2026 Reading Challenge
Selected Stories

Questions About Selected Stories

by Alice Munro

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Answered Questions (2)

silly question, are the stories to be read in order?
dytritia I think the answer could be derived from an excerpt of the introduction that Alice Munro wrote for Vintage Edition:

I wrote an essay several years ago …moreI think the answer could be derived from an excerpt of the introduction that Alice Munro wrote for Vintage Edition:

I wrote an essay several years ago for my friend John Metcalf, in which I said something that got a surprised reaction from readers—and their surprise surprised me. I said that I don't always, or even usually, read stories from beginning to end. I start anywhere and proceed in either direction. So it appears that I'm not reading—at least in an efficient way—to find out what happens. I do find out, and I'm interested in finding out, but there's much more to the experience. A story is not like road to follow, I said, it's more like a house. You go inside and stay there for a while, wandering back and forth and settling where you like and discovering how the room and corridors relate to each other, how the world outside is altered by being viewed from these windows. And you, the visiter, the reader, are altered as well by being in this enclosed space, whether it is ample and easy or full of crooked turns, or sparsely or opulently furnished. You can go back again and again, and the house, the story, always contains more than you saw the last time. It has also a sturdy sense of itself, of being built out of its own necessity, not just to shelter or beguile you. To deliver a story like that, durable and freestanding, is what I'm always hoping for.(less)
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Opening lines to first story in collection?
dytritia
After supper my father says, "Want to go down and see if the Lake's still there?"

Walker Brothers Cowboy.…more
After supper my father says, "Want to go down and see if the Lake's still there?"

Walker Brothers Cowboy.(less)
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