I do get swept away by cover reviews and they only lead to disappointment! I was nowhere near as entranced as the reviewers, and despite being set up to be awed, I was not awed. This is a good book; well researched, well written, and well paced. I think the problems I had are all mine - sometimes you just can't engage. I found it difficult to perceive the text as a collection of short stories, albeit linked narratives. Falling into my own trap of 'novel' thinking, I worked too hard on trying to built a continuing narrative - one that does not exist, anymore than the narrative of landscape exists - a myth that Munro abley explodes in the final chapters. One event following another is not a narrative - it is a history, and the history of family is every bit as meaningless as the history of a nation, landscape, or planet - it is something that unfolds without direction. I suppose that is my problem. I seek storytelling and I found history - however enhanced by, or distorted by, imagination. There is depth here - great depth - but on this reading, at this time, in my current set of circumstances, I was not captivated.