Oh my, this stuff is very good. ( )

I used to HATE HATE HATE short stories. It probably had something to do with high school and having to over-analyze every itty bitty detail in one. Plus, I always found it hard to care about the characters when they were just going to be gone in 20 pages. Last year I read Nine Stories by JD Salinger, and all of that changed.

Some of Hempel's stories are only a page or two, but I still felt myself drawn to the people she wrote about, everyone seemed so real. I noticed a lot of similarities in the people in different stories, so it was as if you were reading about someone again 100 pages later, I imagine the continuity made it easier for me to read. ( )

Amy Hempel's stories are almost always profoundly moving and insightful. She writes from an assured, wise point of view that gives her stories a calm, almost hypnotic power. And Hempel delves into subjects that, in theory, shouldn't produce any literary or philosophical weight, but somehow she makes even the driest, most mundane topics beautiful and interesting. For that reason, her Collected Stories is one of my favorite books. ( )

http://12frogs.com/reading/reviews/20... ( )