dozens of them, each time being ushered off in a fall of darkness only to appear onstage again in the next scene, none the worse for wear, Atkinson seems to breaking nearly every contract between author and reader.

    You want to care about this character? Too bad, she's gone a few dozen lines in from the start:
    No breath. All the world come down to this. One breath. Little lungs, like dragonfly wings failing to inflate . . . `Oh, ma'am' Bridget cried suddenly, `She's all blue, so she is.'

    You want to feel sad about this poor baby's death? Or the grieving mother? Don't, because a page later none of it happened:

    "`A girl, Doctor Fellowes? May I see her?'
    "Yes, Mrs. Todd, a bonny, bouncing, baby girl . . . She would have died from the cord around her next. I arrived at Fox Corner in the nick of time.'"

    You want to see what happens after the little girl down the lane is murdered, after Ursula is raped, after Ursula marries a wife-beater, after she shoots Hitler? I'll tell you what happens: the little girl down the lane isn't murdered, there is no rape, Ursula never marries, she doesn't shoot Hitler. Spoiler alert. Oh wait, you can't spoil a book with more than a dozen different "endings."

    And so it goes for five hundred pages, with Ursula's lives ranging from a half-a-page in length to more than a hundred, each of them interrupted at some point by the "fall of darkness." But it's not "Game Over;" it's "Resume Game." And so the character dusts herself off, climbs on stage once again, and keeps moving forward, sometimes from that same fatal moment, sometimes leaping years back in time to begin moving toward it all over again. And some times, if she's lucky, she gets the occasional moment of déjà vu that lets her evade some of the rougher moments in her past lives, dodging the bullet she only half-senses is wending her way.

    This is an author throwing out all that is supposed to keep us readers engaged. And yet, somehow, it still works. Some of Ursula's deaths, especially the early ones, are sharply witty in a macabre kind of way, like those posters with the Gorey illustrations of little kids dying in various inventive ways. But others are surprisingly moving, despite our assurance that "this too shall pass" at the mere turn of a page. And knowing things can change begins to make us fervently wish it to be so; we want these horrible things to not happen to her. And sometimes our wishes are granted. This being the early 20th Century though, not always. This is the century, after all, of World War I, the flu epidemic, World War II, the Holocaust, the Blitz. Some things, no matter how many lives one has, so long as one lives them, can't be avoided.

    We also care about those who move in and out of Ursula's lives, all of whom pretty much remain the same regardless of which life they appear in, including but not limited to: Hugh, her warmly approving father; Sylvie, her more sarcastic and biting mother who is less than happy but doesn't seem to know what to do about it; Aunt Izzie, the wild-at-heart there-when-she-is-needed black sheep aunt; and Maurice, her obnoxious rising-star in the Home Office brother. This novel is as much about familial relations as it is about historical events and Atkinson brings her usual sharply honed eye to bear on both equally well--the little domestic moments at dinner or at play and the more grandly dramatic moments involving exploding bombs and rescue missions racing against time.

    The period details of the blitz bring that time fully to life, and not only in the big moments. One of my favorite lines is when one of the characters says to Ursula, "it's just the general sense of dirtiness, as if one will never be clean again, as if poor old London will never be clean again. Everything is so awfully shabby, you know?" It's such a mundane complaint, such a small domestic complaint--shabby-- the sort of line that is so mundane, so "non-dramatic" that most authors wouldn't have thought of it, and yet, it feels like such an honest human complaint, one that fits perfectly naturally along all the more dramatic, bigger reactions to constant bombings and fires and deaths--the sobbing and screaming and senses gone numb. "Perfect" is a word that could be ascribed to many of the lines and moments in this book.

    It's a writer's book beyond its polished craft though. It's also an author showing us what's under the novel's hood. It's almost as if we're perched over her shoulder, watching her write draft after draft, rolling each up into a little ball and tossing it onto the floor (Yes, I know that doesn't happen anymore, but "hitting `Save As' and renaming each version" doesn't quite have the same feel) before trying again: "Hmm, I could have Ursula eschew university. No, she'll go into classical studies. No, better yet, modern languages. Maybe she ends up in Bletchley Park. Or, wait, what if she ends up at a table with Hitler. With a gun!"

    This is a book then that can be enjoyed on several levels, even if neither works on us in the usual fashion. Then again, its strengths are what one would expect of any particularly good book: vivid characters; lively, precise prose that can startle with its originality; attention to detail; a range of emotions. As for its (few) weaknesses: her abusive husband is not as fully formed as the other characters, feeling a bit too much like a creature of plot. But as he's given very little page time, it's a minor complaint. It's perhaps a little overly long; I admit to temporarily bogging down a little in the blitz scenes, as vibrant and wholly re-created as they are. I wouldn't cut much, maybe 30-40 pages in that section, and only very judiciously as they contain some of the most powerful moments in the book. What more surprising is how non-repetitive it feels, this novel based on a Groundhog's Day kind of premise, thought writ larger than the Bill Murray movie (also a great story--we should see more of these).

    So what does it all add up to, all these chances to relive a life? It would have been easy to take the Aesop's Fable way out, to have Ursula "learn something" from the accretion of experience, something big idea about life the author could pass on to the reader via Ursula's big epiphany at the end. So props to Atkinson for not going that route. Yes, Ursula sometimes remembers enough to avoid a horror or two, but it's at the subconscious level. Yes, there's some talk about cycles and time and reincarnation, mostly with a psychiatrist her concerned parents have her see for a while, but these are short-lived conversations and simply raise an issue rather than hammer anything home. Ursula doesn't learn anything in enough detail and substance to "get life right." But she does learn "You just have to get on with life . . . We only have one after all, we should try and do our best." I don't know what other lives Kate Atkinson might have lived, but based on this and her detective novels (highly recommended), she's doing her best with her novelist one.
    (this review originally appeared on fantasyliterature.com)
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  • Claudia Cantaluppi
    5.0 out of 5 stars Of the many what ifs / Dei tanti e se...
    Reviewed in Italy on June 24, 2014
    Verified Purchase
    What if we had chosen to do one thing rather than another, to take one road rather than another, to stop rather than to go or to go rather than to stop? This book tells you something of the endless possibilities that life opens up each day, out of which we choose the one that will shape our destiny; it also tells you of the havoc that people's choices in the past created, shaping the destiny of millions. A compelling, truly wonderful read.
    E se avessimo scelto di fare una cosa piuttosto che un'altra, di prendere una strada piuttosto che un'altra, di fermarci al posto che andare o di andare al posto che fermarci? Questo libro racconta qualcosa delle infinite possibilità che la vita ci apre ogni giorno, tra le quali scegliamo quella che darà forma al nostro destino; racconta anche del caos che le scelte di alcune persone nel passato hanno creato, dando forma al destino di milioni di persone. Una lettura avvincente e davvero bellissima.
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  • Esperanza
    5.0 out of 5 stars Historia original
    Reviewed in Spain on October 6, 2018
    Verified Purchase
    Lo elegí porque ya había leído otro libro de la autora que me gustó mucho. Este me ha gustado incluso más. Premisa muy original. Lo he disfrutado tanto que me dio pena que se acabara.
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