In describing Alice Munro, the Canadian novelist Margaret Atwood once wrote: "She's the kind of writer about whom it is often said — no matter how well-known she becomes — that she ought to be better known."
Atwood's dictum will be put to the test now that the Canadian short story writer, 82, has won the Nobel Prize for literature.
There is almost certainly no living writer who inspires quite the reverence among readers — and writers — that Munro does. Mention to a serious bibliophile that you like her, and the conversation will shift into a solemn, almost embarrassingly private register, as if you had interrupted cocktail party chatter to reveal a family secret.