<p>^^^ or short stories by Munro</p>
<p>My understanding is she only wrote short stories - though some may be more linked than others.</p>
<p>From today’s New York Times: <a href=“Alice Munro Wins Nobel Prize in Literature - The New York Times”>Alice Munro Wins Nobel Prize in Literature - The New York Times;
<p>Possibilities: [Alice</a> Munro is retiring, here are her best books | CBC Books | CBC Radio](<a href=“http://www.cbc.ca/books/2013/06/alice-munro-is-retiring-here-are-her-best-books.html#igImgId_73424]Alice”>http://www.cbc.ca/books/2013/06/alice-munro-is-retiring-here-are-her-best-books.html#igImgId_73424)</p>
<p>Reading Alice Munro would be fun. Short stories are different for me. I thought the Lives of Girls and Women (often sold as a novel) or Dear Life her latest both looked good and so far they have not jacked up the Kindle price on them.</p>
<p>The Snow Child is a 2013 finalist. I’ve seen it mentioned on the cc best books thread. Throw it into the consideration pile too. Fine with Alice Munro also. The Love of a Good Woman sounds good too. It was a Canada Reads choice in 2004 which should mean it has accessibility and appeal. Good idea SJCM re the Pulitzer Prize link.</p>
<p>^ I definitely want to read The Snow Child. If it doesn’t win this round, let’s be sure to keep it in mind for February. The title and the Alaskan setting might be especially fitting for a January-February read (for those of us inundated with snow and not living in Texas ;)).</p>
<p>Here’s an interesting review of The Snow Child.</p>
<p>[Eowyn</a> Ivey?s The Snow Child, reviewed.](<a href=“http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/books/2012/01/eowyn_ivey_s_the_snow_child_reviewed_.html]Eowyn”>Eowyn Ivey’s The Snow Child, reviewed.)</p>
<p>Hard to pick a favorite collection. My first read was Moons of Jupiter.
“Runaway” is the one I always pick to give as a gift to buddies who need a short story.
You can read Dear life at Thenewyorker.<br>
[Growing</a> Pains in Wingham, Ontario : The New Yorker](<a href=“Dear Life | The New Yorker”>Dear Life | The New Yorker)</p>
<p>Thanks, author!</p>
<p>So here’s what we have:</p>
<p>The Maid’s Version by Daniel Woodrell </p>
<p>The Rosie Project by Graeme Simsion</p>
<p>The Signature of All Things by Elizabeth Gilbert</p>
<p>Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie</p>
<p>The Snow Child by Eowyn Ivey</p>
<p>Something by Alice Munro, such as (in order of publication):</p>
<p>*Lives of Girls and Women<a href=“1971”>/i</a>
*The Moons of Jupiter<a href=“1982”>/i</a>
*The Love of a Good Woman<a href=“1998”>/i</a>
*Runaway<a href=“2004”>/i</a>
*Dear Life<a href=“2012”>/i</a></p>
<p>Are we comfortable enough with the above choices to vote? If so, list your top three.
(If Alice Munro is in your top three, sub-ranking her works according to your preference would also be helpful.)</p>
<ol>
<li>Something by Alice Munro. I lean toward Lives of Girls and Women on the theory that linked stories would be easier to discuss, but I’m fine with anything really.</li>
<li>Americanah</li>
<li>Tie: The Rosie Project or The Maid’s Tale.</li>
</ol>
<ol>
<li><p>Something by Alice Monro. I really don’t care which one, but I’ll say:
a. Lives of Girls and Women
b. Dear Life
c. The Moons of Jupiter</p></li>
<li><p>The Signature of All Things by Elizabeth Gilbert.</p></li>
<li><p>Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie.</p></li>
</ol>
<ol>
<li> Something by Alice Munro</li>
</ol>
<p>a. Runaway
b. The Love of a Good Woman
c. The Moons of Jupiter</p>
<p>^ Although I ranked them as above, I will happily read anything she has written. My ranking was based on illogical thinking, so I can’t really defend it. I didn’t put on Dear Life because I wasn’t sure I wanted my first exposure to Munro be her very last work. I didn’t put on Lives of Girls and Women because I thought the title might be off-putting to male readers who occasionally drop by and post. I ranked Runaway first because I liked the description and because I was intrigued by author’s comment in post #168: “Runaway" is the one I always pick to give as a gift to buddies who need a short story. </p>
<ol>
<li><p>The Snow Child by Eowyn Ivey. The review posted above by NJTheatreMOM is subtitled, “Somewhere Between Magical Territory and Crazytown.” The reviewer didn’t intend it as a compliment, but it was such a pithy description that it made the cut. :)</p></li>
<li><p>Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>Good point about the title Lives of Girls and Women, Mary.</p>
<p>If we chose Munro’s The Moons of Jupiter, maybe some of the people who were interested in our sci-fi discussion this month would be tempted to stick around. :)</p>
<p>1) Alice Munro Stories
<a href=“http://www.slate.com/blogs/browbeat/2013/10/10/alice_munro_best_stories_to_read_first_by_new_nobel_prize_winner.html]Alice[/url”>Alice Munro: best stories to read first by new Nobel Prize winner.]Alice[/url</a>] Munro: best stories to read first by new Nobel Prize </p>
<p>From the article :
So here are five stories—four of them, as it happens, the title stories of their respective collections—that are as good as places to begin as any. I’ve chosen five that span the length of her career, though, remarkably, that matters much less than you might think it would. They are listed below chronologically, and linked to where available online.</p>
