This is a collection featuring such masters of the short story form as John Cheever, Raymond Carver, Tillie Olsen, and Ann Beattie, as well as authors less associated with this medium such as Langston Hughes and Theodore Drieser. Written over a period of nearly 100 years, these works are notable for their quality, their deft blend of humor and sorrow, childhood wonder and adult resignation. The young protagonist in Doctorow's "The Writer in the Family" reflects the selfishness of his dead father's relatives and pays belated tribute to the dreams of a man he had failed to know. Schwartz's "What I Did for Love" shows a woman in her mid-30s learning that small acts of responsibility and generosity are as important in their own way as her youthful dreams of changing the world. ISBN 0-451-62736-9 (pbk.): $44.95