Caroline

The Stone Diaries
~Carol Shields

Last Saturday following a lovely book group lunch (s/o to the We All Float gang) we headed to the bookshop. Do I need more books, no but I’ll always purchase. No guilt. I wandered and there shining out from a low shelf was ‘The Stone Diaries’, a book mentioned only the week before to me. I had asked @greigsbooks to recommend his choice in Canadian novels and authors I should read. Of course Greig came up with a great list which included the renowned Carol Shields, and her Pulitzer Prize wining novel - The Stone Diaries.
A sign is a sign.

This is a novel of an ordinary Canadian woman, Daisy Goodwill. From her birth in 1905 to her death as an old lady, it spans the 20th century and takes in all that an ordinary life leads.
I loved it. A character driven story, a fictional biography (sometimes auto-biography) that looks at a life lived in the small everyday motions of childhood, friendships, marriage, motherhood, work and death. We see Daisy from the opinions of people around her, from her own thoughts and from those she never knew. It’s hard to explain but it’s a book that has already stirred so many thoughts for me, on the life we live everyday.

“And the question arises: what is the story of a life? A chronicle of fact or a skilfully wrought impression? “