Alice Munro

**Winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature** Alice Munro has a genius for entering the lives of ordinary people and capturing the passions and contradictions that lie just below the surface. In this brilliant new collection she takes mainly the lives of women - unruly, ungovernable, unpredictable, unexpected, funny, sexy and completely recognisable - and brings their hidden desires bubbling to the surface. The love of a good woman is not as pure and virtuous as it seems: as in her title story it can be needy and murderous. Here are women behaving badly, leaving husbands and children, running off with unstuitable lovers, pushing everyday life to the limits, and if they don't behave badly, they think surprising and disturbing thoughts.

The Love of a Good Woman

Frederik Van den Bril

My first collection of Alice Munro’ stories. She vividly captures the tragedies, hardships and disturbing anecdotes in the lives of ordinary people. Its long title story sets the bar for complex and vivid storytelling that requires constant focus and attention for detail from the reader. Once engulfed in the story, the stories become mesmerizing. Always there is this feeling of loss, melancholia and things that are best not to remember. The characters often face difficult choices and often, they make the wrong decision. Alice Munro makes you feel sorry for these people. She forces you to understand how people arrive at doing bad, hurtful, even unforgivable things. She forces you to consider you might as well just be one of them. I will definitely read more of Munro and I recommend it to everyone who enjoys e.g. Raymond Carver or Philip Roth.

Daryl Houston

Once again I find Munro to be sort of infuriatingly slow to read. It took me several weeks to get through this collection. Her prose is precise to the point at times almost of tedium, and yet her precision is also somehow effortless and right. So I find the stories simultaneously hard to get through and awfully engaging. It's obvious to me that she's a good writer, but I can't say that I find her writing inspiring. My favorite authors tend to be the ones who make me want to write my own work, and Munro does not have this effect on me.

The Love of a Good Woman

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