There is so much one can think of saying about a single story, but it would be longer than is customary in a comment like this one. Shifts, twists, insights are in each of these stories. My favorite stories were the first two, the last, 'Executioners', and 'Winter Wind'.

I don't know if I have ever read anything that speaks so eloquently to the complex emotions we face as we pass through the optimistic hopes and romantic ideals of youth into the heavy realities and disappointments of middle age to complex observations of elder years. Alice Munro conveys the subtle nuance of relationship, perception and feelings of isolation that envelope women at various periods in our lives. I'm not sure I would have appreciated the writing when I was younger, but it is just right for now.

I haven't read too many short stories lately since Jhumpa Lahiri's Interpreter of Maladies, but I must say that Alice Munro's stories are on the same level.