<p>“Lives of Girls and Women” (Lives of Girls and Women, 1971)
Few write about the horror and thrill of budding sexuality as well as Munro, an experience that runs in parallel with so many other things: self-discovery, self-assertion, the dynamics of gender and power. Here, young Del Jordan has a teasing, tantalizing flirtation with the gentleman friend of her mother’s boarder. It contains possibly the most comic description of an unwanted ***** you will ever read.</p>
<p>“The Moons of Jupiter” (The Moons of Jupiter, 1982)
A good primer for how Munro’s stories often look one way but feel another. With her father in the hospital and her own daughter absent, the narrator visits a planetarium. A planetarium, of course! And yet the usually reliable celestial-body metaphor somehow fails to adequately explain the blank space that sits, helplessly, between family members. You feel that this is possibly the point.</p>
<p>“The Love of a Good Woman” (The Love of a Good Woman, 1998)
The frequent, somewhat silly refrain is that Munro squeezes a novel into each story. That description is more apt than usual with the long “Love of a Good Woman,” which any reader should sink into with ease. Sex! Murder! A small town! And a hold-your-breath ending in which love and death feel like equal possibilities.</p>
<p>“Family Furnishings” (Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage, 2001)
An aspiring writer (a little-noted recurring figure in Munro) grows to disdain a close family friend she once admired as a child. Only Munro could pull this off: She hides within the story’s folds a deep family secret that, when revealed, somehow ends up taking second place to a chilling awareness that the narrator has about her own nature.</p>
<p>“Dear Life” (Dear Life, 2012)
Possibly Munro’s final story (or memoir, depending), but don’t save it for last—it is that good, and that representative of Munro’s artistic project. The story hinges on a memory that cannot be a real memory: the narrator as an infant being whisked inside the house by her mother as a neighbor approaches. What seems at first a meandering investigation becomes, quite suddenly, a fine-pointed insight into the mother-daughter relationship that anchors so much of Munro’s work, and feeds so much of its regret, determination, and affection.</p>
<p>Another link-
[A</a> Nobel reading list: Essential Alice Munro books](<a href=“http://www.usatoday.com/story/life/books/2013/10/10/alice-munro-reading-list/2959047/]A”>A Nobel reading list: Essential Alice Munro books)</p>
<p>Also, thanks to ** author ** for link to short story- it was wonderful</p>
<p>Thanks for the link and summaries, SJCM. I would be very interested in reading Munro. </p>
<p>Dear Life and Lives of Girls and Women both appeal equally to me as top contenders. I’m not looking to exclude any potential male posters with Lives of Girls and Women, but it looks like it has the potential for interesting discussion. My third Munro choice would be The Moons of Jupiter.</p>
<p>Hi BUandBC82, I hope you had a nice trip! </p>
<p>It looks like it’s going to be Alice Munro (yay!), and again, I’m fine with any of her books. But since we’re leaning toward Lives of Girls and Women, I just want to make everyone aware that it is more a novel than short stories. </p>
<p>In fact, the book is titled, *Lives of Girls and Women: A Novel<a href=“see%20the%20photo%20in%20the%20link”>/i</a>. Per Amazon, “The only novel from Alice Munro–award-winning author of The Love of a Good Woman–is an insightful, honest book, ‘autobiographical in form but not in fact,’ that chronicles a young girl’s growing up in rural Ontario in the 1940’s.” [Lives</a> of Girls and Women: A Novel: Alice Munro: 9780375707490: Amazon.com: Books](<a href=“http://www.amazon.com/Lives-Girls-Women-A-Novel/dp/0375707492/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1381586562&sr=8-1&keywords=Lives+of+Girls+and+Women]Lives”>http://www.amazon.com/Lives-Girls-Women-A-Novel/dp/0375707492/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1381586562&sr=8-1&keywords=Lives+of+Girls+and+Women)</p>
<p>This only matters if one of the reasons we are going this direction is to explore the short story genre. If so, then we might not want to choose a novel (or at least a novel-like work) by Munro, whom the Swedish Academy deemed “a master of the contemporary short story.”</p>
<p>^ None of the above should be interpreted as a negative take on Lives of Girls and Women. I would be delighted to read it! I can’t emphasize that enough. I’m just providing info for you peeps to mull over.</p>
<p>Since there are two good reasons to choose a Monro other than Lives of Girls and Women, I think that’s what we should do. But once again, I would be fine with any of her books.</p>
<p>Having read SouthJerseyChessMom’s links (thanks SJCM), you can put Dear Life into my top three (which means it’s now actually a top four, I guess, all tied for first :)). The book sounds so good, plus it’s a relatively new release (2012), which CC readers often find appealing.</p>
<p>Thanks, Mary! </p>
<p>It’s okay with me if we don’t choose Lives of Girls and Women to read for book club. Whatever works for the group is okay with me. Munro was a good suggestion. I’m excited!</p>