Maybe it's because I write short stories that I so enjoy reading them. Alice Munro is the long lived queen and Raymond Carver, William Trevor and Jill McCorkle are writers I've delighted to over the years. Now, Robin Black's collection If I Loved You, I Would Tell You This is at the top of my heap. Robin writes about loss with a different kind of close inspection that involves not bitterness but compassion. Her book was #6 on Oprah's Summertime Reading List and it was short listed for the prestigeous Frank O'Connor short story prize. Our local independent bookstore here in Golden CO can't keep the book on the shelves.