Alice Munro Popular Books
Alice Munro Biography & Facts
Alice Ann Munro (; née Laidlaw ; born 10 July 1931) is a Canadian short story writer who won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2013. Munro's work has been described as revolutionizing the architecture of the short story, especially in its tendency to move forward and backward in time, and with integrated short fiction cycles, in which she has displayed "inarguable virtuosity". Her stories have been said to "embed more than announce, reveal more than parade". Munro's fiction is most often set in her native Huron County in southwestern Ontario. Her stories explore human complexities in an uncomplicated prose style. Her writing has established Munro as "one of our greatest contemporary writers of fiction", or, as Cynthia Ozick put it, "our Chekhov". Munro has received many literary accolades, including the 2013 Nobel Prize in Literature for her work as "master of the contemporary short story", and the 2009 Man Booker International Prize for her lifetime body of work. She is also a three-time winner of Canada's Governor General's Award for Fiction, and received the Writers' Trust of Canada's 1996 Marian Engel Award and the 2004 Rogers Writers' Trust Fiction Prize for Runaway. Early life and education Munro was born Alice Ann Laidlaw in Wingham, Ontario. Her father, Robert Eric Laidlaw, was a fox and mink farmer, and later turned to turkey farming. Her mother, Anne Clarke Laidlaw (née Chamney), was a schoolteacher. She is of Irish and Scottish descent; her father is a descendant of James Hogg, the Ettrick Shepherd. Munro began writing as a teenager, publishing her first story, "The Dimensions of a Shadow", in 1950 while studying English and journalism at the University of Western Ontario on a two-year scholarship. During this period she worked as a waitress, a tobacco picker, and a library clerk. In 1951, she left the university, where she had been majoring in English since 1949, to marry fellow student James Munro. They moved to Dundarave, West Vancouver, for James's job in a department store. In 1963, the couple moved to Victoria, where they opened Munro's Books, which still operates. Career Munro's highly acclaimed first collection of stories, Dance of the Happy Shades (1968), won the Governor General's Award, then Canada's highest literary prize. That success was followed by Lives of Girls and Women (1971), a collection of interlinked stories. In 1978, Munro's collection of interlinked stories Who Do You Think You Are? was published. This book earned Munro a second Governor General's Literary Award and was short-listed for the Booker Prize for Fiction in 1980 under its international title, The Beggar Maid. From 1979 to 1982, she toured Australia, China and Scandinavia for public appearances and readings. In 1980 Munro held the position of writer in residence at both the University of British Columbia and the University of Queensland. From the 1980s to 2012, Munro published a short-story collection at least once every four years. First versions of Munro's stories have appeared in journals such as The Atlantic Monthly, Grand Street, Harper's Magazine, Mademoiselle, The New Yorker, Narrative Magazine, and The Paris Review. Her collections have been translated into 13 languages. On 10 October 2013, Munro was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, cited as a "master of the contemporary short story". She is the first Canadian and the 13th woman to receive the Nobel Prize in Literature. Munro is noted for her longtime association with editor and publisher Douglas Gibson. When Gibson left Macmillan of Canada in 1986 to launch the Douglas Gibson Books imprint at McClelland and Stewart, Munro returned the advance Macmillan had already paid her for The Progress of Love so that she could follow Gibson to the new company. Munro and Gibson have retained their professional association ever since; when Gibson published his memoirs in 2011, Munro wrote the introduction, and to this day Gibson often makes public appearances on Munro's behalf when her health prevents her from appearing personally. Almost 20 of Munro's works have been made available for free on the web, in most cases only the first versions. From the period before 2003, 16 stories have been included in Munro's own compilations more than twice, with two of her works scoring four republications: "Carried Away" and "Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage". Film adaptations of Munro's short stories include Martha, Ruth and Edie (1988), Edge of Madness (2002), Away from Her (2006), Hateship, Loveship (2013) and Julieta (2016). Writing Many of Munro's stories are set in Huron County, Ontario. Her strong regional focus is one of her fiction's features. Asked after she won the Nobel Prize, "What can be so interesting in describing small town Canadian life?" Munro replied, "You just have to be there." Another feature is an omniscient narrator who serves to make sense of the world. Many compare Munro's small-town settings to writers from the rural American South. As in the work of William Faulkner and Flannery O'Connor, Munro's characters often confront deep-rooted customs and traditions, but her characters' reactions are generally less intense than their Southern counterparts'. Her male characters tend to capture the essence of the everyman, while her female characters are more complex. Much of Munro's work exemplifies the Southern Ontario Gothic literary subgenre. Munro's work is often compared with the great short-story writers. In her stories, as in Chekhov's, plot is secondary and "little happens". As in Chekhov, Garan Holcombe writes, "All is based on the epiphanic moment, the sudden enlightenment, the concise, subtle, revelatory detail." Munro's work deals with "love and work, and the failings of both. She shares Chekhov's obsession with time and our much-lamented inability to delay or prevent its relentless movement forward." A frequent theme of her work, particularly in her early stories, has been the dilemmas of a girl coming of age and coming to terms with her family and her small hometown. In work such as Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage (2001) and Runaway (2004) she shifted her focus to the travails of middle age, women alone, and the elderly. Her characters often experience a revelation that sheds light on, and gives meaning to, an event. Munro's prose reveals the ambiguities of life: "ironic and serious at the same time," "mottoes of godliness and honor and flaming bigotry," "special, useless knowledge," "tones of shrill and happy outrage," "the bad taste, the heartlessness, the joy of it." Her style juxtaposes the fantastic and the ordinary, with each undercutting the other in ways that simply and effortlessly evoke life. Robert Thacker wrote: Munro's writing creates ... an empathetic union among readers, critics most apparent among them. We are drawn to her writing by its verisimilitude—not of mimesis, so-called and ... "realism"—but rather the feeling of being itself ... of.... Discover the Alice Munro popular books. Find the top 100 most popular Alice Munro books.
