When a first-time novelist publishes a collection of short stories a quick year after winning a major literary award, you might consider it a stopgap measure to hold over fans until her next tome makes it into our hands.

In her immersive debut short-fiction collection, Giller Prize winner Johanna Skibsrud is preoccupied with the limitations of perspective and the difficulties of communication.

No one writes poetic prose like Michael Ondaatje. But his gorgeous, sensuous language and piercing insights into the human condition sometimes impede the flow of his latest novel.