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The Penguin Books of Short Stories
The Penguin Book of Canadian Short Stories
This stunning collection of 60 stories—over a century’s worth of the best Canadian literature by an extraordinary array of our finest writers—has been selected and is introduced by award-winning writer Jane Urquhart. Urquhart’s selection includes stories by major literary figures such as Mavis Gallant, Carol Shields, Alistair MacLeod, and Margaret Atwood, and wonderful stories by younger writers, including Dennis Bock, Joseph Boyden, and Madeleine Thien. This collection is uniquely organized into five the immigrant experience, urban life, family drama, fantasy and metaphor, and celebrating the past.
720 pages, Hardcover
First published October 4, 2007
37 people are currently reading
378 people want to read
About the author
Jane Urquhart
41 books378 followersShe is the author of seven internationally acclaimed novels entitled, The Whirlpool, Changing Heaven, Away, The Underpainter, The Stone Carvers, A Map of Glass, and Sanctuary Line.
The Whirlpool received the French Prix du Meilleur Livre Étranger (Best Foreign Book Award). Away was winner of the Trillium Book Award and a finalist for the prestigious International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award. The Underpainter won the Governor General's Award for English-language fiction and was a finalist for the Rogers Writers' Trust Fiction Prize.
The Stone Carvers was a finalist for the Giller Prize and the Governor General's Award, and was longlisted for the Booker Prize. A Map of Glass was a finalist for a regional Commonwealth Writers' Prize for Best Book.
She is also the author of a collection of short fiction, Storm Glass, and four books of poetry, I Am Walking in the Garden of His Imaginary Palace, False Shuffles, The Little Flowers of Madame de Montespan, and Some Other Garden. Her work has been translated into numerous foreign languages.
Urquhart has received the Marian Engel Award, Calgary's Bob Edwards Award and the Harbourfront Festival Prize, and is a Chevalier dans l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres in France. In 2005 she was named an Officer of the Order of Canada.
Recently, she was named the 2007 Banff Distinguished Writer.
Urquhart has received numerous honorary doctorates from Canadian universities and has been writer-in-residence at the University of Ottawa and at Memorial University of Newfoundland, the University of Toronto, and the University of Guelph.
She has also given readings and lectures in Canada, Britain, Europe, the U.S.A., and Australia.
In 2007 she edited and published The Penguin Book of Canadian Short Stories, and in 2009 she published a biography of
Lucy Maud Montgomery as part of Penguin’s “Extraordinary Canadians” series.
Urquhart lives in Northumberland County, Ontario, Canada, and occasionally in Ireland.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jane_Urq...
The Whirlpool received the French Prix du Meilleur Livre Étranger (Best Foreign Book Award). Away was winner of the Trillium Book Award and a finalist for the prestigious International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award. The Underpainter won the Governor General's Award for English-language fiction and was a finalist for the Rogers Writers' Trust Fiction Prize.
The Stone Carvers was a finalist for the Giller Prize and the Governor General's Award, and was longlisted for the Booker Prize. A Map of Glass was a finalist for a regional Commonwealth Writers' Prize for Best Book.
She is also the author of a collection of short fiction, Storm Glass, and four books of poetry, I Am Walking in the Garden of His Imaginary Palace, False Shuffles, The Little Flowers of Madame de Montespan, and Some Other Garden. Her work has been translated into numerous foreign languages.
Urquhart has received the Marian Engel Award, Calgary's Bob Edwards Award and the Harbourfront Festival Prize, and is a Chevalier dans l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres in France. In 2005 she was named an Officer of the Order of Canada.
Recently, she was named the 2007 Banff Distinguished Writer.
Urquhart has received numerous honorary doctorates from Canadian universities and has been writer-in-residence at the University of Ottawa and at Memorial University of Newfoundland, the University of Toronto, and the University of Guelph.
She has also given readings and lectures in Canada, Britain, Europe, the U.S.A., and Australia.
In 2007 she edited and published The Penguin Book of Canadian Short Stories, and in 2009 she published a biography of
Lucy Maud Montgomery as part of Penguin’s “Extraordinary Canadians” series.
