Raaskazy: New Fiction from a New Russia

Intimidated by Russian novels that have over a thousand pages, and afraid the translation might include five guys named Nikolai? As a new review suggests, the great names in Russian literature do indeed cast a long shadow, though Raaskazy: New Fiction from a New Russia, reviewed here, presents 21st century short fiction, allowing for a fresh approach.

Elsewhere, the new Alice Munro collection Too Much Happiness gets a thoughtful review that begins this way:

"The novelist Benjamin Cheever once...