Carol Ann Shields was een in Amerika geboren Canadese auteur die de complexiteit van het dagelijks leven met diepgaand inzicht onderzocht. Haar werk duikt vaak in het innerlijke leven van haar personages, waarbij ze hun relaties, herinneringen en de stille drama's onderzoekt die hun bestaan vormgeven. Shields bezat een opmerkelijk vermogen om het gewone buitengewoon te maken, waarbij ze precieze en suggestieve taal gebruikte om de verborgen complexiteiten binnen schijnbaar eenvoudige verhalen te ontdekken. Haar verkenning van thema's als identiteit, familie en het verstrijken van de tijd resoneerde diep bij lezers en vestigde haar als een belangrijke stem in de hedendaagse literatuur.
Voor Reta Winters is het leven als een rimpelloze vijver. Haar huwelijk is goed, ze woont in een heerlijk huis, ze heeft drie fantastische dochters en behalve als vertaalster begint ze ook als schrijfster succesvol te worden. Het geluk kan niet op, tot haar oudste dochter Norah stopt met haar studie. Ze bedelt op straat in Toronto met om haar nek een bord waar GOEDHEID op staat. Wat is er gebeurd? Waar ging het mis?
Een jonge Canadees wordt in 1978 gegrepen door doolhoven, die een blijvende rol in zijn leven spelen en een symbool zijn voor zijn zoektocht naar zichzelf.
Fifty short writings by Carol Shields are compiled in this collection, featuring over two dozen previously unpublished stories and essays. These pieces provide unique insights into her creative journey, enriching the understanding of her literary contributions. Scholars and fans alike will find value in this exploration of Shields's writing life, as it showcases her diverse talent and the evolution of her work.
A rollicking rhyming dinosaur picture book for young children.
For the first time all of Carol Shields' remarkable short stories -- some previously unpublished -- are gathered together in one volume. volumes: Various Miracles, The Orange Fish and Dressing Up for the Carnival. Some of the stories in these individual collections have never before been published in the UK, and we add to these wonderful shorter fictions a chapter from Carol Shields' last, unfinished, novel Segue. that won so many readers to her prize-winning novels such as The Stone Diaries and Unless.
Barbara Gowdy's outrageous, hilarious, disturbing, and compassionate novel is about the Canary family, their immoderate passions and eccentricities, and their secret lives and histories. The deepest secret of all is harbored in the silence of the youngest daughter, Joan, who doesn't grow, who doesn't speak, but who can play the piano like Mozart though she's never had a lesson. Joan is a mystery, and in the novel's stunning climax her family comes to understand that each of them is a mystery, as marvelous as Joan, as irreducible as the mystery of life itself. In its compassionate investigation of moral truths and its bold embrace of the fractured nature of every one of its characters, Mister Sandman attains the heightened quality of a modern-day parable.
One of the most successful and acclaimed novels of our time, this fictionalized autobiography of Daisy Goodwill Flett is a subtle but affecting portrait of an everywoman reflecting on an unconventional life. What transforms this seemingly ordinary tale is the richness of Daisy s vividly described inner life from her earliest memories of her adoptive mother to her awareness of impending death.
In an original collaboration two award-winning authors, Carol Shields and Blanche Howard, have written an immensely enjoyable novel which give us both sides of a story about the breakdown of traditional roles, rules and communication in a marriage. A CELIBATE SEASON is the story of a married couple, Jocelyn and Charles, (Jock and Chas) and their self-imposed separation of ten months when Jock accepts a job in a city more than three thousand miles away from her family. As breadwinner and suddenly single again Jock is confronted with local politics, loneliness and advances from the opposite sex. Meanwhile back at home, Chas, an unemployed architect, is now a single parent who has to reacquaint himself with his teenage children, Mia and Greg, learn to run a household and shift his career priorities. Throw in an attractive young housekeeper, a mother-in-law who enjoys her wine, a touch of teenage angst, some unexpected home renovations and a disastrous Christmas dinner and you have modern family life.
Carol Shields's award-winning and critically acclaimed "literary mystery," first published in 1987. Swann is the story of four individuals who become entwined in the life of Mary Swann, a rural Canadian poet whose authentic and unique voice is discovered only hours before her husband hacks her to pieces.Who is Mary Swann? And how could she have produced these works of genius in almost complete isolation? Mysteriously, all traces of Swann's existence — her notebook, the first draft of her work, even her photograph — gradually vanish as the characters in this engrossing novel become caught up in their own concepts of who Mary Swann was.
A celebration of love in its many guises, The Republic of Love recounts the heartfelt tale of two of life's unlucky lovers: Fay, a folklorist whose passion for mermaids has kept her from focusing on any one man; and, right across the street, Tom, a popular radio talk-show host who s been through three marriages and divorces in his search for true happiness.
