Deborah Treisman

I've had this volume on my shelf for a few years, and I decided to pick it up this month. Between grading and Christmas preparations, I don't have a lot of time to read in December, so short stories seemed like a good idea. This collection has some of my favorite authors, including Nicole Krauss, Dinaw Mengestu, and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, along with some new-to-me authors. I generally enjoyed these stories. "The Science of Flight" by Yiyun Li and "Second Lives' by Daniel Alarcon stood out to me because of their ability to capture the essences of their character's lives in a few pages. These stories added layers upon layers to their characters through carefully crafted sentences meted out steadily across the story's pages.… (mais)