At 73, Munro continues to be one of literature's most reliable miracle workers. Every few years she produces another supremely acute and confident collection of short stories. This one focuses mostly on women in her native Canada, some of them old enough to look back over a lifetime of predicaments, some of them young enough to foresee their first real dilemmas. Munro considers them all with dry-eyed compassion.
Come fly with us, and Leo, through the best (and worst) of 2004. Tops in the cinema this year include Scorsese's Howard Hughes biopic The Aviator. Elsewhere, Deadwood was good TV, and a Strange tale fascinated readers.