From the Bookshelf of Constant Reader…

My Name Is Lucy Barton (Amgash, #1)

Elizabeth Strout

Start date: July 15, 2016

Finish date: August 1, 2016

Discussion: Reading List

Discussion leader: Barb

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Showing 2 of 428 topics — 16,892 comments total

Reading List

* The Schedule for July through Dec. 2025
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What Members Thought

Mar 12, 2016 Jenny (Reading Envy) rated it really liked it

Shelves: reading-envy-podcast, read2016, booker-winners-and-listed

One of my guests discussed this book on Episode 053 of the Reading Envy podcast, but as I read it after its nomination to the Man Booker long list, I realized I really didn't know what it was about.

Is the narrator reliable? I'm not sure. What is going on? Well there are ruminations about family and marriage, relationships and friendships, how much your past influences your present/future. I'm not sure I could say exactly what it's about, even now, but I did enjoy reading it. Do I think it is Man ...more

43 likes · Like · see review

Dec 15, 2015 Clifford rated it it was amazing

Shelves: novels, kindle-ebooks

I loved this detailed character study of Lucy Barton, a complex woman: raised poor, deprived of affection, determined to get out. In this book, while she is hospitalized, her mother comes to visit and the ensuing five days reveal much.

My full review is here: Review of My Name is Lucy Barton ...more

6 likes · Like · see review

Sep 04, 2017 Joyce rated it liked it

Shelves: set-in-the-midwest

Was lucky enough to be on a cruise with Elizabeth Strout in July - I kid you not - where she did a book line with all the interested cruise members around her new book Anything is Possible. Figure out pretty quickly that this book is tied into that book, so I stopped reading Anything is Possible and went back to My Name is Lucy Barton. It is an odd little book - doesn't take more than an afternoon to read and more or less demands to be read all at once. If anything, it is more a woman's musings ...more

1 like · Like · see review

Jan 19, 2016 Kate rated it really liked it · review of another edition

I liked this book, although there is sadness all over it. I thought about it a long time after I read it - and about the relationships we have with our parents, our spouses and ourselves.

1 like · Like · see review

Jan 31, 2016 Lee rated it really liked it

Short and spare, but thoughtful. Many things hinted but not fully discussed. Mother/daughter relationship that is complicated. I read it in one sitting and wanted more.

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