Лидия Дэвис: Samuel Johnson Is Indignant

From one of our most imaginative and inventive writers, a crystalline collection of perfectly modulated, sometimes harrowing and often hilarious investigations into the multifaceted ways in which human beings perceive each other and themselves. A couple suspects their friends think them boring, a woman resolves to see herself as nothing but then concludes she s set too high a goal, and a funeral home receives a letter rebuking it for linguistic errors.