The Faber Book of Contemporary Stories About Childhood, edited by Lorrie Moore (Faber & Faber, £7.99 in UK)

Herself the author of a beguiling and unsentimental novel about an American teenager, Lorrie Moore might be expected to recognise beguiling and unsentimental writing when she sees it, and she doesn't disappoint with this spirited, resonant collection. Though the flavour is predominantly American she avoids both the negative and positive cliches - not an apple pie or a baseball in sight, happily - and though she includes stories with native American or emigrant settings there is not a hint of political correctness. And the writing - from Margaret Atwood, Spalding Gray, Ellen Gilchrist, Alice Munro and Ben Okri, to name but a few - is consistently brilliant.