An excellent collection of short stories from a reliably good writer.

I really only read one short story.....didn't have time to continue with the book as it had to go back to library. I kept it on my list to get again to give it another try...I was interested in the short story I read but it just ended abruptly and left me stunned!!! I won't give up though!!

This collection of short stories is of the usual high standard of Alice Munroe's writings and if you are not familiar with her writings it would be a very intriguing starting point. These short stories are original, intelligent and some are quirky enough with the odd twist and turn that I didn't see coming.

So many other people seemed to enjoy this book of short stories, but I found the book rather dull. I did not like many of the characters and was completely unmoved by the stories.

Alice Munro, the master of the modern short story, continues to show her prodigious talent in her latest collection entitled Dear Life. Each story illuminates a life at a pivotal moment and who this moment affects its subject. Dear Life also includes a series of four memories from the author life; structured as short stories, they are mini-memoirs, colored by memory and creativity, yet illuminating the way each of her stories are. Many of the stories in Dear Life are set in the post WWII era of Canada, and the memory of the way and the Depression infuse them. One story in particular, "Leaving Maverley," highlights the power of Munro's storytelling, where with a simple sentence; a reflection of what has gone on before, Munro is able to bring the reader to tears.

Dear Life, like every new Alice Munro collection, is like returning for what will be a wonderful visit with a cherished, wise and quietly wicked good friend. Does it feel that way even if you are discovering Munro for the first time? I suspect it does, although for this reader, that firsthand feeling is now many books ago. This renewed visit with Munro is possibly my most cherished of all.

In "Dear Life," Alice Munro deliberately leaves crucial backstory sketchy or fills it in at incongruent points in the narrative. She embraces a fragmentary quality. She marks her plots with abrupt departure, eerie premonitions and personalities twisted by religious ideals. But her style does not produce a jarring or disjointed collection; rather, it captures the qualities of memory and consciousness and reveals startling character types with stark if not surreal insight. In one story, a soldier leaps off the back of a passenger train just before it delivers him to a long-anticipated reunion with his fiancée. In another, a love affair between a wealthy eccentric and a married architect builds to a shattering revelation. In another still, a young policeman, forced to care for his ailing wife, becomes quiet­ly obsessed with a religious teenager who disappears in a blizzard. These near-Gothic story lines feature violence, illness or ruined reputations and show how a seemingly inconsequential detail in life can either torment or liberate. Stories often come to harrowing conclusions that feel both inevitable and cathartic. Munro consistently restores unquiet order and shows that life goes on. Sort of.