Personal Velocity
By Rebecca Miller

A Blind Man Can See How Much I Love You
By Amy Bloom

These two books have nothing in common except that they're both collections of short stories mostly about women, and I loved them both. Rebecca Miller's book begins: "Greta Herskovitz looked down at her husband's shoes one morning and saw with shocking clarity that she was going to leave him." I knew the moment I read that sentence that I was going to fall in love with the book—not just because it made me remember an identical moment in my own life (not having to do with shoes) but because it was obviously written by someone who knew how to grab a reader by the throat. Amy Bloom's collection of stories sneaks up on you in a much more insidious way. Bloom is talking about love, yes, but there's nothing ordinary about any of the love stories in this book. There's always a catch, and there's always something that takes her story into unfamiliar terrain. As I read her book, I became almost frightened to see where she'd take me next. It was always someplace I'd never been; but in the end it felt very much like home.