When the CBR team talked on Facebook about highlighting Canadian books for Canada Day, I went down a rabbit hole with some of the CanLit on my bookshelves. I have been mired in a Brandon Sanderson behemoth, but decided to quickly write up a review of one that I could both reread relatively quickly and hadn’t read in some time. I sat there, and Unless was right in front of my eyes, having been untouched for probably ten years. So here we are. The interesting […]
An interesting, if uneven, story collection
I took a Women’s Literature class about ten years ago (oof, that’s so painful to admit), and Carol Shields was one of the discoveries for me. We read Swann, which was a revelation. Sometime later, I was in a discount bookstore, and I stumbled upon a copy of her collected short stories, which was comprised of her three collections, Various Miracles, The Orange Fish, and Dressing Up for the Carnival. It also includes a previously unpublished short story, “Segue,” which would prove to be her […]
Story of a Life, kind of
The Stone Diaries by Carol Shields
This novel won the Pulitzer in 1995. The author is Canadian. My poetry professor in college recommended me this book 15 years ago. That’s everything I knew about this novel going in. It’s a good novel. It really is. It’s kind of a novel’s novel. What I mean by this is that it focuses on the small events of a family’s lifespan. It involves multiple narrative techniques. It has themes. It has some pictures. It has some humor, some weirdness, and it’s a little over 300 […]
Writing in life and life in writing
My book club choice was one I’d not previously read. I’ve been going through the books on my shelves, and Carol Shields’ The Stone Diaries was a thrift store find. When I took a women’s literature course, we read Shields’ Swann, a novel about the art of writing and literary theory. I loved it so much I wanted to read MORE Shields. So, for me, this last book club was all about killing two birds with one stone (pun not intended). Read my full review […]
How to Account for A Life?
Carol Shields’s Swan was the first of her oeuvre that I encountered in a Women’s Literature course in grad school. I enjoyed her prose and engrossing plots and her knack for point-of-views that are unique and refreshing. I read The Stone Diaries for my bookclub’s December pick and it was…interesting. The plot is the story of Daisy Goodwill, which begins in Manitoba, Canada pre-WWI. The narrator sounds like Daisy herself telling the story of how her parents met and she was conceived. Daisy spends most […]