Carol Shields Books

A rollicking rhyming dinosaur picture book for young children.

For the first time all of Carol Shields' remarkable short stories -- some previously unpublished -- are gathered together in one volume. volumes: Various Miracles, The Orange Fish and Dressing Up for the Carnival. Some of the stories in these individual collections have never before been published in the UK, and we add to these wonderful shorter fictions a chapter from Carol Shields' last, unfinished, novel Segue. that won so many readers to her prize-winning novels such as The Stone Diaries and Unless.

An aged woman discovers herself as she reflects upon her life in the 20th century.

Barbara Gowdy's outrageous, hilarious, disturbing, and compassionate novel is about the Canary family, their immoderate passions and eccentricities, and their secret lives and histories. The deepest secret of all is harbored in the silence of the youngest daughter, Joan, who doesn't grow, who doesn't speak, but who can play the piano like Mozart though she's never had a lesson. Joan is a mystery, and in the novel's stunning climax her family comes to understand that each of them is a mystery, as marvelous as Joan, as irreducible as the mystery of life itself. In its compassionate investigation of moral truths and its bold embrace of the fractured nature of every one of its characters, Mister Sandman attains the heightened quality of a modern-day parable.

Larry Weller, born in 1950, is an ordinary guy made extraordinary by his creator's perception, irony and tenderness. Carol Shields gives us, as it were, a CAT scan of his life, in episodes between 1977 and 1997 that flash back and forward seamlessly. As Larry journeys toward the millennium, adapting to society's changing expectations of men, Shields' elegant prose makes the trivial into the momentous. Among all the paradoxes and accidents of his existence, Larry moves through the spontaneity of the seventies, the blind enchantment of the eighties and the lean, mean nineties, completing at last his quiet, stubborn search of self. Larry's odyssey mirrors the male condition at the end of our century with targeted wit, unerring poignancy and faultless wisdom.

Carol Shields's award-winning and critically acclaimed "literary mystery," first published in 1987. Swann is the story of four individuals who become entwined in the life of Mary Swann, a rural Canadian poet whose authentic and unique voice is discovered only hours before her husband hacks her to pieces.Who is Mary Swann? And how could she have produced these works of genius in almost complete isolation? Mysteriously, all traces of Swann's existence — her notebook, the first draft of her work, even her photograph — gradually vanish as the characters in this engrossing novel become caught up in their own concepts of who Mary Swann was.

A celebration of love in its many guises, The Republic of Love recounts the heartfelt tale of two of life's unlucky lovers: Fay, a folklorist whose passion for mermaids has kept her from focusing on any one man; and, right across the street, Tom, a popular radio talk-show host who s been through three marriages and divorces in his search for true happiness.

Two stories from a marriage in crisis: thewife's story and the husband's story. The setting issuburbia, the time frame a week spent apart. She goes toa quilting convention where she has an affair, he stayshome to mind the kids and discuss manhood with a friendwho has been abandoned by his wife

Bestselling, award-winning novelist writing about one of the most popular and enduring English novelists of all time. 'Splendid ... a gem' LITERARY REVIEW

Leadership is one of the principal interests of the social sciences. Drawing on psychology, sociology, anthropology and business studies as well as philosophy and history, this four-volume collection focuses on democratic leadership in the political sphere. What makes a successful political leader? How much influence can an individual really have? Why are so few top political leaders women? David Bell roots this collection in the classic works of Machiavelli and Weber, before turning to the work of the American political scientists who were the first to study leadership in a systematic way in the 1960s, and coming right up-to-date with the work of Skowronek and others. Theories of leadership Machiavelli and political leadership Weber's view of political leadership Leadership character Ethics of leadership The entourage - the leader's team Political artifice in leadership The leadership effect.