Genius: Alice Munro is, by my reckoning, the greatest short story writer of our time. Her collection, The Progress of Love, is ample proof. I recommend her work with trepidation to aspiring short story writers because her writing is intimidatingly exquisite. Charles Baxter or Lorrie Moore could profit from a session in the batting cage with Munro, but for most everybody else, it would be like taking your Tee-Ball Leaguer for a hitting tutorial with Ted Williams. What's so good about Munro's writing? Foremost is her precision. The center of the short story writer's craft is economy. It's very difficult to find a word that doesn't advance both story and theme in Munro's work. The reader finds himself stopping to ponder passages not because they're opaque but because they are so powerfully rendered and so intricately woven. I've taught "Monsieur Les Deux Chapeaux" for seven years, and Ross's moment on the bridge never fails to transport me and my students. I don't expect to find an end to my thought about this moment or the story itself. It will unquestionably remain a short story by which I measure all others.

Stories, fun stories, but I don't like stories, so I haven't read the book beyond the first two stories. ( )

The characters in these 11 short stories have hearts that are startled or weighed down by the responsibilities of love, or which are gnawed by hidden hate and cruelty. PW wrote that Munro offers "a freshness of vision, a breadth of sympathy and a wide-ranging imagination."

A prize-winning Canadian author, Munro has been praised for such works as The Moons of Jupiter and The Beggar Maid. This collection of 11 stories thoughtfully explores the themes of self-knowledge and love. Families, friends, eccentrics, lovers, the characters all bear the marks and burdens of unpredictable individualism and humanity. Girlish friendship and imaginings end in betrayal, estrangement, and self-revelation over the years in "Jesse and Meribeth." A small-town nurse in "Eskimo" unveils layers of female obligation and the complexities of love when trying to befriend a young girl on a plane to Tahiti. "A Queer Streak" has about it the satisfying subtlety, wholeness, and horror of legend.