OLIVE KITTERIDGE by Elizabeth Strout

Winner of this year's Pulitzer Prize for Literature, this is a novel in 13 stories.  The central character, who appears in all of the stories in various ways, is Olive herself, larger than life, matter-of-fact, striding through each and every story, a former Grade Seven Math teacher, she knows most everyone in the town of Crosby, Maine, and we get to know some of them,too.  It's like walking through a town, wondering what goes on behind closed doors, but here you get to enter these various lives.  It's a story of ordinary people living extraordinary circumstances: alcoholism, death, drugs, loss, betrayal, told with such a wide range of emotion and excellence.  You don't forget Olive easily, and you see yourself in her,too.

Wikipedia has extensive articles on Olive, and I saved a Globe and Mail Interview.  Check Oprah and Book Browse.

I'll recommend this for next year's reading list for Book Club.