Selected Stories

Spanning almost thirty years and settings that range from big cities to small towns and farmsteads of rural Canada, this magnificent collection brings together twenty-eight stories by a writer of unparalleled wit, generosity, and emotional power. In her Selected Stories, Alice Munro makes lives that seem small unfold until they are revealed to be as spacious as prairies and locates the moments of love and betrayal, desire and forgiveness, that change those lives forever. To read these stories--about a traveling salesman and his children on an impromptu journey; an abandoned woman choosing between seduction and solitude--is to succumb to the spell of a writer who enchants her readers utterly even as she restores them to their truest selves. Walker brothers cowboy -- Dance of the happy shades -- Postcard -- Images -- Something I've been meaning to tell you -- The Ottawa Valley -- Material -- Royal beatings -- Wild swans -- The beggar maid -- Simon's luck -- Chaddeleys and Flemings -- Dulse -- The turkey season -- Labor Day dinner -- The moons of Jupiter -- The progress of love -- Lichen -- Miles City, Montana -- White dump -- Fits -- Friend of my youth -- Meneseteung -- Differently -- Carried away -- The Albanian virgin -- A wilderness station -- Vandals.