Lisa Moore's stories are bright, emotionally engaging, tangible. She marks out the precious moments of her characters' lives against deceptively commonplace backdrops — a St. John's hospital cafeteria lit only by the lights in the snack machines; a half-built house "like a rib cage around a lungful of sky" — and the results linger long in the memory. The Selected Short Fiction of Lisa Moore shows us that love, alongside desire, can sometimes come as a surprise, sometimes an ambush. She splices moments and images together so adroitly, so vividly, you'll swear you've lived them yourself. This new volume, bringing together Lisa Moore's first two books of stories, Open and Degrees of Nakedness, is the very best way to encounter one of the finest short-story writers in the country. This edition features a brilliant new introduction by Jane Urquhart on the importance of Moore's work.