Book description
WINNER OF THE NOBEL PRIZE IN LITERATURE
These are beguiling, provocative stories about manipulative men and the women who outwit them, about destructive marriages and curdled friendships, about mothers and sons, about moments which change or haunt a life. Alice Munro's stories surprise and delight, turning lives into art, expanding…
Why read it?
1 author picked Too Much Happiness as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?
Too Much Happiness, the title story in a 2009 collection by Alice Munro, is a fictionalised account of the last days in the life of mathematician Sofya Kovalevskaya.
What really grabbed me was the way Munro managed to express, with wonderful economy, the way that Kovalevskaya’s acceptance as a woman mathematician in the 19th century felt conditional – she won prizes but had to fight to get a job; if she travelled for work people would allude to the daughter at home who might need her: “a jab there, a suggestion familiar to her, of faulty motherhood”.
It’s a beautiful…
From Sarah's list on The best books with mathematician characters.
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