Elizabeth Strout books

Akashic Noir Reading Order

Amgash Reading Order

Anthologies

Olive Kitteridge Reading Order

Standalone Novels

Elizabeth Strout is an American novelist born in Portland, Maine, in 1956. She grew up in small towns in Maine and New Hampshire, and these New England settings run through much of her fiction. She studied at Bates College and Syracuse University before publishing her first novel, Amy and Isabelle, in 1998. That book was a finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award and the Orange Prize.

Her second novel, Abide with Me (2006), is set in a small Maine town, but it was Olive Kitteridge (2008) that brought her wide recognition. The book won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2009 and was later adapted into an HBO miniseries starring Frances McDormand. Strout returned to the character with Olive, Again in 2019.

Beginning with My Name Is Lucy Barton (2016), Strout developed a second interconnected series set around the fictional town of Amgash, Illinois. The Amgash books follow Lucy Barton, a writer from a poor rural family, through five novels that explore memory, family estrangement, and the difficulty of truly knowing another person. Strout’s other novels include The Burgess Boys (2013) and the forthcoming The Things We Never Say (2026). Her prose is spare and precise, focused on ordinary people navigating loneliness, regret, and quiet moments of connection.