For our next Book Club meeting, we have chosen to read the latest short story collection from Alice Munro. The Canadian writer recently received the Nobel Prize for Literature and was described by the Swedish Academy as “the sovereign of new contemporary art”.

The book consists of 12 short stories, 4 of which are autobiographies. The majority of the short stories take place in very original small Canadian towns. Alice Munro explores magic and coincidences that dominate our lives and that make us change our way of thinking or the way we are.

Alice Munro

The first story begins by Peter taking Greta and his 7 year old daughter to the train station. This is the story of a woman, a young poet, travelling with her daughter. Something happens on the train, which is something that the reader does not expect — similarly, at the end, something else happens, something that the reader did not think was at all likely. It happens fast, and it hits you hard, and it makes you want to carry on reading…

Munroe’s books are very down to earth, just as we see in the last few words of the short story: “We say of some things that they can’t be forgiven, or that we will never forgive ourselves. But we do, we do it all the time.”

Next book club on Tuesday 28th January 2014 at 7pm “Dear Life” by Alice Munro at the Sauramps Bookshop.

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