Friend of My Youth: Stories

The question in the box was what did I use the product for? Support.

i bought this book a while ago and sat on my bookshelf, somehow i sort of forgot about it and what the subject was actually i even forgot i had it until one day i just picked it up and started reading it.Bought it whilst i was still living in Oz. Read it last week, after residing in Portugal for over 1 year... and i am so glad i waited.It made me miss australia, all the familiar names and tv shows and journalists and lingo...The book is fabulous, recomend it no worries but i wont bore you with details, they are available just up in the editors area.Just buy it and read it!

This is my least favorite of Munro's story-suites, the only one I wouldn't give five stars. Perhaps I'm simply defensive as a male reader, but the men in these stories seem more despicable than most of my friends and I find the women hard to share time with. These stories attend more to Munro's identity as a writer, also, making them annoyingly self-referential and literary. Whatever you do, don't make this collection your first encounter with one of the greatest writers of our lifetimes.

I read Alice Munro before she became a Nobel Prize and when she got it, I felt that this ultimate recognition of her talents was very much deserved. I am always amazed at her gift to see so deeply into the human soul, to describe feelings and situations with such grace. All my admiration to this writer of awesome stories.

A+++ I love Alice Munro. She is the best! I am going to buy another copy for my daughter. I do not want to give her this copy because I am sure I will want to read these stories again. If you like short stories, you should buy this collection.

Alice Munroe is a masterful story teller, one of the great short story writers of all time.. Her stories are both emotionally and psychologically satisfying and get you thinking about experiences and events in your own life.

The title story is especially strange in many ways. I am not sure how the title tied to the story itself, not unlike a lot of her stories. I must say, I like her "Dear Life" the best.

I prefer her other works but time is never wasted with Alice Munro.

En cuanto al estado, el libro llegó bien y a tiempo. Una de las mejores colecciones de cuentos de Munro, ideal para los que quieren empezar a leerla en inglés.

This collection of ten of Alice Munro’s short stories was first published in 1990, republished seventeen years later. I took an interest in Munro’s writing after she was awarded the Nobel Prize in literature in 2013. Like most short stories they exist for a short time in the reader’s life. Some cast a spell, some leave a hunger for more and some are very forgettable. Munro is a master of the genre. She surprises readers by using different styles of writing in each story, to give them different textures compatible with different plots, characters and timelines. Few writers are as capable of doing that as she is.Speaking from a male point of view I think the majority of her stories best capture the female ethos. Often her stories reveal aspects of the woman-to-woman sharing of confidences while rivalrous undercurrents of jealousy and envy are at play. Women’s rebelliousness against conventional social expectations and their irrationality about what constitutes sexual attraction or repulsion to men are themes she loves to explore. Women’s attraction to men is certainly portrayed as much more complex and nuanced than men’s attraction to women. Perhaps men could better understand the depths of women’s inner feelings, conflicts and despair by reading Munro’s tales? This was only the second of her books I have read (the first being ‘Too Much Happiness’) but I intend to read more.

Excellent short stories. I didn't know the writer before I am ashamed to say but after her awards and publicity late in life I bought a couple of her books and really enjoyed them Recommended

I bought this by mistake, confusing the author with Alice Munro. It turned out to be pre-Mills and Boone twaddle, and I scrapped it about a quarter of the way through.

I really enjoyed these stories. All beautifully written by one of my favourite authors.