"People love stories," novelist Canin notes in his preface to this latest anthology benefiting Share Our Strength, the nonprofit group that has for more than a decade used creative fund-raising approaches to support literacy and fight hunger and homelessness. And our love for stories matters, Canin maintains, because "the urge to hear a story--to gain access to turning points in another person's life--is the same urge . . . that might bring us as a culture to keep caring for our members in trouble." The collection's 18 distinguished authors include: Julia Alvarez, Frederick Barthelme, Po Bronson, Michael Chabon, Susan Dodd, Alice Fulton, Mary Gaitskill, Louis B. Jones, Gary Krist, Jill McCorkle, Henry H. Roth, George Singleton, and Melanie Rae Thon. In varied voices, the stories in Writers Harvest 2 examine aspects of the human condition, birth and death, love and loss, memory and hope, empathy and alienation. A meaty selection of previously unpublished short fiction and an invitation to exercise one's own empathy: in Canin's words, "one of the true necessities of civilization." --Mary Carroll

Family tragedy, romance and other, more mundane daily routines are the subjects of the stories in this collection edited by the author of The Emperor of the Air and The Palace Thief. A wide assortment of well-known writers, such as Michael Chabon, Gary Krist, Julia Alvarez, Henry Roth and Frederick Barthelme have contributed stories to benefit the anti-hunger organization Share Our Strength. Perhaps because the writers were mindful of their cause, the stories range from moving to incredibly sad in their depiction of everyday humanity. Physical suffering and illness are themes in many of the stories, from the intense physical discomfort of a kidney stone, so perfectly described in "The Stone" by Louis B. Jones to a cancer patient struggling to maintain his dignity in Henry H. Roth's "This Time." Several stories will be especially poignant for parents. In Jill McCorkle's "Life Prerecorded," the narrator sneaks cigarettes throughout her pregnancy, all the while having nightmares about her unborn child. In one of the most appealing stories, Krist's "Sleep," a stock trader holds his infant daughter while maneuvering through a series of late-night telephone calls about an impending market crash. Excellent in its particulars and in its generalities, this deserves to be received well. (Nov.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved