Dear Life

I enjoyed this collection of short stories, but they did not quite hit the high notes of much of her previous work.

From what I remember, Jonathan Frantzen is a fan of Alice Munro. If you don't have enough time to read a novel, read a story by Alice Munro -- that's his advice as I understood it. And that's what I did and enjoyed. A story reads in three hours, ideal for a slow afternoon in the park at the weekend.

There is probably a deep analysis, or even several, to each story. I'm not going to try to analyse the stories here in this review now. What I like, what I admire, is how Munro manages to take me out of the role of reader. The stories touch me.

I read "Dear Life" and "Too Much Happiness" in parallel. Some stories I have read several times: "Train", "Dimensions", "In Sight of the Lake" (inside?).

These books will certainly stay on my shelf and I will pull them out from time to time.