AS SELECTED FOR THE ZOE BALL BOOKCLUB, A BOOK OF THE YEAR IN THE SUNDAY TIMES , THE TIMES , GUARDIAN , IRISH TIMES , OBSERVER, RED and THE TELEGRAPH.
* SHORTLISTED FOR THE PEN ACKERLEY PRIZE FOR MEMOIR AND AUTOBIOGRAPHY 2018
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* *I AM, I AM, I AM is a memoir with a difference - the unputdownable story of an extraordinary woman's life in near-death experiences. Insightful, inspirational, gorgeously written, it is a book to be read at a sitting, a story you finish newly conscious of life's fragility, determined to make every heartbeat count. A childhood illness she was not expected to survive. A teenage yearning to escape that nearly ended in disaster. A terrifying encounter on a remote path. A mismanaged labour in an understaffed hospital. Shocking, electric, unforgettable, this is the extraordinary memoir from Costa Novel-Award winner and Sunday Times bestselling author Maggie O'Farrell. It is a book to make you question yourself. What would you do if your life was in danger, and what would you stand to lose?

Amazon.com Review

An Amazon Best Book of February 2018: I'll be honest: When I first started this book, I almost put it straight back down. The opening scene of the author's teenage encounter with a stranger on an isolated hiking trail made me want to look away from the page itself, unwilling to read farther…but O'Farrell's writing coaxed me on. And I'm so glad I continued. Because this is a book not about the life-or-death moments balanced on a knife's edge (sometimes literally) but about the keen awareness of being alive that goes hand-in-hand with terror. The smell of cinnamon, the sound of agitated elephants on a beach, the soft belly fur of newborn kittens, and O'Farrell's own restlessness that urges her to keep moving, keep exploring, keep pushing forward, embrace and enhance the bitter seeds of fear from which these events are born. As she relates her stories in a nonlinear fashion, glimpses of O'Farrell's biography snap into place like puzzle pieces. The end of the book brings no full picture, however, for hers is an existence still creating its own destiny. Readers who were moved by The Last Lecture or When Breath Comes Air will find similar moments of affirmation here by a writer who has chosen to embrace the calamities that come with a life lived with curiosity and passion. —Adrian Liang, Amazon Book Review

Review

One of LitHub’s 10 Best Essay Collections of the Decade

“Transfixing. . . . A mystical howl, a thrumming, piercing reminder of how very closely we all exist alongside what could have happened, but didn’t.” — The New York Times Book Review

“Heartbreaking, life-affirming, beautiful. . . . Taken together, these vignettes make up a sharply intimate portrait of what it is to be a person in a body—and in particular, a female body.” — San Francisco Chronicle

“An extraordinary book, a reminder that while life has its limits and can be unpredictable, we should push against limitations and not give in to fear.” —NPR

“A uniquely complete portrait of a life fully lived. . . . Its unconventional structure probes deep ­questions about the human condition, and it establishes a narrative that finds meaning and truth in life’s chaos and randomness.” — Entertainment Weekly

“Clever and poignant, thought provoking and deeply affective.” —GOOP

“This intense, unsparing memoir is less about death than about chance, risk and the gift of another day.” — People Magazine

“A pleasure to read. And, indeed, difficult to stop reading. . . . There are echoes of Virginia Woolf not just in the rhythm of the prose but also in its dreamlike immediacy. The effect, ingeniously, is of a life told through the gaps, those near misses, on the eluding of which the rest of life hangs.” — The Wall Street Journal

“Where other writers may be playing with paper, O’Farrell takes up a bow and arrow and aims at the human heart.” — The Guardian

“[A] breathtaking memoir. . . . The book O’Farrell was born to write.” — Bustle

“We all have them, those experiences that are even more terrifying in retrospect than they were in the moment, but in this riveting memoir, O’Farrell has written hers down. . . . Her stories are harrowing, but the purpose of these essays is not to frighten. It is to affirm.” —Minneapolis Star Tribune

“ I Am, I Am, I Am is a gripping and glorious investigation of death that leaves the reader feeling breathless, grateful, and fully alive. Maggie O’Farrell is a miracle in every sense. I will never forget this book.” —Ann Patchett

“A page-turner of a memoir.” — Elle

“[O’Farrell] manages to relate all . . . without self-pity and in a tone that finds a balance between defiance and resilience. The revelatory journey that the author skillfully takes the reader on is also the path from youthful recklessness to a more judicious standpoint, later in life.” — Santa Fe New Mexican

“A mesmerising read.” — The Sunday Times (London)

“Intimate in all senses of the word—physically, psychologically, mentally, and emotionally. There is something truly generous about [O’Farrell’s] style. . . . This is a memoir to be cherished.” — The Rumpus

“Ingenious and original. . . . A rich celebration of every breath O’Farrell’s taken.” — The Independent

“[A] gloriously unconventional memoir. Maggie O’Farrell deconstructs our relationship to death by recounting the many times she’s neared it.” — Southern Living

“Striking and unexpected.” — Kirkus Reviews