Jennifer Egan must be a wise soul. I would love to sit down with her and ask for her advice about my own life. She just seems to know so much about the powerlessness of… living. “Emerald City” is a collection of short stories that she published in 1989 (two decades before “A Visit from […]

Vampires in the Lemon Grove is Karen Russell’s second collection of short stories. Her first, St Lucy’s Home for Girls Raised by Wolves, and her first novel, Swamplandia!, received quite a bit of critical acclaim. Award nominations and whatnot. I didn’t actually get a chance to read Swamplandia! when it first came out, so I […]

Tenth of December is Saunders’s fourth collection of short stories, and it is very very good. You may have heard about it. Some have (already) said that it’s the best book of 2013. That’s a lot of faith, or love, or something. And the book is, really, very good. Saunders’s Tenth of December appropriately holds […]