Small Ceremonies Open Market Ed Pb - Softcover

SHIELDS, CAROL

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1857023587 ISBN 13: 9781857023589

Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers, 1995

Synopsis

"This is simply a stunning novel, polished to perfection but never labored. . . . My recommendation is to buy this now and to indulge yourself by enjoying what is in fact a modern classic." -- Literary Review "Small Ceremonies is a fine [novel], lucid, and written with great assurance."-- The Guardian The superb first novel from the author of The Stone Diaries, winner of the Governor General's Award, a National Book Critics Circle Award and the Pulitzer Prize. Judith Gill is a well-respected biographer who desperately wants to write fiction. When she joins her academic husband on sabbatical in Birmingham, she finds on the shelves of their rented flat the notes of a failed novelist. With considerable guilt, Judith decides to plagiarize one of the ideas and brings it home to Canada to work on. Frustrated by the creative process but determined to be more imaginative, Judith attends writing classes and later discovers that her tutor, suffering from writer's block, has ripped off 'her' idea. Once again, Shields focuses her sharp gaze on the small ceremonies of life in this novel of rare intelligence and wit. - Back cover of the 1995 Vintage Canada publication "A deft and tightly woven book, and proof, if such were needed, that the apparently sudden brilliance of The Stone Diaries was not sudden at all. . . . That this early novel of Shields' should prove a delight is not surprising, but her prose is constantly so in its supple inventiveness and perfect, enlightening simplicity."-- The Times (London) "...an achievement, a novel of ideas that also moves us." -- Observer (London) "Superb bitchiness" -- Financial Post "Witty and intelligent" -- Macleans

About this title

Book Description

Carol Shields wrote dazzling, haunting stories of lives just like ours, turning our interior worlds into beautiful labyrinths—a writer worthy of comparison to fellow Canadian greats Alice Munro and Margaret Atwood.

About the Author

Carol Shields (1935-2003) was born in Oak Park, Illinois. She studied at Hanover College, the University of Exeter in England, and the University of Ottawa. In 1957, she married Donald Shields and moved to Canada permanently. She taught at the University of Ottawa, the University of British Columbia, and the University of Manitoba, and served as chancellor of the University of Winnipeg. She wrote ten novels and three short story collections, in addition to poetry, plays, criticism, and a biography of Jane Austen. Her novel The Stone Diaries won the Pulitzer Prize, the Governor General's Award, and the National Book Critics Circle Award; it was also shortlisted for the Booker Prize. Shields was further recognized with a Canada Council Major Award, two Canadian National Magazine Awards, the Canadian Authors Association Award, and countless other prizes and honors.

About this edition

• Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
• Publication date: 1995
• ISBN 10: 1857023587
• ISBN 13: 9781857023589
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 179