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Collected Stories
by Carol Shields


9.0

based on 11 reviews
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based on 2 votes
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This sizeable anthology collects every published short story (and one unpublished one) by the late Canadian novelist. Margaret Atwood provides a foreword.

Fourth Estate, 624 pages
02/01/2005
$29.95

ISBN: 0060762039

Fiction
Short Stories

All reviews are classified as one of five grades: Outstanding (4 points), Favorable (3), Mixed (2), Unfavorable (1) and Terrible (0). To calculate the Metascore, we divide total points achieved by the total points possible (i.e., 4 x the number of reviews), with the resulting percentage (multiplied by 100) being the Metascore. Learn more...

Entertainment Weekly Karen Karbo

Some of her characters are writers, but most are everyday people who mow their lawns and buy fruit at the grocery, their lives as miraculous and ordinary as childbirth. Still, there's nothing specious about these gems.

Publishers Weekly

Overall, Shields's touch is gorgeously light, her tales capturing brief, evanescent moments in the busy lives of couples, mothers and lonely wives. [24 Jan 2005, p.223]

Washington Post Laura Ciolkowski

A magisterial compilation... a career-long literary record of her preoccupation not just with the "serious and interesting" lives of women, but with the subtleties and everyday miracles of human life as well.

Boston Globe David Thoreen

I can't help thinking that a volume of Carol Shields's "New and Selected" would have made a better book.

Daily Telegraph Claudia FitzHerbert

The best of these read like sketches for something longer, and larger. Which isn't to say they don't satisfy, only that they lead the reader towards Shields's novels.

San Francisco Chronicle Christine Thomas

Again and again, her strong characters and stories, buoyed by rich detail, affirm the splendor of imagination and invention.

The Independent Paul Bailey

The best stories here - and there are plenty of them - need to be read with the same careful attentiveness that Carol Shields brought to their composition.

Kirkus Reviews

Shields the storyteller is a somewhat lesser writer, but she's always worth reading. [1 Feb 2005, p.149]

Library Journal Starr E. Smith

A good introduction for those not familiar with her work. [1 Jan 2005, p.104]

Los Angeles Times Heller McAlpin

It's a pity her publishers opted for completeness over quality; cutting fully half of the 56 stories in this book would have served her legacy better. [6 Feb 2005, p.R8]

The New York Times Book Review Ann Hulbert

Packaged in bulk, these stories can be oddly disappointing, even as they deliver a useful jolt to the domesticated image of Shields the novelist.

The average user rating for this book is 9.0 (out of 10) based on 2 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Kevin S gave it a10:
A marvelous collection of stories by a brilliant writer who died much too soon. These stories are often moving and perceptive, even profound. And it's true that they make one want to read Carol Sheilds's longer works; is there any higher praise?

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Collected Stories by Carol Shields

Collected Stories
by Carol Shields