Transactions in a Foreign Currency
By Deborah Eisenberg

This is Eisenberg's first collection of stories—and many of them hinge on how our perception of the world can be irrevocably changed. In the title story, a character answers the phone, and as she talks to the caller, a former lover, she glances toward the man she's having a drink with: "He seemed like a scrap of paper, or the handle from a broken cup, or a single rubber band—a thing that has become dislodged from its rightful place." I so responded to this wonderful notion that you can lose yourself in one moment, and afterward see everything in a totally different way.