Anthony Doerr, a Guggenheim Fellow, has had his fiction honored with three O. Henry Prizes and the Rome Prize, among other accolades. This collection’s titular story won the National Magazine Award for Fiction, and each poignant tale touches in some way on the elusiveness of memory and on humans’ daily interaction with fleeting—and not so fleeting—remembrances. “Doerr has set a new standard for what a story can do.”—Dave Eggers