Urquhart lives in Northumberland County, Ontario, Canada, and occasionally in Ireland.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jane_Urq...
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Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews
October 4, 2009
I've rated, out of five stars, each of the 69 stories in this book, and taken the average of those ratings to determine my overall rating. My actual rating is 2.86 stars out of 5.
It took me a long time to read this book—because it's long. That's not always bad, and for an anthology called "Book of Canadian Short Stories," a certain girth is required to have a truly representative sample. Still, the length can be daunting for a reader, and I repeatedly questioned why I spent $24.00 on a book of stories in which I wasn't particularly interested. This definitely isn't the sort of book you should buy on a whim, like I did.
There are some definite gems in this collection, however, and that's what I'll focus on for the rest of this review. I'm going to iterate all of the stories to which I gave 5 stars and give a brief reason why.
"The View from Castle Rock" by Alice Munro
"And then there was Andrew himself, who ever since that day on the rock has felt about his father a deep bewildered sense of responsibility, much like sorrow."
A moving tale about the disenchantment with life that often accompanies growing up . . . the sacrifices one makes in the name of practicality over idealism. This is an excerpt, rather than the full book, and cannot do justice to the characters or the relationships depicted therein.
"Last Rites" by M.G. Vassanji
"I wanted to say to him, as I saw him, Look, Bharwani, this is not the time for your smart, sceptical arguments. This is real, this is how you leave the world; at least this once, walk along with the rest of us."
Wonderful story about the conflict between belief and faith. Told from the point of view of a Torontonian mukhi, “Last Rites” concerns the fallout of Karim Bharwani's request to be cremated after death. Bharwani was always an agitator in life, but carrying out his last request may prove a difficult decision for his family and the community. As Bharwani's wife is quick to point out, is it better to honour the request of the deceased, even if that may mean damning them according to one's religion? Such questions do not evaporate as science and technology march inexorably onward.
"The Collectors" by Rohinton Mistry
My favourite story in the entire anthology, "The Collectors" demonstrates how much of our lives is determined by what others do rather than the choices we make. His characters are tragically three-dimensional, and even the young Jehangir finds himself full of regrets and confusion about the choices that were his to make, and the choices made for him by others.
"The Flesh Collectors" by Michael Redhill
As with "Last Rites," this is the story of conflict between one's religious beliefs and one's personal convictions. The main character is Jewish and planning to undergo a vasectomy so that he and his third, younger wife can continue to have sex without risking pregnancy. But Roth worries he may want to have more children in the future and contemplates freezing some of his sperm—an act that would, his rabbi opines, definitely result in sin, whether he uses the sperm or not. As Roth's vasectomy looms, he's torn between safeguarding against the unknowable future or conforming to the tenets of his faith. At the centre of this crisis, we have to wonder: how much of us, of our personalities and beliefs, comes from the religion in which we were raised?
"Fever" by Sharon Butala
A man inexplicably becomes ill on a business trip to Calgary. As he lies in a hospital, wavering on the threshold between life and death, his wife, who has accompanied him on the trip, dallies with another guest at their hotel. For reasons she does not understand, she cannot bring herself to worry about her husband, cannot feel anything.
It's difficult for me to say why I liked this book; the main character seems selfish at times and mostly foolish. Maybe it's those foibles, her inability to play the dutiful bedside wife, that I find so endearing. She strays, yes, but ultimately she comes back—as does her husband—and for perhaps the first time in their stagnating 15-year-old marriage, they are changed.
"Ray" by Guy Vanderhaeghe
This was an absolutely stunning story about the relationships a man has with both his wife and his father. Ray is an utterly practical individual who fails to grasp the nuances of society and humanity; his wife married him because he makes her feel better about himself, not because she loves him. Ray feels a bond with his father despite the fact that he received little affection, whether as child or as adult. But ultimately, I love the development Ray undergoes in such a short story. He starts off as a shy, unassuming man and becomes more confident—with the right amount of tribulation along the way.
"Jhoomri's Window" by Anita Rau Badami
Told from the point of view of a capricious seven-year-old, “Jhoomri's Window” is a bittersweet story about growing up and turning in one's vibrant cloak of idealism for the more muted colours of pragmatism and practicality.
