Fifty short writings by Carol Shields are compiled in this collection, featuring over two dozen previously unpublished stories and essays. These pieces provide unique insights into her creative journey, enriching the understanding of her literary contributions. Scholars and fans alike will find value in this exploration of Shields's writing life, as it showcases her diverse talent and the evolution of her work.
Carol Shields Book order (chronological)
Carol Ann Shields was an American-born Canadian author who explored the intricacies of everyday life with profound insight. Her work often delves into the inner lives of her characters, examining their relationships, memories, and the quiet dramas that shape their existence. Shields possessed a remarkable ability to render the ordinary extraordinary, using precise and evocative language to uncover the hidden complexities within seemingly simple narratives. Her exploration of themes such as identity, family, and the passage of time resonated deeply with readers, establishing her as a significant voice in contemporary literature.







Saturday Night at the Dinosaur Stomp
- 32 pages
- 2 hours of reading
A rollicking rhyming dinosaur picture book for young children.
Collected Stories
- 593 pages
- 21 hours of reading
For the first time all of Carol Shields' remarkable short stories -- some previously unpublished -- are gathered together in one volume.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.
Unless
- 320 pages
- 12 hours of reading
An author's life is turned upside-down when her beloved oldest daughter drops out of school to sit on a corner wearing a sign that only says "goodness."
Jane Austen
- 208 pages
- 8 hours of reading
Bestselling, award-winning novelist writing about one of the most popular and enduring English novelists of all time. 'Splendid ... a gem' LITERARY REVIEW
A Celibate Season
- 231 pages
- 9 hours of reading
In an original collaboration two award-winning authors, Carol Shields and Blanche Howard, have written an immensely enjoyable novel which give us both sides of a story about the breakdown of traditional roles, rules and communication in a marriage. A CELIBATE SEASON is the story of a married couple, Jocelyn and Charles, (Jock and Chas) and their self-imposed separation of ten months when Jock accepts a job in a city more than three thousand miles away from her family. As breadwinner and suddenly single again Jock is confronted with local politics, loneliness and advances from the opposite sex. Meanwhile back at home, Chas, an unemployed architect, is now a single parent who has to reacquaint himself with his teenage children, Mia and Greg, learn to run a household and shift his career priorities. Throw in an attractive young housekeeper, a mother-in-law who enjoys her wine, a touch of teenage angst, some unexpected home renovations and a disastrous Christmas dinner and you have modern family life.
Dressing Up for the Carnival
- 249 pages
- 9 hours of reading
A new collection of short stories from the author of The Stone Diaries (winner of the Pulitzer prize) and Larry's Party (winner of the Orange prize). In every town people are putting on their costumes; X slips into his wife' s lace-trimmed night gown and waltzes around his bedroom; Tamara is no longer the dull clerk receptionist when she wears that yellow skirt, she evolves into a stunning creature exuding passion and vitality. In Weather a couple's life is thrown into utter chaos when The National Association of Metereorologists go on strike -- what will they wear? what will they eat? In Soup du Jour a young boy contemplates life, the cracks in the pavement and his mother's soup-making. Each story encapsulates the human spirit, its diversities, complexities and absurdities. Shields observes with compassion the carnival that goes on in each of our lives and the realities that we create for ourselves. Carol Shields' second collection of short stories celebrates the extraordinary details that are found in ordinary, everyday lives.
Sie und Er. Er und sie
- 507 pages
- 18 hours of reading
5 Tage im Leben des über 15 Jahre verheirateten Ehepaaars Brenda und Jack Bowman, in denen sie jeweils aus eigener Sicht erzählen, geben ein gutes Bild von ihnen, ihrer Ehe und ihrer Entwicklung. Während Brenda erstmals in ihrer Ehe allein wegfliegt, um in Philadelphia an einer Kunsthandwerkerausstellung teilzunehmen, muss Jack sich um Haus und Restfamilie kümmern, Diese kurze Zeit der Trennung bringt für beide unvorhergesehene Überraschungen und Einsichten
Larry's Party
- 352 pages
- 13 hours of reading
The new novel from the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of 'The Stone Diaries'. Larry's Party is about being a man in this part of the twentieth century, when so many supports have been removed, and covers the life of its protagonist, Larry, between the ages of 27 and 47, from 1977 to 1997, and illustrates how men have had to change; it looks at how you define masculinity in the post-feminist world. Two strands run through the book: work and goodness. The chapters are at once independent of each other and yet connected, with titles like: Larry's Friends, Larry's Look, Larry's Kid, Larry's Folks, Larry's Love, Larry's Penis, Larry's Speech, Men called Larry, Larry's Alternate, Larry's Party, Larry's Real Life Life, Larry So Far, Old Larry.
Mister Sandman
- 272 pages
- 10 hours of reading
An oblique look at the capriciousness of modern life, this is the story of the Canary family. Little Joan is exquisitely tiny, plays the piano like Mozart and lives in a closet. Her sister Marcy is a numphomaniac with a poodle fixation, while Sonia is enormous, earns a fortune clipping0
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.
Die süße Tyrannei der Liebe
- 415 pages
- 15 hours of reading
The Republic of Love
- 368 pages
- 13 hours of reading
With a viewpoint that shifts as crisply as cards in the hands of a blackjack dealer, Carol Shields introduces us to two shell-shocked veterans of the wars of the heart. There's Fay, a folklorist whose passion for mermaids has kept her from focusing on any one man. And right across the street there's Tom, a popular radio talk-show host who has focused a little too intently, having married and divorced three times. Can Fay believe in lasting love with such a man? Will romantic love conquer all rational expectations? Only Carol Shields could describe so adroitly this couple who fall in love as thoroughly and satisfyingly as any Victorian couple and the modern complications that beset them in this touching and ironic book.
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
An aged woman discovers herself as she reflects upon her life in the 20th century.
Mary Swann
- 320 pages
- 12 hours of reading
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.
Life in the Clearings versus the Bush
- 344 pages
- 13 hours of reading
In the sequel to Roughing It in the Bush , Susanna Moodie portrays the relatively sophisticated society springing up in the clearings along Lake Ontario. During a trip from Belleville to Niagara Falls, Moodie acts as a meticulous observer of the social customs and practices of the times.Invaluable as social history and as a candid self-portrait, Life in the Clearings versus the Bush chronicles, with wit and wisdom, Canadian society in the mid-19th century.The NCL edition is an unabridged reprint of the complete original text.










