Something ​I've Been Meaning to Tell You

Alice Munro - Too ​Much Happiness
Short-story ​collections continue to be the bane of the publishing world - as Alice Munro herself puts it in a story here, they seem to 'diminish the book's authority, making the author seem like somebody who is just hanging on to the gates of literature, rather than safely settled inside'. Well, the septuangenarian Munro is undoubtedly safely inside; widely considered among the best in the business, earlier this year she won the International Man Booker prize. This latest collection is, as you might expect from the mocking tenor of the title, largely concerned with the elusive nature of happiness, a state of mind that, amid the chaotic everyday inhabited by Munro's characters, is impossible to fathom or control. It starts horrifically, with a woman in therapy following the murder of her three children by her demented husband. Just when you think there can be no possible relief, Munro throws in a deft, final redemptive sentence that's the equivalent of opening a window on a stifling, locked-up-room. Many stories reverberate with the aftershock of some grotesque or traumatic childhood event, from the son who falls down a ravine in Deep-Holes and the consequences this has for his mother, to the woman in Child's Play who is forced to acknowledge the guilt she has refused to bear for the death of a fellow pupil at summer camp. Munro's prose is surprisingly rangy, almost giving the impression of artlessness, yet there's nothing remotely careless about these effortless composition that run so dangerously close to real life and which, like touching an electric fence, jolt you violently alive. (Claire Allfree)

Alice Munro - The ​View from Castle Rock
A ​new collection of stories by Alice Munro is always a major event. This new collection — her most personal to date — is no exception. Alice Munro’s stories are always wonderful and so ingrained with truths about life that readers always want to know where they came from. In this book, Alice Munro tells us. In her Foreword (an unusual feature in itself), she explains how she, born Alice Laidlaw in Ontario, in recent years became interested in the history of her Laidlaw ancestors. Starting in the wilds of the Scottish Borders, she learned a great deal about a famous ancestor, born around 1700, who, as his tombstone records, “for feats of frolic, agility and strength, had no equal in his day.” She traced the family’s history with the help of that man’s nephew, the famous writer James Hogg, finding to her delight that each generation of the family had produced a writer who wanted to record what had befallen them. In this way, she was able to follow the family’s voyage to Canada in 1818, and their hard times as pioneers — once a father dies on the same day that a daughter is born in the same frontier cabin. “I put all this material together over the years,” Alice tells us, “and almost without my noticing what was happening, it began to shape itself, here and there, into something almost like stories. Some of the characters gave themselves to me in their own words, others rose out of their situations.” As the book goes down through the generations, we come to Robert Laidlaw, Alice’s father, and then, at the book’s heart, the stories become first-person stories, set duringher lifetime. So is this a memoir? No. She drew on personal experiences, “but then I did anything I wanted to with this material, because the chief thing I was doing was making a story.” The resulting collection of stories range from the title story — where through a haze of whiskey Alice’s ancestors gaze north from Edinburgh Castle at the Fife coast, believing that it is North America — all the way to the final story, where we travel with “Alice Munro” today. In the author’s words, these stories “pay more attention to the truth of a life than fiction usually does. But not enough to swear on.” All of them are Alice Munro stories. There could be no higher praise.

Alice Munro - Alice ​Munro's Best
In ​her lengthy and fascinating introduction Margaret Atwood says “Alice Munro is among the major writers of English fiction of our time... Among writers themselves, her name is spoken in hushed tones.” This splendid gift edition is sure to delight Alice Munro’s growing body of admirers, what Atwood calls her “devoted international readership.” Long-time fans of her stories will enjoy meeting old favourites, where their new setting in this book may reveal new sides to what once seemed a familiar story; devoted followers may even dispute the exclusion of a specially-beloved story. Readers lucky enough to have found her recently will be delighted, as one masterpiece succeeds another. The 17 stories are carefully arranged in the order in which she wrote them, which allows us to follow the development of her range. “A Wilderness Station,” for example, breaks “short story rules” by taking us right back to the 1830s then jumping forward more than 100 years. “The Albanian Virgin” destroys the idea that her stories are set in B.C. or in Ontario’s “Alice Munro Country.” And “The Bear Came Over the Mountain,” the story behind the film Away From Her, takes us far from the world of young girls learning about sex into unflinching old age. This is a book to read slowly, savouring each story. It deserves a place in every Canadian book-lover’s library.

Alice Munro - The ​Beggar Maid
Born ​into the back streets of a small Canadian town, Rose battled incessantly with her practical and shrewd step-mother, Flo, who cowed her with tales of her own past and warnings of the dangerous world outside. But Rose was ambitious - she won a scholarship and left for Toronto where she married Patrick. She was his Beggar Maid, 'meek and voluptuous, with her shy white feet', and he was her knight, content to sit and adore her...

Alice Munro - Friend ​of My Youth
In ​Friend of my Youth, Alice Munro once again dazzles with her finely nuanced depictions of the human heart. These ten stories bring to life characters in a remarkable variety of times and places. As always, Alice Munro's people are as real and recognizable as ourselves.