"Catechism" by Wayne Johnston
Much more happens in “Catechism” than one would expect to find in the average short story. The narrator shows us little moments, without judgement, from the life of the main character. In many ways his life is on hold, static and dreary like the Canadian winter in which much of the story takes place. He fails to connect with anyone even though he yearns for connection. In the end, he must confront the fact that he is unhappy. While “Catechism” is not very uplifting, it felt very emotionally true.
"An Easy Life" by Bronwen Wallace
This story moved me because of Wallace's portrayal of parallels ... how circumstances beyond our control can profoundly influence our lives, more than we'd like to admit. “An Easy Life” also has a ray of hope, as Marion Walker's easy life is not an empty one, and she manages to pay her karma forward to the young Tracey Harper.
"The Art of Cooking and Serving" by Margaret Atwood
To a child, everything is amplified, larger than life. Additional responsibilities—such as caring for one's pregnant mother or for a younger baby sibling—can seem like monumental tasks. Atwood replicates the stresses a child can feel, and the ways in which he or she copes in the absence of real parental guidance. I loved both the tone of the narrator and the denouement, in which the narrator seeks her freedom. There's a certain amount of generational observation here, as modern children have a sort of independence less common in previous generations of families.
"The Glass Sphere" by Sean Virgo
“The sphere had frozen, and baked. The air inside it, which was the breath of a man, had made frost-flowers upon its walls, and had filled it with mist.”
The title is slightly misleading, since the story is less about the sphere than it is about how that sphere connects two people across two centuries. It's about the breath trapped inside the sphere, the incredible journey on which it has gone, carried in the seemingly-indestructible blown-glass vessel, until it was finally released and taken in by another person. Virgo writes with such wonderful conviction; his descriptions are beautiful, as is this story.
"Constance" by Virgil Burnett
This is one of my favourite stories because it's just so different from the rest of the anthology. It actually has a plot, for one thing. And I love this idea that the courtiers are going to such great lengths to discover if Constance is having an affair (all the while she is, although her lover's identity is never discovered). Burnett uses this irony to inject some humour into a story that might otherwise be considered tragic or even haunting.
It took me a long time to read this book—because it's long. That's not always bad, and for an anthology called "Book of Canadian Short Stories," a certain girth is required to have a truly representative sample. Still, the length can be daunting for a reader, and I repeatedly questioned why I spent $24.00 on a book of stories in which I wasn't particularly interested. This definitely isn't the sort of book you should buy on a whim, like I did.
There are some definite gems in this collection, however, and that's what I'll focus on for the rest of this review. I'm going to iterate all of the stories to which I gave 5 stars and give a brief reason why.
"The View from Castle Rock" by Alice Munro
"And then there was Andrew himself, who ever since that day on the rock has felt about his father a deep bewildered sense of responsibility, much like sorrow."
A moving tale about the disenchantment with life that often accompanies growing up . . . the sacrifices one makes in the name of practicality over idealism. This is an excerpt, rather than the full book, and cannot do justice to the characters or the relationships depicted therein.
"Last Rites" by M.G. Vassanji
"I wanted to say to him, as I saw him, Look, Bharwani, this is not the time for your smart, sceptical arguments. This is real, this is how you leave the world; at least this once, walk along with the rest of us."
Wonderful story about the conflict between belief and faith. Told from the point of view of a Torontonian mukhi, “Last Rites” concerns the fallout of Karim Bharwani's request to be cremated after death. Bharwani was always an agitator in life, but carrying out his last request may prove a difficult decision for his family and the community. As Bharwani's wife is quick to point out, is it better to honour the request of the deceased, even if that may mean damning them according to one's religion? Such questions do not evaporate as science and technology march inexorably onward.
"The Collectors" by Rohinton Mistry
"I know!" said Jehangir. "That's the one Burjor Uncle lost and thought that I..."
