Alice IS Wonderland

Just a word tonight, about a writer I love to read.
"Awesome!"
Alice Munro.
If you have not read Alice Munro, well.......
If you love short stories and you have not read Alice Munro, well.....
Her most recent compilation, [Runaway] resonates in the mind of the reader with a force that is usually attributed to the concussive thump of a powerful novel. It is as though you are getting eight compressed novels in Runaway... six, to be precise, since three of the stories are sequentially connected to each other.
So wonderful is her characterization and style that I would have remained interested, if any story had been expanded to be the length of a novel.
Having only read one other Munro collection (Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage), I am no expert on her work. However, I would say that I enjoyed this book more than the other, simply because these stories seem to me to have a better resolve about them. They close, but they are not closed. Fine-tuned, their open-ended endings beg to be reflected upon. Runaway was an excellent source of near-endless discussion in my own elite Book Club of Two.
I highly recommend this book to any and all. I was thrilled to happen to have my TV on one evening, to see the elegant Alice rise and accept the Giller Prize, for Runaway.
I joined in the applause, and startled the cat.
The stories are centered around the lives and experiences of women, that is to say, women are the protagonists of each story. As a male reader, I must say I thoroughly enjoyed the themes, the motifs, the relevance and style of each story, and I conclude that Munro is not a writer only FOR women.

No more than Tolstoy or Hardy are writers FOR men.
Men who enjoy the very best that writing has to offer us today, should read Munro.
I think my own favorite story was Tricks. The twist of fate, the "trick" in this story alone, is worth the acquisition of and reading of this book.
Runaway is unforgettably good, and makes me want to go on and explore all things Munrovian.
The wonderland of Alice Munro.
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