"A nest of tales that captures the eternal, hummingbird flutter of the human heart. . . . A volume in which everything comes together: the author's mordant, Dorothy Parker wit, the Joycean epiphanies, the Flannery O'Connor-esque moments of clarity and grace." --"The Atlanta Journal-Constitution " "These new stories sparkle; they are keenly and poignantly mindful of the idioms, banalities and canards of contemporary American society, and they hum with Moore's earmark droll and incisive banter, her astonishing ability to render the intricacy of character in a few sharply focused details." --"Houston Chronicle ""Cements [Moore's] reputation as one of our finest writers of fiction." --"Austin American-Statesman "" ""Lorrie Moore has made laughingstocks of all of us. And we're devotedly, blissfully grateful. . . . Moore . . . packs more rambunctious American humor and worldly-wide melancholy into a story than many lesser writers can into an entire novel." --"Newsday "" ""[Moore] uses language to create a kind of carbonated prose: sentences with pop and fizz, with an effervescence of imagination that continually surprises." --"The Dallas Morning News "" ""Bats, flamingos, crows, performing ducks and bird feeders crop up in every story, but the real subject is human nature and the myriad ways Moore's characters flock together or fly apart in the face of change, stasis or grief. . . . Gorgeous. . . . Rarely has a writer achieved such consistency, humor and compassion." --"Seattle Post-Intelligencer "" ""[Moore's] dialogue snaps with fun. . . . One could be trapped in an elevator with people like Moore's men, or especially her women, and feel the luckier for it." --"San Francisco Chronicle "" ""Remains one of the . . . best volumes of stories that any American has published in recent decades." --"Bookforum" "I hesitate to lay the adjective wise on one of [Moore's] age. But watching a writer move into full maturi

Lorrie Moore is the author of the story collections" Birds of America" and "Self-Help," and the novels "Who Will Run the Frog Hospital?," "Anagrams," and "A Gate at the Stairs." Her work has appeared in "The New Yorker, The Best American Short Stories, " and "Prize Stories: The O. Henry Awards." She is a professor of English at the University of Wisconsin in Madison.