Mrs. Mody squeezed his arm which she was still holding and he fell silent. She spoke softly, but without guilt: "He did not lose it. I destroyed it." Then her eyes went moist as she watched the disbelief on his face. She wanted to say more, to explain, but could not, and clung to his arm. Finally, her voice quavering pitiably, she managed to say, "Forgive an old lady," and patted his cheek. Jehangir left in silence, suddenly feeling very ashamed.
My favourite story in the entire anthology, "The Collectors" demonstrates how much of our lives is determined by what others do rather than the choices we make. His characters are tragically three-dimensional, and even the young Jehangir finds himself full of regrets and confusion about the choices that were his to make, and the choices made for him by others.
"The Flesh Collectors" by Michael Redhill
Roth had long since given up on making sense of the many laws that were to govern his life and his behaviour. These things had been drummed into him as a child, which was part of the reason he had strayed, although straying from orthodoxy to conservativism was a deviation on the order of dark rye to light.
As with "Last Rites," this is the story of conflict between one's religious beliefs and one's personal convictions. The main character is Jewish and planning to undergo a vasectomy so that he and his third, younger wife can continue to have sex without risking pregnancy. But Roth worries he may want to have more children in the future and contemplates freezing some of his sperm—an act that would, his rabbi opines, definitely result in sin, whether he uses the sperm or not. As Roth's vasectomy looms, he's torn between safeguarding against the unknowable future or conforming to the tenets of his faith. At the centre of this crisis, we have to wonder: how much of us, of our personalities and beliefs, comes from the religion in which we were raised?
"Fever" by Sharon Butala
She wanted to tell him that she too had been gone, that she had been exploring, lost, in a wild, violent country, that she had narrowly escaped, that she had had to tear herself away, lest the swamps and bogs and blackness claim her forever.
A man inexplicably becomes ill on a business trip to Calgary. As he lies in a hospital, wavering on the threshold between life and death, his wife, who has accompanied him on the trip, dallies with another guest at their hotel. For reasons she does not understand, she cannot bring herself to worry about her husband, cannot feel anything.
It's difficult for me to say why I liked this book; the main character seems selfish at times and mostly foolish. Maybe it's those foibles, her inability to play the dutiful bedside wife, that I find so endearing. She strays, yes, but ultimately she comes back—as does her husband—and for perhaps the first time in their stagnating 15-year-old marriage, they are changed.
"Ray" by Guy Vanderhaeghe
Over all the months of separation her voice had changed, or his way of hearing it had. Coming out of the void, how false, how insincere it sounded, how actressy. It struck Ray that the owner of such a voice might not know all there was to know. Something more had passed between him and his father, borne on his dead brother's train, than a mere exchange of drinks and loose chang. What, was for him to decide.
This was an absolutely stunning story about the relationships a man has with both his wife and his father. Ray is an utterly practical individual who fails to grasp the nuances of society and humanity; his wife married him because he makes her feel better about himself, not because she loves him. Ray feels a bond with his father despite the fact that he received little affection, whether as child or as adult. But ultimately, I love the development Ray undergoes in such a short story. He starts off as a shy, unassuming man and becomes more confident—with the right amount of tribulation along the way.
"Jhoomri's Window" by Anita Rau Badami
Amma acts like she did not hear me and asks Jhoomri again, “Well Jhoomri, what is wrong with Mungroo?”
A great big smile spreads across Jhoomri's face, “Bibi-ji, he has a hairy nose,” she says.
Amma frowns at her, “You still behave like a child, girl, and about to get married too.”
“No Bibi-ji, I am no longer a child, am I?” says Jhoomri.
Amma pats her on the shoulder and says, “Don't worry, you'll be happy, you'll learn how to be happy with Mungroo.”
“Yes,” says Jhoomri.
“And your window?” I ask, totally confused now. How can Jhoomri be happy about marrying Mungroo? “Will you be getting your pink window today Jhoomri?”
“What will I do with a window now, child?” asks Jhoomri. And all of a sudden she sounds just like my mother.
Told from the point of view of a capricious seven-year-old, “Jhoomri's Window” is a bittersweet story about growing up and turning in one's vibrant cloak of idealism for the more muted colours of pragmatism and practicality.
