It doesn't really matter which book by Lorrie Moore you pick up first, because they'll all floor you. Not one of her stories is cozy or cliched. She takes the piss out of everything; life and language are far from sacrosanct. Her characters are all ordinary people--they work at malls, have children, hide affairs, read books, watch porn--and, like true ordinary people, they are ugly, forlorn crackpots. It's not easy to love them, but I do.