This sizeable anthology collects every published short story (and one unpublished one) by the late Canadian novelist. Margaret Atwood provides a foreword.
Critic Reviews
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Outstanding
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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.
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Outstanding
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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]
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Outstanding
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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.
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Favorable
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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.
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Favorable
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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.
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Favorable
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San Francisco Chronicle Christine Thomas
Again and again, her strong characters and stories, buoyed by rich detail, affirm the splendor of imagination and invention.
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Favorable
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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.
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Favorable
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Kirkus Reviews
Shields the storyteller is a somewhat lesser writer, but she's always worth reading. [1 Feb 2005, p.149]
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Favorable
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Library Journal Starr E. Smith
A good introduction for those not familiar with her work. [1 Jan 2005, p.104]
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Mixed
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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]
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Mixed
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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.
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