"Catechism" by Wayne Johnston
He had always had great reserves of politeness, consideration, and forbearance, which were fatally combined with a desire to be liked, and so he had never been able to dismiss someone out of hand or offend them even when he knew it would have served their interests even more than his if they were to never meet again.
Much more happens in “Catechism” than one would expect to find in the average short story. The narrator shows us little moments, without judgement, from the life of the main character. In many ways his life is on hold, static and dreary like the Canadian winter in which much of the story takes place. He fails to connect with anyone even though he yearns for connection. In the end, he must confront the fact that he is unhappy. While “Catechism” is not very uplifting, it felt very emotionally true.
"An Easy Life" by Bronwen Wallace
Sometimes what Marion thinks is simply that she's lucky to have such an easy life. “Karma” some of their friends used to call it, hanging out at the farm, smoking black hash, letting the boys run naked through the fields.
Other times she knows damn well it's because of Carl and their double income, her education, her parents' double income even, everything that's made her luck possible. Political, not spiritual, and she should damn well face up to what that means. Whatever that means.
Sometimes she just doesn't know, and it scares her.
This story moved me because of Wallace's portrayal of parallels ... how circumstances beyond our control can profoundly influence our lives, more than we'd like to admit. “An Easy Life” also has a ray of hope, as Marion Walker's easy life is not an empty one, and she manages to pay her karma forward to the young Tracey Harper.
"The Art of Cooking and Serving" by Margaret Atwood
I couldn't understand why she'd chosen to do what she'd done—why she'd turned herself into this listless, bloated version of herself, thus changing the future—my future—into something shadow-filled and uncertain. I thought she'd done it on purpose. It didn't occur to me that she might have been ambushed.
To a child, everything is amplified, larger than life. Additional responsibilities—such as caring for one's pregnant mother or for a younger baby sibling—can seem like monumental tasks. Atwood replicates the stresses a child can feel, and the ways in which he or she copes in the absence of real parental guidance. I loved both the tone of the narrator and the denouement, in which the narrator seeks her freedom. There's a certain amount of generational observation here, as modern children have a sort of independence less common in previous generations of families.
"The Glass Sphere" by Sean Virgo
“The sphere had frozen, and baked. The air inside it, which was the breath of a man, had made frost-flowers upon its walls, and had filled it with mist.”
The title is slightly misleading, since the story is less about the sphere than it is about how that sphere connects two people across two centuries. It's about the breath trapped inside the sphere, the incredible journey on which it has gone, carried in the seemingly-indestructible blown-glass vessel, until it was finally released and taken in by another person. Virgo writes with such wonderful conviction; his descriptions are beautiful, as is this story.
"Constance" by Virgil Burnett
The identity of the partner in the sins of which Constance was suspected by the court gossips was a subject of endless discussion. A multitude of theories was advanced, factions developed, and the probability of each candidate for her affections was debated hotly and with utter frankness. . . .
Evidence was collected by every imaginable means. Servants were threatened, bribed, beaten. Patrols were organized along the ramparts so that Constance's windows could be constantly observed. Informing, eavesdropping, and spying became as prevalent in the palace as gossip had always been. This diligence was rewarded by the exposure of a score of entertaining scandals, but none of them involved Thibault's wife.
This is one of my favourite stories because it's just so different from the rest of the anthology. It actually has a plot, for one thing. And I love this idea that the courtiers are going to such great lengths to discover if Constance is having an affair (all the while she is, although her lover's identity is never discovered). Burnett uses this irony to inject some humour into a story that might otherwise be considered tragic or even haunting.
December 15, 2008
I know that this book has been criticized and demonized in the press, but it was a fabulous read and really impressed on me that Canadian short story writers are world class. As an aspirant in the same genre, I am humbled at the level one is supposed to reach to be published as a short story writer in Canada.
Congratulations Jane for the courage to choose the stories you selected. Yes, not everyone can be included and there will be a few bleeding hearts, but thanks for unearthing this gem of a collection that I would have not got to if it had not come in this format
Congratulations Jane for the courage to choose the stories you selected. Yes, not everyone can be included and there will be a few bleeding hearts, but thanks for unearthing this gem of a collection that I would have not got to if it had not come in this format
June 9, 2020
This was an incredibly frustrating anthology.
