{ "item_title" : "Runaway", "item_author" : [" Alice Munro "], "item_description" : "NATIONAL BESTSELLER - Eight sparkling [and] beautifully drawn (Entertainment Weekly) stories about love and its infinite betrayals and surprises, from Nobel Prize-winning author Alice MunroEach of the stories in Runaway contains enough lived life to fill a typical novel.--The Boston GlobeOne of the New York Times's 100 Best Books of the 21st Century WINNER OF THE GILLER PRIZE - A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: The New York Times, San Francisco Chronicle, Atlantic Monthly, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, San Jose Mercury News, Kansas City Star The runaway of the title story is a young woman who, though she thinks she wants to, is incapable of leaving her husband. In Passion, a country girl emerging into the larger world via a job in a resort hotel discovers a single moment of stunning insight and the limits and lies of that mysterious emotion. Three stories, the inspiration for the award-winning movie Julieta, are about a woman named Juliet--in the first, she escapes from teaching at a girls' school into a wild and irresistible love match; in the second she returns with her child to the home of her parents, whose life and marriage she finally begins to examine; and in the last, her child, caught, she mistakenly thinks, in the grip of a religious cult, vanishes into an unexplained and profound silence. In the final story, Powers, a young woman with the ability to read the future sets off a chain of events that involves her husband-to-be and a friend in a lifelong pursuit of what such a gift really means, and who really has it. In Munro's hands, the people she writes about--women of all ages and circumstances, and their friends, lovers, parents, and children--become as vivid as our own neighbors. It is her miraculous gift to make these stories as real and unforgettable as our own.", "item_img_path" : "https://covers4.booksamillion.com/covers/bam/1/40/007/791/1400077915_b.jpg", "price_data" : { "retail_price" : "19.00", "online_price" : "19.00", "our_price" : "19.00", "club_price" : "19.00", "savings_pct" : "0", "savings_amt" : "0.00", "club_savings_pct" : "0", "club_savings_amt" : "0.00", "discount_pct" : "10", "store_price" : "19.00" } }

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Runaway: Stories

Hailed as Munro's best collection yet, this is the 12th book from an author who has perfected the short story form. In these eight selections, each of which takes place in her native Canada, Munro examines the nuances of human relationships, exploring the complexities of marriage, the difficulties of parenting and the responsibilities inherent in friendship. In the title narrative, a discontented wife, aided by a neighbor, decides to leave her abusive husband, but her plan doesn't go quite as expected. A sequence of three interconnected narratives—"Chance," "Soon" and "Silence"—tells the story of Juliet, an instructor at a girls' school who quits her job to engage in a passionate love affair. The consequences of that romance—the birth of her child, a renewed relationship with her own parents—lead Juliet into a deeper understanding of herself and her decisions. The female protagonist in "Powers," who can see into the future, triggers a series of events involving her fiancé and a friend, events that alter their lives forever. Overall, the narratives in Runaway are coolly composed, possessing a quiet calm, but tension is part of what makes them work, and it hums like a hive beneath the surface of the book. At the age of 74, Munro is at the peak of her powers. A reading group guide is available in print and online at readinggroupcenter.com.