This is a great collection of some of Munro's best short stories. After reading this I am again convinced that she is my favorite author.

La pandemia nos ha robado estar con gente querida. No me refiero a un estar de compartir momentos épicos, hitos fundacionales, anécdotas que salvarán una conversación aburrida y provocarán risas. Estar en el mismo espacio en silencio, una sobremesa, observar cómo organiza mi madre su bolso para salir a la calle, como I. pide un cigarro y lo enciende, la forma peculiar que tiene V. de beber vino de una copa, las arrugas en las comisuras de los labios que son inapreciables pero van cobrando forma progresivamente.
Me alegro de haber suplido su ausencia con este vasto recopilatorio de mujeres reales e imperfectas, algunas insoportables, otras simplemente humanas que aún no han cogido el tranquillo de la vida. Todas me han acompañado en estos meses en un viaje emocional propio que ha hecho que yo también fuera cambiando delante de ellas aunque no pudieran darse cuenta.

Libro prestado de las bibliotecas públicas de Zaragoza.

Alice Munro is a master. In any short story collection you find very strong stories and other mediocre ones. In a very large collection, you can find more of the mediocre, which is how I felt about some of the stories. But of course, it's Alice Munro so there are also some real gems.

Precise, surprising stories that are sometimes comical, sometimes melancholy, and sometimes biting. She's a master of the form.

2015 reading challenge
read a book of short stories

I abandoned this because I just couldn't get myself to like it.

I have previously watched the movie "Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage" and liked it well enough and was intrigued when I found out that it was a short story written by Alice Munro. When the opportunity arose for me to select her collection of short stories from 1995 to 2014 I jumped at the chance.

Unfortunately I did not care for this collection as a whole. I am very surprised by how many people enthused about Alice Munro's short stories since besides two of the stories contained within I did not like at all.

Everything seemed endlessly wordy and the main theme for all of these stories seemed to be a woman under some man's thumb who either left her husband for another man or just had affairs, etc. There seemed to be a general feeling of dissatisfaction in all of these women lives. Additionally, this was a massive read at 616 pages and it really dragged throughout every story. It didn't help that perspectives changed sometimes throughout just one story so if you started off with one character you didn't end up finishing that story with that character's perception. Overall, I just didn't find any uplifting with any of these stories and ended up with just a feeling of general dissatisfaction when I finally was done with these stories.

For example, the first story, "The Love of a Good Woman" starts off discussing a doctor who committed suicide that transitions into three boys who find the body and their lives at home. Then it suddenly jumps to a woman who is nursing a dying woman and her connection to the doctor. There were just a lot of lost threads in that story and I was left scratching my head. I found out later that this story and two others that were included were initially published in 1998 in another collection of short stories titled "The Love of a Good Woman".

I did like the story "Jakarta" and "The Children Stay". I was disappointed that I really didn't like the short story version of "Hateship, Friendhsip, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage'. The other stories I found to be either just okay or just outright did not care for. Due to that I gave this entire collection 2 stars.

Please note that I received this book for free via the Amazon Vine Program.

See my review here:

https://whatmeread.wordpress.com/2015/05/26/day-709-family-furnishings/

Evocative, personal, deeply emotional, but a bit dense.