From Publishers Weekly
Listeners may be tempted to gorge on all seven selections in this abridged audio collection at once, but most of the stories deserve to be savored for their complexity and insight. The star in this tiny galaxy is E.L. Doctorow's "Baby Wilson," read by Wyman, about a mentally unbalanced woman who steals a baby. Wyman delivers a pitch perfect performance; he keeps his tone even and neutral and allows the story to tell itself. Lonnie Farmer faces a different challenge in his narration of Louise Erdrich's "Shamengwa." In this instance, Farmer's distinct, sage-like voice enriches this simplistic tale of a violin. Other stories make the transition to audio less successfully. Mona Simpson reads her own work, "Coins," with a gravelly, and often off-putting, intensity; and reader Will LeBow is an odd match for Emily Ishem Raboteau's "Kavita Through Glass," a complex story of race and gender relations. When all is said and done, however, this audiobook's biggest flaw may be selection. Mosley's poetic introduction leads listeners to expect something more innovative than these carefully balanced choices. While these stories represent many ethnicities and religions (including Chinese, Hindu, Muslim, Filipino, African-American and Native American), political correctness is a controversial measure of literary greatness, and this audio abridgement is bound to spark debates as to how these stories stack up to the 13 that didn't make the transition from print. Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.


From AudioFile
Six gems and one sleeper are packaged into a fine collection befitting the title. Each writer's work is read with clarity and feeling, turning each short story into a masterpiece. Seasoned narrator Oliver Wyman reads E.L Doctorow's "Baby Wilson" with such wry credibility that the listener can actually suspend disbelief with the character and accept that kidnapping wasn't such a bad crime. Lonnie Farmer creates a mystical aura as he reads master storyteller Louise Erdrich's "Shamengwa," a fitting close to a great selection of works. As Mosley explains in his introduction, each piece, while short, is a work of art, and the performances only build on their artistry. H.L.S. © AudioFile 2004, Portland, Maine-- Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine


From Booklist
You don't expect to be deeply moved by the foreword to an illustrious annual collection of short stories, yet there it is, Katrina Kenison's eye-misting account of her fourth-grade son going through that secret rite of passage, being brought to tears by a book. That fiction possesses such power remains an astonishment, no matter how many novels or short stories a person reads, a boon that guest editor Walter Mosley celebrates in his beautifully metaphorical introduction, and then the reader is wowed all over again in 20 different ways by the superb stories that follow. Mosley has selected dazzling, unsettling new work by such brilliantly imaginative, compassionate, and artistic storytellers as E. L. Doctorow, Edwidge Danticat, Susan Straight, Mona Simpson, Louise Erdrich, ZZ Packer, Dan Chaon, and Dorothy Allison, whose stories touch on every phase of life and illuminate a rich spectrum of disturbing predicaments, intense feelings, surprising resolutions, and enduring mysteries. Donna Seaman
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved


Book Description
Since its inception in 1915, the Best American series has become the premier annual showcase for the country's finest short fiction and nonfiction. For each volume, a series editor reads pieces from hundreds of periodicals, then selects between fifty and a hundred outstanding works. That selection is pared down to twenty or so very best pieces by a guest editor who is widely recognized as a leading writer in his or her field. This unique system has helped make the Best American series the most respected -- and most popular -- of its kind. Lending a fresh perspective to a perennial favorite, Walter Mosley has chosen unforgettable short stories by both renowned writers and exciting newcomers. The Best American Short Stories 2003 features poignant tales that explore the nuances of family life and love, birth and death. Here are stories that will, as Mosley writes in his introduction, "live with the reader long after the words have been translated into ideas and dreams. That's because a good short story crosses the borders of our nations and our prejudices and our beliefs."Dorothy AllisonEdwidge DanticatE. L. DoctorowLouise ErdrichAdam HaslettZZ PackerMona SimpsonMary Yukari Waters


Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Introduction: Americans DreamingWhenever anyone asks my opinion about the difference between novels and short stories, I tell them that there is no distinction between the genres. They are essentially the same thing, I always reply. How can you say that? the fiction lover asks. Stories are small gems, perfectly cut to expose every facet of an idea, which is in turn illuminated by ten thousand tiny shafts of light. But I hold my ground, answering the metaphor with a simile. A novel, I say, is like a mountain — superior, vast, and immense. Its apex is in the clouds and it appears to us as a higher being — a divinity. Mountains loom and challenge; they contain myriad life forms and cannot be seen by anyone attempting the climb. Mountains can be understood only by years of negotiating their trails and sheer faces. They contain a wide variety of atmospheres and are complex and immortal. You cannot approach a mountain unless you are completely prepared for the challenge. In much the same way, you can"t begin to read (or write) a novel without attempting to embrace a life much larger than the range of any singular human experience. Thinking in this way, I understand the mountain and the novel to be impossible in everyday human terms. Both emerge from a distance that can be approached only by faith. And when you get there, all you find is yourself. The beauty or terror you experience is your understanding of how far you"ve come, your being stretched further than is humanly possible. The fiction lover agrees. She says, Yes, of course. The novel is a large thing. The novel stands against the backdrop of human existence just as mountains dominate the landscape. But stories are simple things, small aspects of human foibles and quirks. A story can be held in a glance or a half-remembered dream. It"s a good argument, and I wouldn"t refute it. But I will say that if novels are mountains, then stories are far-flung islands that one comes upon in the limitless horizon of the sea. Not big islands like Hawaii, but small, craggy atolls inhabited by eclectic and nomadic life forms that found their way there in spite of tremendous odds. One of these small islets can be fully explored in a few hours. There"s a grotto, a sandy beach, a new species of wolf spider, and maybe the remnants of an ancient culture that came here and moved on or, possibly, just died out. These geologic comparisons would seem to support the fiction reader"s claim that novels and short stories are different categories, distant cousins in the linguistic universe. But where did those wolf spiders come from? And who were the people who came here and died? And why, when I walk around this footprint of land, do I feel that something new arises with each day? I eat fish that live in the caves below the waves. I see dark shadows down there. I dream of the firmament that lies below the ocean, the mountain that holds up that small span of land. I cannot climb the mountain that sits in the sea, but from where I stand it comes to me in detritus and dreams. Short story writers must be confident of that suboceanic mountain in order to place their tale in the world. After all, fiction mostly resides in the imagination of the reader. All the writer can do is hint at a world that calls forth the dream, telling the story that exhorts us to call the possibility into being. The writers represented in this collection have told stories that suggest much larger ideas. I found myself presented with the challenge of simple human love contrasted against structures as large as religion and death. The desire to be loved or to be seen, represented on a canvas so broad that it would take years to explain all the roots that bring us to the resolution. In many of the stories we find exiles, people who have lost their loved ones, their homelands, their way. These stories are simple and exquisite, but they aren"t merely tales of personal loss. Mothers have left us long before the mountains were shifted by southward-moving ice floes. Men have been broken by their dreams for almost as long as the continents have been drifting. And every day someone opens her eyes and sees a world that she never expected could be there. These short stories are vast structures existing mostly in the subconscious of our cultural history. They will live with the reader long after the words have been translated into ideas and dreams. That"s because a good short story crosses the borders of our nations and our prejudices and our beliefs. A good short story asks a question that can"t be answered in simple terms. And even if we come up with some understanding, years later, while glancing out of a window, the story still has the potential to return, to alter right there in our mind and change everything.—Walter MosleyCopyright © 2003 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Introduction copyright © 2003 by Walter Mosley. Reprinted by permission of Houghton Mifflin Company.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

Since its inception in 1915, the Best American series has become the premier annual showcase for the country's finest short fiction and nonfiction. For each volume, a series editor reads pieces from hundreds of periodicals, then selects between fifty and a hundred outstanding works. That selection is pared down to twenty or so very best pieces by a guest editor who is widely recognized as a leading writer in his or her field. This unique system has helped make the Best American series the most respected -- and most popular -- of its kind. Lending a fresh perspective to a perennial favorite, Walter Mosley has chosen unforgettable short stories by both renowned writers and exciting newcomers. The Best American Short Stories 2003 features poignant tales that explore the nuances of family life and love, birth and death. Here are stories that will, as Mosley writes in his introduction, "live with the reader long after the words have been translated into ideas and dreams. That's because a good short story crosses the borders of our nations and our prejudices and our beliefs."

These Twenty Short Stories Boldly and insightfully explore the extremes of human emotions. In her story "Night Talkers," Edwidge Danticat reunites a young man and the elderly aunt who raised him in Haiti. Anthony Doerr brings readers a naturalist who discovers the surprising healing powers of a deadly cone snail. Louise Erdrich writes of an Ojibwa fiddler whose music brings him deep and mysterious joy. Here are diverse and intriguing characters -- a kidnapper, an immigrant nanny, an amputee blues musician -- who are as surprised as the reader is at what brings them happiness. In his introduction, Walter Mosley explores the definition of a good short story, and writes, "The writers represented in this collection have told stories that suggest much larger ideas. I found myself presented with the challenge of simple human love contrasted against structures as large as religion and death. The desire to be loved or to be seen, represented on a canvas so broad that it would take years to explain all the roots that bring us to the resolution." Each of these stories bravely evokes worlds brimming with desire and loss, humanity and possibility.

FROM THE CRITICS

Publishers Weekly

Listeners may be tempted to gorge on all seven selections in this abridged audio collection at once, but most of the stories deserve to be savored for their complexity and insight. The star in this tiny galaxy is E.L. Doctorow's "Baby Wilson," read by Wyman, about a mentally unbalanced woman who steals a baby. Wyman delivers a pitch perfect performance; he keeps his tone even and neutral and allows the story to tell itself. Lonnie Farmer faces a different challenge in his narration of Louise Erdrich's "Shamengwa." In this instance, Farmer's distinct, sage-like voice enriches this simplistic tale of a violin. Other stories make the transition to audio less successfully. Mona Simpson reads her own work, "Coins," with a gravelly, and often off-putting, intensity; and reader Will LeBow is an odd match for Emily Ishem Raboteau's "Kavita Through Glass," a complex story of race and gender relations. When all is said and done, however, this audiobook's biggest flaw may be selection. Mosley's poetic introduction leads listeners to expect something more innovative than these carefully balanced choices. While these stories represent many ethnicities and religions (including Chinese, Hindu, Muslim, Filipino, African-American and Native American), political correctness is a controversial measure of literary greatness, and this audio abridgement is bound to spark debates as to how these stories stack up to the 13 that didn't make the transition from print. Simultaneous release with the Houghton Mifflin hardcover. (Nov. 2003) Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews