I'm in the middle of this book and love it.

I've recommended books some of you have liked before, so take this recommendation into consideration. Part of me just wants to have someone to talk about it with when I'm done.

Anyway, Elizabeth Strout's OLIVE KITTERIDGE won the Pulitzer for fiction this year, and it was in paperback already, so I figured I would just pick it up and read it eventually. But it's a novel written as a collection of stories about one gruff, difficult retired schoolteacher named Olive Kitteridge and her whole entire town. Sometimes she's a major character in the stories, sometimes she's on the periphery. Every time, though, she makes an impact on the larger scope. Each story has been individually satisfying, which means that I've gotten the sense of closure and relief at having finished something profound and beautiful every time I pick it up, and I'm only 100 pages in. It's really, really good.