"Selected Stories" by Alice Munro
"The Spa" by Fay Weldon
"Embers" by Sandor Marai
I started reading through Munro's selected stories after she won the Booker International Prize recently. We have all her collections and I've read them all but I thought the selected stories would be a good way to give me a taste of the various collections. When I mentioned this to Claire she asked "Did she develop as a writer or was she just always great?" I had to answer she was always great. In fact, one of her earliest stories, "The Dance of the Happy Shades" is just amazing.
"Embers" was a novel originally published in Budapest in 1942 and was translated into English and released in 2001. It's a very engaging story with wonderful descriptions but I was beginning to feel it was rather melodramatic and predictible and felt it needed an Alice Munro touch. Well, lo and behold, it ends up that way!
I was very amused by "The Spa" but picked up Embers half way through because it was due soon, couldn't put it down, loved it, and then found Weldon quite tiresome and silly when I picked it up again so read a bit more of it but think I will put it down.
