<p><i>A writer of great descriptive power</i> says the blurb on the front. Okay. Description. Except I don't really enjoy reading description. Description reads heavy and unnecessary. From the name of one of the stories -- <i>Sylvia Wears Pink in the Underworld</i> -- I knew immediately it would be about Sylvia Plath, so much description is extraneous. A story with Diana in the title would be about Princess Diana. I think the titles do more than the stories, since they are short and snappy. The stories are pretty, but as I said, heavy. There's no overall theme, except when there is (which we'll say is <i>beloved ghosts</i>, like Diana and Sylvia and a great aunt who drowned in Cape Breton and Chekov and Angelica Garnett), and then the stories that don't fit in with this theme (like <i>In Praise of Radical Fish</i>) are, like all the description, extraneous.</p>

<p>I liked the bits I liked. But then most of it is going to fade away like an empty spirit.</p>

<p><A href="https://www.librarything.com/work/18880826/book/150507992">All The Beloved Ghosts</a> by Alison MacLeod went on sale May 30, 2017.</p>

<p><small>I received a copy free from <a href="https://www.netgalley.com/">Netgalley</a> in exchange for an honest review.</small></p>

Some of the best short stories I’ve read in a while. Alison MacLeod writes from a variety of perspectives and joins the stories together with recurring themes of death and loss. I appreciated the way she created a sense of place and time in contemporary settings (often contemporary Britain, seen from many different viewpoints) as well as historical. As a Canadian I was drawn in from the beginning by the opening story describing tragic events inspired by the author's family history, set on Cape Breton in the early 20th century.