How long is it?
361 pages in the Penguin Books 1995 paperback edition.
Fiction · Novel · Literary Fiction · Literary fiction
The Stone Diaries
CanonicalPulitzer Prize for Fiction, 1995Reading facts
✓ Checked- Reading effort
- 54 / 100Moderate
- Length
- 361 pagesPenguin Books · 1995
- Reading time
- 7 h 15 minat 50 pages an hour ·
- Pace
- Measured
- Emotional intensity
- 3 / 5
About 7 h 15 min · at 30 minutes a day, about 15 days
Estimated from the page count of this edition. Dense books can take longer than the estimate.
About the book
Born in Manitoba in 1905, Daisy Goodwill loses her mother at birth and grows up in a neighbor’s household before joining her stonecutter father in Indiana. Her life unfolds across the twentieth century through marriage, family and work, as she struggles to understand her place in a story that relatives and friends tell differently.
Reader notes
Quietly witty and reflective, the novel takes the form of a fictional biography assembled from shifting narrators, letters, photographs and lists. Its gaps and contradictions complicate the portrait of Daisy: the interest lies as much in how a life gets remembered and recorded as in what happens.
How it reads
- Writing style
- Experimental · Lyrical · Witty
- Tone
- Intimate · Melancholic · Reflective · Wistful
- Structure
- Episodic · Fragmented
- Driven by
- Character · Ideas · Voice
- Point of view
- Mixed viewpoints
- Setting
- Manitoba, Canada · Bloomington, Indiana · Ottawa, Canada · Florida, United States
Reading complexity
- Writing
- 3 / 5
- Ideas
- 4 / 5
- Structure
- 4 / 5
- Background knowledge
- 1 / 5
About this profile
Collected’s assessment, not reader ratings. Complexity runs from 1 (least demanding) to 5 (most demanding).
- Writing
- How much attention the sentences and language require.
- Ideas
- How much interpretation or abstract reasoning the book asks of you.
- Structure
- How much you need to keep track of speakers, timelines and connections.
- Background knowledge
- Prior knowledge needed to follow the book, beyond what it explains.
- Emotional intensity
- Emotional pressure, from gentle (1) to intense (5). Separate from difficulty.
Themes
- Aging
- Identity
- Marriage
- Memory
- Mortality
- Parenthood
Content notes
- Violence
- None
- Sexual content
- Mild
- Swearing
- None
- Substance use
- Mild
- Abuse
- Mild
- Self-harm or suicide
- Mild
Standing and awards
Canonical
- Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, 1995
- National Book Critics Circle Award, 1994
- Governor General's Award for English-language fiction, 1993
- Booker Prize shortlist, 1993
Questions readers ask
Which edition is shown here?
Penguin Books · 1995 · Paperback. ISBN 9780140233131.
How long does it take to read The Stone Diaries?
About 7 hours 15 minutes at 50 pages an hour, based on the 361-page Penguin Books edition. Dense books can take longer.
About the author
Carol Shields
Carol Shields was an American-born Canadian novelist and short story writer who examined how ordinary lives are shaped by memory, family roles, and the stories people tell about themselves. Her fiction centers domestic experience while questioning whether any life can be fully explained. The Stone Diaries takes the form of a biography of Daisy Goodwill Flett, but its shifts among experience, recollection, and other people’s accounts expose gaps in the record. In Unless, a mother’s attempt to understand her daughter’s withdrawal becomes an inquiry into interpretation, literary work, and the marginalization of women’s writing. Shields made the act of describing a life part of the subject itself.
If you liked this
Edition and details
- Publisher
- Penguin Books
- Publication year
- 1995
- Format
- Paperback
- Pages
- 361
- ISBN
- 9780140233131
- Edition language
- English
- Original language
- English
- First published
- 1993
- Genres and form
- Fiction · Novel · Literary Fiction · Literary fiction · Experimental fiction
- Editions
- 16
- Languages
- 5 (German, English, Spanish, French, Swedish)
The catalog does not yet include a matching edition. Details may differ between editions.