Best Seller Alice Munro Books of 2024
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Chess
Stefan Zweig'... a human being, an intellectual human being who constantly bends the entire force of his mind on the ridiculous task of forcing a wooden king into the corner of a wooden board,...
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Burning Questions
Margaret AtwoodIn this brilliant selection of essays, the awardwinning, bestselling author of The Handmaid's Tale and The Testaments offers her funny, erudite, endlessly curious, and uncannily pr...
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Alice Munro
Robert ThackerThe awarding of the Nobel Prize in Literature to the Canadian writer Alice Munro in 2013 confirmed her position as a master of the short story form. This book explores Munro's ...
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Family Furnishings
Alice MunroFrom the winner of the 2013 Nobel Prize in Literatureand one of our most beloved writersa new selection of her peerless short fiction, gathered from the collections of the last two...
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Selected Stories of Alice Munro, 1968-1994
Alice MunroWINNER OF THE 2013 NOBEL PRIZE IN LITERATURESpanning almost thirty years and settings that range from big cities to small towns and farmsteads of rural Canada, this magnificent col...
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Graeme Gibson Interviews Alice Munro
Graeme GibsonIn honour of Alice Munro's Nobel Prize for Literature, Anansi Digital is rereleasing a candid interview with Munro by Canadian novelist Graeme Gibson.Taken from Eleven Canadian Nov...
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Ethics and Affects in the Fiction of Alice Munro
Amelia DeFalco & Lorraine YorkEthics and Affects in the Fiction of Alice Munro explores the representation of embodied ethics and affects in Alice Munro’s writing. The collection illustrates how Munro’s short s...
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Christmas at The New Yorker
The New Yorker, E. B. White, Sally Benson & S.J. PerelmanFrom the pages of America’s most influential magazine come eight decades of holiday cheerplus the occasional comical coal in the stockingin one incomparable collection. Sublime an...
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Alice Munro
Mirosława BuchholtzThe book offers a new approach to the study of Alice Munro's fiction. Its innovative quality consists in juxtaposing a variety of literary analyses of selected stories with two oth...
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The Cloud of Unknowing and Other Works
A. SpearingContains The Cloud of Unknowing, The Mystical Theology of Saint Denis, The Book of Privy Counselling, and An Epistle on Prayer. Against a tradition of devotional writings which fo...
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The Home Child
Liz BerryInspired by a true story, a beautiful novelinverse about a child far from home. From awardwinning poet Liz Berry.WINNER OF THE WRITERS' PRIZE BOOK OF THE YEARWINNER OF THE WRITERS...
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The O. Henry Prize Stories 2013
Laura Furman, Lauren Groff, Edith Pearlman & Jim ShepardThe O. Henry Prize Stories 2013 gathers twenty of the best short stories of the year, selected from thousands published in literary magazines. The winning stories take place in suc...
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Short Stories in French
Richard CowardThis is an all new version of the popular PARALLEL TEXT series, containing eight pieces of contemporary fiction in the original French and in English translation. Including stories...
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The Innocence of Father Brown
G. K. ChestertonThis is the first volume of Chesterton's brilliant, ingenious Father Brown stories. Ahead of a new series of the popular BBC adaptation starring Mark Williams, all five of the orig...
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Alice Munro
Brenda PfausAlice Munro, recipient of the 2013 Nobel Prize in Literature, is undoubtedly among Canada’s greatest living writers. In this unique, intriguing collection, Brenda Pfaus gives fresh...
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Late in the Day
Tessa Hadley“With each new book by Tessa Hadley, I grow more convinced that she’s one of the greatest stylists alive.”Ron Charles, Washington PostNew York Times Book Review Editors' Choice |A ...
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Old Crimes
Jill McCorkleBeloved author Jill McCorkle delivers a collection of masterful stories that are as complex as novelsdeeply perceptive, funny, and tragic in equal measureabout crimes large and sma...
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Vintage Munro
Alice MunroWINNER OF THE NOBEL PRIZE® IN LITERATURE 2013Vintage Readers are a perfect introduction to some of the greatest modern writers presented in attractive, accessible paperback ...
