Anything is Possible

Anything is Possible

3.75 (34,161 ratings by Goodreads)
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Shortlisted for the Rathbones Folio Prize 2018
From the No. 1 New York Times bestselling and Man Booker long-listed author of My Name is Lucy Barton



'A terrific writer' Zadie Smith

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Product details

  • Paperback | 272 pages
  • 129 x 198 x 17mm | 196g
  • London, United Kingdom
  • English
  • 0241248795
  • 9780241248799
  • 9,408

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Anything is Possible is predictably great because it's written by Elizabeth Strout, and brilliantly unpredictable - because it is written by Elizabeth Strout -- Roddy Doyle Strout turns her clear, incisive gaze on the intricacies and betrayals of small town life -- Maggie O'Farrell This audacious novel is about small-town characters struggling to make sense of past family traumas * New York Times Books of the Year * Just as understated and as full of horrifyingly elisions and surprising epiphanies as its predecessor * TLS Books of the Year * This glimmering, profound, beautiful novel is modern American writing at its best' -- Clare Allfree Elizabeth Strout is a novelist in whose hands anything really is possible, and if you've yet to discover her, make this holiday the one you do * Daily Mail * Every chapter has depth, nuances, restrained descriptions and luminous characterisation. A wonder of a book * i Newspaper * In all her novels, including this one, "the kindness of strangers is a fierce sun than can pierce the cloud" * The Week * Utterly beautiful in the way that these characters were flawed to their core yet brimful of keeping it together no matter what...I loved it, there wasn't a moment when I didn't believe it. -- Barb Jungr * BBC Radio 4 Saturday Review * A beautifully told story of small-town Americans dealing with big life issues * Good Housekeeping * A subtle, disturbing and touching book that is a miracle of wisdom and perception * Mail on Sunday * Highly enjoyable * Sunday Times * Gorgeous... Strout is in that special company of writers like Richard Ford, Stewart O'Nan and Richard Russo, who write simply about ordinary lives and, in so doing, make us readers see the beauty of both their worn and rough surfaces and what lies beneath -- Maureen Corrigan, NPR / Fresh Air As always, Strout treats even the most difficult characters with rare understanding. "It made me feel much less alone," says on reader of Lucy's memoir. The same will surely be said of Anything Is Possible * People (Book of the Week) * Down to every sentence, it's wise, touching and quietly powerful * Grazia * There are not many novelists out there producing writing as good as this * Daily Mail * The writing is wrenchingly lovely. It almost always is with Strout, whether she's knitting metaphors or summarizing, with agonizing economy, whole episodes. * New York Times * Tender, elegiac, this is the story of a single life that also manages to tell the story of many -- Independent on 'My Name is Lucy Barton' A powerful storyteller immersed in the nuances of human relationships -- Observer on 'My Name is Lucy Barton' I am deeply impressed. Writing of this quality comes from a commitment to listening, from a perfect attunement to the human condition, from an attention to reality so exact that it goes beyond a skill and becomes a virtue. -- Hilary Mantel on 'My Name is Lucy Barton' Elizabeth Strout's prose is like words doing jazz -- Rachel Joyce We devoured Strout's last novel, My Name Is Lucy Barton, and her latest-which is loosely linked to Lucy Barton-is no different. Told from multiple points of view, it's about residents of a small town in Illinois struggling with the most relatable and quotidian problems... you'll swear you know these characters. (In fact, it reminds us a bit of another of Strout's masterpieces, the excellent Olive Kitteridge.) * PureWow * Amgash, Illinois, will be familiar to Elizabeth Strout fans as the hometown of the protagonist of her 2016 novel, My Name is Lucy Barton. In Anything is Possible... Lucy's legend looms large... but no prior reading is required to enjoy Strout's powerful writing and empathy * Real Simple * Strout pierces the inner worlds of these characters' most private behaviors, illuminating the emotional conflicts and pure joy of being human, of finding oneself in the search for the American dream * Nylon * Strout once again shows her talent for adroitly uncovering what makes ordinary people tick * Booklist * If you miss the charmingly eccentric and completely relatable characters from Pulitzer Prize winner Elizabeth Strout's best-selling My Name is Lucy Barton, you'll be happily reunited with them in Strout's smart and soulful Anything is Possible * Elle US * The epic scope within seemingly modest confines recalls Strout's Pulitzer Prize winner, Olive Kitteridge, and her ability to discern vulnerabilities buried beneath bad behavior is as acute as ever. Another powerful examination of painfully human ambiguities and ambivalences-this gifted writer just keeps getting better. * Kirkus Reviews * [F]ull of searing insight into the darkest corners of the human spirit... 'Anything Is Possible' is both sweeping in scope and incredibly introspective. That delicate balance is what makes its content so sharp and compulsively readable... With assuredness, compassion and utmost grace, her words and characters remind us that in life anything is actually possible * San Francisco Chronicle * In her latest work, Strout achieves new levels of masterful storytelling. * Publisher's Weekly * Strout, always good, just keeps getting better * Vogue US * A quietly gripping deception of some of the ordinary, messy, interwoven lives that Lucy and her mother discussed in the earlier book * Radio Times * There is immense humanity in Strout's writing....her masterful economy of prose creates a rich tapestry infused with emotional wisdom...Anything is Possible is a masterpiece * Sunday Express * Anything Is Possible confirms Strout as one of our most grace-filled, and graceful, writers * Boston Globe * Anything is Possible is absolutely wonderful. Here is a writer at the peak of her powers: compassionate, profoundly observant, laser-cut diamond brilliant * Literary Review * The work of Elizabeth Strout suggests that she pays a similar quality of unseparate attention to life, which she - not passively, but actively - takes in, listening to, looking into it, reflecting up on and freeing it once more, remade, in beautifully placed words, onto the page to live again for us, her fortunate readers * Daily Telegraph * Strout's compassion for her fellow creatures, as these anguished, lean stories prove, is as keen as a whip and all the more painful for it * Guardian * Anything is Possible is wonderfully readable because Strout really can write you into a world until you feel you are there with her, in that house, that life, that little Podunk of a place * The Times * The words appear on the page as if breathed there * Sunday Telegraph * This is a shimmering masterpiece of a book...Strout is a brilliant chronicler of the ambiguity and delicacy of the human condition. Anything is Possible is a wise, stunning novel * Observer * It's hard to believe that a year after the astonishing My Name Is Lucy Barton Elizabeth Strout could bring us another book that is by every measure its equal, but what Strout proves to us again and again is that where she's concerned, anything is possible. This book, this writer, are magnificent. -- Ann Patchett, No. 1 New York Times bestselling author of 'Commonwealth'
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About Elizabeth Strout

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Rating details

34,161 ratings
3.75 out of 5 stars
5 24% (8,309)
4 40% (13,506)
3 26% (8,926)
2 8% (2,607)
1 2% (813)
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