Alice Munro’s new collection of short stories, Dear Life, is out today. I don’t know how many more Munro short stories we’re going to get since she is 81 and has threatened retirement before (thankfully, she didn’t carry through). Munro is my favorite living author. Her stories are both bitter and compassionate. Though on the surface they may seem traditional as they dwell on the seemingly simple but ultimately terrifying ordinary moments in life, they are structurally, syntactically, and thematically ambitious. They don’t leave me, so this release is a big deal.

Rather than post a review of the collection as a whole, I’d like to make this post a kind of anchor index. Several of the stories were published in The New Yorker over the last couple of years, so I already have reviews of them complete with a string of rich comments from others. Here I’m going to link to those reviews and then review each remaining story in Dear Life on its own over the next little while. As I post reviews, I will update the links below. In the end, below I will post some final thoughts on the collection as a whole.

• To Reach Japan (reviewed November 13, 2012)
• Amundsen (reviewed August 20, 2012)
• Leaving Maverley (reviewed November 21, 2011)
• Gravel (reviewed June 20, 2011)
• Haven (reviewed March 2, 2012)
• Pride (reviewed November 16, 2012)
• Corrie (reviewed October 11, 2010)
• Train (reviewed November 20, 2012)
• In Sight of the Lake (reviewed November 28, 2012)
• Dolly (reviewed December 7, 2012)
• The Eye (reviewed January 3, 2013)
• Night (reviewed January 16, 2013)
• Voices (reviewed January 23, 2013)
• Dear Life (reviewed January 25, 2013)

For some reason “Axis,” one of my favorites of the last few years and which was just included in the Best American Short Stories: 2012, is not in this collection. Click here for my thoughts on “Axis.”