I think the mere fact that the first story is about European settlers coming over on a ship says all about what Canada means to the editor. There are maybe one two stories by indigenous authors, a few poc stories, no queer stories. Maybe for every 10 story about European immigrants making life work the editor could have included one BIPOC story but alas that would’ve been too much. Instead we go on and on with stories involving horses and farms and cabins and the world wars. I felt being back in high school social studies class but honestly even there towards the end of the semester we talked “multiculturalism” and “Canada’s diversity.” That is not the case in this book.
At first I read every story but since they all use the same motifs and storylines I started filtering out the male authors and towards the end any story that was about fishing or harvesting or farming. 660 pages is way too long even for an anthology specially when all the authors share similar backgrounds and write about the same thing.
All the authors were born in early 20th century and the anthology neglects to include any fresh Canadian talent.
The vision of Canada represented in this book is not that shared by me or frankly anyone I know.
Do we really need short stories by Stephen Leacock or Margaret Atwood just because they’re famous? Neither is exactly known for their short stories.
I think the mere fact that the first story is about European settlers coming over on a ship says all about what Canada means to the editor. There are maybe one two stories by indigenous authors, a few poc stories, no queer stories. Maybe for every 10 story about European immigrants making life work the editor could have included one BIPOC story but alas that would’ve been too much. Instead we go on and on with stories involving horses and farms and cabins and the world wars. I felt being back in high school social studies class but honestly even there towards the end of the semester we talked “multiculturalism” and “Canada’s diversity.” That is not the case in this book.
At first I read every story but since they all use the same motifs and storylines I started filtering out the male authors and towards the end any story that was about fishing or harvesting or farming. 660 pages is way too long even for an anthology specially when all the authors share similar backgrounds and write about the same thing.
All the authors were born in early 20th century and the anthology neglects to include any fresh Canadian talent.
The vision of Canada represented in this book is not that shared by me or frankly anyone I know.
Do we really need short stories by Stephen Leacock or Margaret Atwood just because they’re famous? Neither is exactly known for their short stories.
June 21, 2022
Some of these stories were very good, but many were boring or hard to follow. At certain points, it seemed like much of this 700-page anthology was dreary descriptions of the weather and prairie landscapes. However, I was able to find a few excellent stories (listed below). I’ll be looking out for these authors’ other works.
My favourite stories (in no particular order):
The Wedding - Dennis Bock
The Collectors - Rohinton Mistry
Fever - Sharon Butala
The Baby in the Airmail Box - Thomas King
Horses of the Night - Margaret Laurence
My favourite stories (in no particular order):
The Wedding - Dennis Bock
The Collectors - Rohinton Mistry
Fever - Sharon Butala
The Baby in the Airmail Box - Thomas King
Horses of the Night - Margaret Laurence
June 28, 2010
There are true gems in this collection - stories that resonate with the Canadian consciousness, that intangible quality of what it is to be Canadian that we cannot articulate when asked, but is best understood through out stories.
I'm an avid short story reader and this collection is at the top of my heap.
I'm an avid short story reader and this collection is at the top of my heap.
August 17, 2010
I skipped a few, but overall loved this book. I really like short stories as I can read them as slowly or quickly as I want to.
March 21, 2013
“When a point of view is no longer singular but prismatic, the possibilities are both gorgeous and endless….A singular act of revelation joins with another and then another and the question of where the voice is coming from is kept alive, beautiful because it can never be fully or accurately answered.” (Jane Urquhart/ Intro)
"'Do you see that I must tell this story?' asked the professor, believing that he had found at last a man of vision and justice.
