# What is the best Elizabeth Strout book?

> A Pulitzer winner, a Booker shortlistee and a quiet debut about a mother and daughter: some of these Maine and Illinois stories run through the same characters for decades.

*By YPB Team · Published November 4, 2026 · https://youpick.best/ranking/what-is-the-best-elizabeth-strout-book*

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## Current results (no votes yet)

1. **Amy and Isabelle**
   Strout's 1998 debut novel about a mother and her teenage daughter in a small New England mill town, shortlisted for the Orange Prize.
2. **Abide with Me**
   A 2006 novel about a grieving minister and his small Maine congregation in the late 1950s.
3. **Olive Kitteridge**
   A 2008 novel in thirteen linked stories centred on a retired Maine schoolteacher, winner of the 2009 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.
4. **The Burgess Boys**
   A 2013 novel about two lawyer brothers from Maine drawn home when their nephew gets into trouble.
5. **My Name Is Lucy Barton**
   A 2016 novel narrated by a writer recalling her mother's visit to her hospital bed, longlisted for the Man Booker Prize.
6. **Anything Is Possible**
   A 2017 book of linked stories set in Amgash, Illinois, the hometown of Lucy Barton.
7. **Olive, Again**
   The 2019 sequel to Olive Kitteridge, following Olive into her second marriage and old age.
8. **Oh William!**
   A 2021 novel in which Lucy Barton travels with her ex-husband William to uncover his family's past, shortlisted for the 2022 Booker Prize.
9. **Lucy by the Sea**
   A 2022 novel in which Lucy Barton leaves New York for coastal Maine with William at the start of the pandemic.
10. **Tell Me Everything**
   A 2024 novel that brings Olive Kitteridge and Lucy Barton together in the town of Crosby, Maine.
11. **The Things We Never Say**
   A 2026 novel about Artie Dam, a schoolteacher living with the secrets he and others keep, shortlisted for the 2026 Booker Prize.

Tags: books, fiction, elizabeth strout