2005 book 70

david sedaris, ed. children playing before a statue of hercules
david sedaris has pretty great taste in short stories. this anthology, created to raise funds for 826nyc, is basically sedaris' random assortment of favorite stories--i picked it up because some of my own favorite stories (the ones by lorrie moore, jhumpa lahiri, and jincy willett) appear and i figured if i already loved three of the seventeen, odds were high i'd enjoy the rest. and i did. i was especially pleased that richard yates appeared--i've been haunted by his novel revolutionary road since i read it a couple years ago--and by the pairing of katherine mansfield and alice munro (whose selection references mansfield's). i haven't been in much of a short story mood over the past few months, but i plowed through this book and really, really liked it.