Reading order
| # | Title | Published | Author | Buy on Amazon |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Small Ceremonies | 1976 | Carol Shields | Buy |
| 2 | The Box Garden | 1977 | Carol Shields | Buy |
| 3 | A Fairly Conventional Woman | 1982 | Carol Shields | Buy |
| 4 | Swann | 1987 | Carol Shields | Buy |
| 5 | A Celibate Season | 1991 | Carol Shields | Buy |
| 6 | The Republic of Love | 1991 | Carol Shields | Buy |
| 7 | The Stone Diaries | 1993 | Carol Shields | Buy |
| 8 | Larry’s Party | 1997 | Carol Shields | Buy |
| 9 | Unless | 2002 | Carol Shields | Buy |
| 10 | Duet | 2003 | Carol Shields | Buy |
Carol Shields published her first novel, Small Ceremonies, in 1976. It introduces Judith Gill, a biographer working on a book about a Canadian pioneer woman while navigating the competing demands of her own domestic life. The Box Garden followed a year later as a companion piece from the perspective of Judith’s sister, Charleen. These early novels already show Shields’s interest in women’s creative work and the way inner lives can run quietly beneath the surface of ordinary routines.
Her later novels grew more formally ambitious. Swann (1987) is a mystery of sorts, built around a long-dead Canadian poet named Mary Swann and the various academics and book dealers who have shaped her posthumous reputation. The Stone Diaries (1993) moves through the entire lifespan of a woman born in 1905, using photographs, letters, and shifting narrative voices to construct something that feels both documentary and elusive. Larry’s Party (1997) does something similar for a man from Winnipeg whose passion for garden mazes gives the book its structure. Her final novel, Unless (2002), is the most directly personal, addressing a mother’s grief when her daughter withdraws from the world.