Alice Munro - Dance ​of the Happy Shades
Alice ​Munro's territory is the farms and semi-rural towns of south-western Ontario. In these dazzling stories she deals with the self-discovery of adolescence, the joys and pains of love and the despair and guilt of those caught in a narrow existence. And in sensitively exploring the lives of ordinary men and women, she makes us aware of the universal nature of their fears, sorrows and aspirations.

Alice Munro - The ​Moons of Jupiter
In ​these piercingly lovely and endlessly surprising stories by one of the most acclaimed current practitioners of the art of fiction, many things happen: there are betrayals and reconciliations, love affairs consummated and mourned. But the true events in The Moons Of Jupiter are the ways in which the characters are transformed over time, coming to view their past selves with an anger, regret, and infinite compassion that communicate themselves to us with electrifying force.

Alice Munro - The ​Love of a Good Woman
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 unsuitable lovers, pushing everyday life to the limits, and if they don't behave badly, they think surprising and disturbing thoughts.

Lucy Maud Montgomery - Christmas ​with Anne
Sixteen ​stories from Canada’s best-loved author, Lucy Maud Montgomery. Christmas and New Year’s is a season of celebration and reflection, of taking stock of the months gone by and looking forward to the year to come. Above all it is an occasion to remember the values and concerns of a past that seems increasingly distant – except when that world is brought to life once more in the stories of L.M. Montgomery. The Anne stories in this collection—from Anne of Green Gables and Anne of Windy Poplars—are old favourites, but joining them are tales that are new to this generation of Montgomery fans. Written around the turn of the century, they have never before been published in book form.

Timothy Findley - Dust ​to Dust
Ehhez a könyvhöz nincs fülszöveg, de ettől függetlenül még rukkolható/happolható.

Sylvia Plath - Johnny ​Panic and the Bible of Dreams
"What ​I fear most, I think, is the death of the imagination.... If I sit still and don't do anything, the world goes on beating like a slack drum, without meaning. We must be moving, working, making dreams to run toward; the poverty of life without dreams is too horrible to imagine."-- Sylvia Plath, from Notebooks, February 1956 Renowned for her poetry, Sylvia Plath was also a brilliant writer of prose. This collection of short stories, essays, and diary excerpts highlights her fierce concentration on craft, the vitality of her intelligence, and the yearnings of her imaginaton. Featuring an introduction by Plath's husband, the late British poet Ted Hughes, these writings also reflect themes and images she would fully realize in her poetry. Jonny Panic and the Bible of Dreams truly showcases the talent and genius of Sylvia Plath.

Lucy Maud Montgomery - Akin ​to Anne
Canada’s ​L. M. Montgomery is beloved by readers from Japan to Poland as the creator of the irresistible Anne of Green Gables. In this exciting collection of rediscovered tales — none of which has been available since its original publication — L. M. Montgomery has brought to life a multitude of characters who share not only Anne’s initial loneliness and vulnerability but also her spunkiness and charm. Their stories are told in Montgomery’s own inimitable, heart-warming style. This important new collection reclaims at last a long-last part of our rich literary heritage. Never before have these charming and poignant tales of orphans been assembled within one cover. Admirers of Montgomery will treasure this anthology; it reflects her personal experience of loneliness and lovelessness, and her bittersweet memories of adversity overcome. Akin to Anne is the first in a series of rediscovered stories to be collected in book form which will be published by McClelland & Stewart.

Alice Munro - The ​Progress of Love
A ​divorced woman returns to her childhood home where she confronts the memory of her parents' confounding yet deep bond. The accidental near-drowning of a child exposes the fragility of the trust between children and parents. A young man, remembering a terrifying childhood incident, wrestles with the responsibility he has always felt for his younger brother. In these and other stories Alice Munro proves once again a sensitive and compassionate chronicler of our times. Drawing us into the most intimate corners of ordinary lives, she reveals much about ourselves, our choices, and our experiences of love.

Edgar Allan Poe - Rejtelmes ​történetek / Mystery stories
A ​sötét éjszaka mesterében, Poe-ban minden együtt van: ő a kánon, a kinyilatkoztatás, ő a törvény, s ami azon felül van benne, az az ördögtől való. A fantasztikus elbeszélés és a bizarr rémtörténet legnagyobb képviselője mellesleg megteremtette a logikára alapított detektívtörténetek később oly divatossá vált műfaját. Bár a krimiszerzők névsora lassan körbeéri az egyenlítőt, a mesterség alapjait mindenki Poe-tól tanulta. A detektívregény minden lényeges eleme együtt van a történeteiben: a titokzatos bűntény, a több gyanúsított, a remek logikával és emberismerettel rendelkező amatőr detektív, akinek a hivatalos nyomozás képviselőivel is meg kell küzdenie. Az általa megteremtett leltár azóta sem igen bővült. Poe a detektívregényt az általa művelt rémmese örökségével keresztelte meg. Ő nem a világban megjelenő gonosztett külső valóságát ragadja meg, hanem a lélek mélységében gyökerező bűntett belső valóságát. "A detektívregényt - mondja Van Doren Stern - éppúgy, mint a könyvnyomtatást, csupán technikailag tökéletesítették. Mint művészi alkotást sem Gutenberg bibliáját, sem Poe A Morgue utcai kettős gyilkosság című művét nem múlták felül soha."

