The October book discussion at Grace Lutheran Church West Springfield will be held in the church parlor at 11:00 a.m. Sunday, Oct. 10, 2010. The featured book will be “Olive Kitteridge” by Elizabeth Strout.

This book won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2009, and was a finalist for the 2008 National Book Critics Circle Award. Elizabeth Strout was born in Portalnd, Maine, and grew up in small towns there and in New Hampshire. By the age of 16, she was sending stories to magazines and the first one was published when she was 26. Strout graduated from Bates College with a degree in English, and later moved to New York where she juggled writing for magazines with teaching and raising a family. She wrote two other novels, “Abide with Me” and “Amy and Isabelle”.