Alice Munro has an uncanny ability to draw you into her stories and you are completely engaged   – time stops. Her collections of short stories are very personal, written as though she were talking to you across the kitchen table. Don’t underestimate their power, as they speak to issues that concern us all and most importantly –  human connection in all its complexity and aberration.

In her book, Too Much Happiness, her final story, “Too Much Happiness” is historical fiction, taken from Sophia Kovalevsky’s diaries, letters and writings, an extraordinary woman who was both an author and mathematician in 1890s Russia. On math, Sophia is quoted, “Many persons who have not studied mathematics confuse it with arithmetic and consider it a dry and arid science. Actually, however, this science requires great fantasy.” Alice Munro was intrigued by her and wrote a story about Sophia’s amazing life and accomplishments and how she endured the political and cultural pressures of her time.

Alice Munro‘s other books:

Dance of the Happy Shades; Lives of Girls and Women; Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage; Runaway; The View from Castle Rock; Too Much Happiness