Lucy Maud Montgomery - Along ​the Shore
This ​is a collection of sixteen short stories (re-discovered and re-published in 1989 by Rea Wilmshurst) by popular writer L.M. Montgomery which captures the haunting beauty and drama of living on Prince Edward Island, surrounded by the sea.

Lucy Maud Montgomery - Among ​the Shadows
These ​nineteen fascinating stories are unlike any others L.M. Montgomery ever wrote. Filled with strange and supernatural occurrences, they are peopled with drunkards, embezzlers, and thieves: A woman confesses to murder after she has passed away. . . . A righteous deacon gets a taste of his own bitter medicine. . . . An amateur photographer records a dark deed. . . . The ghost of a woman's sweetheart comes to bid her good-bye. . . . Somber, dark, and brooding, these intriguing stories suggest that love really can last beyond death and that poetic justice does exist. Each of these wonderful tales is full of the strength of Montgomery's own inner resources.

Lucy Maud Montgomery - At ​the Altar
In ​these stories Montgomery’s characters find that on the way to the altar hindrances arise in the form of stern parents, awkward circumstances, misunderstandings (and one very determined cat). But the obstacles to the course of true love are removed by a wonderful assortment of means: Montgomery brings maiden aunts to the rescue; two pairs of twins play major roles; a marauding pig is an unusual cupid; the lovers themselves come up with striking solutions. Whether you live on a farm and marry the boy (or girl) next door, whether you are rich or poor, whether you move to exotic climes or simply across the village, whether you are young and trembling and romantic or old and staid and prosaic, in Montgomery’s hands your happiness as a bride (or groom) seems assured. At the Altar: Matrimonial Tales is the sixth volume of L.M. Montgomery’s rediscovered stories to be published by McClelland and Stewart. Akin to Anne, Along the Shore, Among the Shadows, After Many Days, and Against the Odds preceded this collection.

Rohinton Mistry - Swimming ​Lessons and Other Stories from Firozsha Baag
Firozsha ​Baag is an apartment building in Bombay. Its ceilings need plastering and some of the toilets leak appallingly, but its residents are far from desperate, though sometimes contentious and unforgiving. In these witty, poignant stories, Mistry charts the intersecting lives of Firozsha Baag, yielding a delightful collective portrait of a middle-class Indian community poised between the old ways and the new. "A fine collection...the volume is informed by a tone of gentle compassion for seemingly insignificant lives."—Michiko Kakutani, New York Times

Alice Munro - Runaway
In ​Alice Munro's new collection, we find stories about women of all ages and circumstances, their lives made palpable by the subtlety and empathy of this incomparable writer." The runaway of the title story is a young woman who, though she thinks she wants to, is incapable of leaving her husband. In "Passion," a country girl emerging into the larger world via a job in a resort hotel discovers in a single moment of stunning insight the limits and lies of that mysterious emotion. Three stories are about a woman named Juliet - in the first, she escapes from teaching at a girls' school into a wild and irresistible love match; in the second she returns with her child to the home of her parents, whose life and marriage she finally begins to examine; and in the last, her child, caught, she mistakenly thinks, in the grip of a religious cult, vanishes into an unexplained and profound silence. In the final story, "Powers," a young woman with the ability to read the future sets off a chain of events that involves her husband-to-be and a friend in a lifelong pursuit of what such a gift really means, and who really has it.

Lucy Maud Montgomery - Against ​the Odds
In ​Against the Odds: Tales of Achievement, Montgomery has once again created for us believable characters who live in a world she knew well and depicted lovingly and accurately, the small villages and towns of eastern and western Canada. Though her characters are distant from us in time, their problems are very similar to those we have today, and their methods of solving them not very different. Just as Montgomery’s characters have to explore all feasible methods of reaching their goals, so young people today have to be inventive and intelligent, quick to notice a need they can fill. Just as her “disadvantaged” characters have to do battle to prove their worth in the face of prejudice and distrust, so do we all today have to learn to deal with set opinions and unswerving, even if erroneous, beliefs. Old-fashioned Montgomery may be, but out of fashion, never. Against the Odds: Tales of Achievement is the fifth volume of L.M. Montgomery’s rediscovered stories to be published by McClelland & Stewart. Akin to Anne: Tales of Other Orphans, Along the Shore: Tales by the Sea, Among the Shadows: Tales of the Darker Side, and After Many Days: Tales of Time Passed preceded this collection.