'Davis's short stories are perfected economies, witty devices, precision-made, primed to release intelligence, philosophy, hilarity. They celebrate the thinking universe while they redefine the possibilities of the form. There is no other writer quite like her' Ali SmithFind out why fellow authors like Ali Smith, Dave Eggers, Jonathan Franzen love Lydia Davis's writing so much in this landmark collection of all of her stories to date from across three decades. And why James Wood described this book in the New Yorker as 'a body of work probably unique in American writing' and 'one of the great, strange American literary contributions'.