"Heart-stopping, utterly beautiful. . . . One of the finest contemporary story writers in the English language." –
Newsday "She has quietly emerged as one of our greatest living writers. . . . Munro has an unerring talent for uncovering the extraordinary in the ordinary." –
Newsweek "Her stories are like few others. One must go back to Tolstoy and Chekhov . . . for comparable largeness." –John Updike,
The New York Times Book Review "Makes one believe anew in fiction's power to transfigure." –
The Washington Post "A wonderful sampling of vintage Munro. . . . For those who have never read her, there is no better place to begin. And for those long familiar with her writing, there remain surprises and rediscoveries." –
San Francisco Chronicle "She seeks to evoke the mysteries of real life and she succeeds brilliantly." –
Los Angeles Times "[A] literary sensation . . . told with such perfect pitch that the results are stunning." –
USA Today "Meaty stories about love, marriage, discontent, divorce, betrayal, impulsive passion, second thoughts, deaths, even murder–stories with plenty of drama and surprise as well as reflection and meditation." –
Wall Street Journal "An entire world caught in the amber of memory. [The stories] have a quality of folk art about them–its patient amplitude, sly humor, and hard materiality." –
Village Voice "A rare pleasure . . . rich and complex . . . an excellent one-volume introduction to her work." –
Boston Book Review "Luminous.... Munro's stories ride on tone and feeling: Merely summarizing one is like describing a villa by holding up its doorbell." –
Vogue "The collection of the year. Ήere, ' as Dryden said of Chaucer, 'is God's plenty." –
Kirkus Reviews