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The Accomplished Guest
Ann BeattieA Washington Post Notable Fiction Book of the Year A magnificent collection from awardwinning author Ann Beattie“profoundly intriguing and unsettling stories that abound in delect...
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The Cambridge Companion to Alice Munro
David StainesThis Companion is a thorough introduction to the writings of the Nobel Prize winner Alice Munro. Uniting the talents of distinguished creative writers and noted academics, David St...
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Alice Munro
Catherine Sheldrick RossCanadianborn Alice Munro has established herself as one of the world's finest contemporary short storywriters. Since the publication of her first collection, Dance of the Happy Sha...
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The Book of Disquiet
Fernando Pessoa & Richard ZenithWith its astounding hardcover reviews Richard Zenith's new complete translation of THE BOOK OF DISQUIET has now taken on a similar iconic status to ULYSSES, THE TRIAL or IN SEARCH ...
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Away from Her
Alice MunroWINNER OF THE NOBEL PRIZE® IN LITERATURE 2013Alice Munro has long been heralded for her penetrating, lyrical prose, and in “The Bear Came Over the Mountain” – the basis for S...
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Lives of Girls and Women
Alice MunroWINNER OF THE NOBEL PRIZE® IN LITERATURE 2013The only novel from Alice Munroawardwinning author of The Love of a Good Womanis an insightful, honest book, "autobiographical in...
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The Beggar Maid
Alice MunroWINNER OF THE NOBEL PRIZE® IN LITERATURE 2013In this series of interweaving stories, Munro recreates the evolving bond between two women in the course of almost forty years. O...
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Todo queda en casa
Alice MunroLa selección de los mejores cuentos de Alice Munro, Nobel de Literatura en 2013, hecha por ella misma.«¿Cómo lo hará Alice Munro? Lo que consigue parece magia».Sara MesaCuando, una...
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How Strange a Season
Megan Mayhew Bergman“Dazzling.” The New York Times Book Review, Editors’ Choice “Richly satisfying.” The Wall Street Journal “These are stories you want to live in…a collection perfectly suited for ou...
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The Office
Alice MunroA Vintage Shorts “Short Story Month” Selection The solution came to the writer one evening: she should have an office. From Nobel Laureate Alice Munro, a brilliantly executed ...
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Birds of a Lesser Paradise
Megan Mayhew BergmanAn “astonishing debut collection, by a writer reminiscent of such greats as Alice Munro, Elizabeth Strout, and even Chekhov” (Sara Gruen, author of Water for Elephants), focusing o...
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The Collected Stories of Amy Hempel
Amy HempelThe Collected Stories of Amy Hempel gathers together the complete work of a writer whose voice is as singular and astonishing as any in American fiction. Hempel, fiercely admired b...
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The Year We Left Home
Jean ThompsonA New York Times bestseller, The Year We Left Home is National Book Award finalist Jean Thompson’s mesmerizing, decadesspanning saga of one ordinary American family that captures t...
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Onlookers
Ann Beattie“Supple, superb.” The Boston Globe “A deft mash of lonesomeness and wit.” Chicago Tribune “Her best in more than two decades.” The New York Times Awardwinning short story writer...
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Alice Munro
Corinne BigotCe travail, envisageant l'ensemble de l'œuvre de la nouvelliste canadienne Alice Munro (quatorze recueils entre 1968 et 2012), se propose d'étudier la façon dont le silence quitte ...
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Odio, amistad, noviazgo, amor, matrimonio
Alice MunroEn los nueve relatos recogidos en este libro, la literatura se vuelve itinerante como la memoria misma, y crea personajes tan contradictorios como cualquier persona de carne y hues...
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Alice Munro
Mirosława BuchholtzCanadian writer Alice Munro is the 2013 Nobel Laureate in Literature. This collection of essays by authors from Poland, Canada and France presents an intercultural perspective on h...
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Preparing for the Perimenopause and Menopause
Dr Louise Newson#1 SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER 'Immensely helpful...a tome of medical knowledge. I'm mildly obsessed by Louise Newson. Buy the book!' Davina McCall'What a brilliant, helpful and strai...
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Bel-ami
Guy de Maupassant & Douglas ParmeeYoung, attractive and very ambitious, George Duroy, known to his friends as BelAmi, is offered a job as a journalist on La Vie francaise and soon makes a great success of his new c...
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Dear Life
Alice MunroWINNER OF THE NOBEL PRIZE© IN LITERATURE 2013A New York Times Notable BookA Washington Post Notable Work of FictionA Best Book of the Year: The Atlant...
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New Zealand Stories
Katherine MansfieldTen stories from the ‘brilliant’ Katherine Mansfield set in New Zealand. As Vincent O’Sullivan states, those encountering Mansfield’s stories for the first time have invariably fo...
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The Love of a Good Woman
Alice MunroWINNER OF THE NOBEL PRIZE® IN LITERATURE 2013In eight new stories, a master of the form extends and magnifies her great themesthe vagaries of love, the passion that leads down...