'I see that this is your struggle,' said the hermit. 'It is with you, and with God.'" (Claire Messud/ The Professor’s History)
“Protestants tell a story best the first time; Catholics, the last time.” (Michael Winter/This All Happened)
“But it is in your hidden hands that we would find the deep resolve of your life.” (Dionne Brand/One Down)
“She wanted to tell him that she too had been gone, that she had been exploring, lost, in a wild, violent country, that she had narrowly escaped, that she had had to tear herself away, lest the swamps and bogs and blackness claim her forever.” (Sharon Butala/Fever)
“They woke to the apprehension of what the neighbours would say; they knew that, as always in Nova Scotia, ostentation was made to be undermined.” (Charles Ritchie/My Grandfather’s House)
“Now indifference is the one thing that all my life I have found it least possible to bear. I did not know that old people must have at least a trace of it, however, if they are to withstand the blow of seeing something taken from them each day.” (Gabrielle Roy/The Road Past Altamont)
“Her progress was arrested, he reckons, back in the creature stage, when she was supposed to learn to socialize with the other little crawlers at playschool. But she got to books early and became a person while other people’s offspring were still engaging little geckos.” (Annabel Lyon/Joe In The Afterlife)
December 3, 2018
I was hoping and expecting to give this anthology five stars for two reasons: 1.) I like Jane Urquhart's writing; 2.) I love Canada. I can only give it four stars though for two reasons: 1.) there is a paucity of French-Canadian writing sampled in it; 2.) the bookbinder made a major blunder that I did not notice until I had read almost half the book, and that was that six stories from part three, entitled "Lunch Conversation" were left out (including two by Michael Ondaatje and two by Ethel Wilson), and eight stories were inserted a second time in their stead. I expect better even from a mass producer of paperbacks like Penguin.
March 7, 2015
Anthologies are hard to rate. Most of the stories included in this volume are fantastic, others, not so much, but that is the nature of anthologies like this. At first I was disappointed that this anthology did not include more of the tried and true, familiar CanLit short stories from the authors I was familiar with, there are a few, but many of the authors were names I was familiar with, but had not previously read. After reading a few of the selections, I came to realize that what I previously thought was a weakness was in fact the collections greatest strength. This collection made me read authors that I might otherwise have passed over. By the end of the book, I had identified a number of authors to read more of. Because it introduced me to such a diverse group of additional Canadian authors, the book deserves its five star rating and should be read by all fans of CanLit.
July 16, 2010
It is a collection of short stories by different authors, and therefore very difficult to review: the three stars are nonsensical.
The authors that I've discovered, however, are:
*Merna Summers
*Mavis Gallant
*M.G. Vassanji
*Adrienne Poy
*Ernest Buckler
*Erick McCormack
And on a lesser note:
*Thomas King
*Hugh Cormack
The authors that I've discovered, however, are:
*Merna Summers
*Mavis Gallant
*M.G. Vassanji
*Adrienne Poy
*Ernest Buckler
*Erick McCormack
And on a lesser note:
*Thomas King
*Hugh Cormack
Want to read
January 11, 2008685 pages of firstclass writing selected by a firstclass fiction writer so we can expect to be entertained royally. Cream of the crop of short stories. ENJOY !
December 6, 2008
Not bad at all--keep our neighbor to the north in mind, folks...
Currently reading
January 14, 2011So far its great
I really liked the story "Vision" by Alistair Macleod and "Heartburn" by Michael Crummey
I really liked the story "Vision" by Alistair Macleod and "Heartburn" by Michael Crummey
June 15, 2016
Great collection. The Painted Door and One Mile of Ice are riveting stories.
February 10, 2014
An excellent display of Canadian writing--containing authors who aren't necessarily founding members of the Writers' Union of Canada. One of the best Canadian anthologies I've read.
September 16, 2020
A three-year project of nearly 700 pages. The book tries to be as “Canadian” as it can be, covering many places from coast to coast and featuring pretty diverse writers... yet still, it has too many stories set in the prairies where nothing happens. 📖 Out of 69 stories, I disliked 44, thought 16 were ok and loved 9. 🤷♂️ I’m a picky reader, but still, I don’t think Jane Urquhart made the greatest choices. Top stories (no order): Gussy & the boss, the collectors, Presbyterian crosswalk, dead girls, real life writes real bad, strayed, the man doll, horses of the night, the baby in the airmail box 👶 📦
December 17, 2024
For having read most of the short stories in this book for a class on Canadian short stories, I must admit that I had a better time that I expected at first. The stories are well chosen and some connect together extremely well. I hope to come back to some of them at some point.
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