When Brevity Is a Virtue

Short stories have won unusual plaudits this year. Alice Munro won the 2009 Man Booker International Prize for her body of work; Elizabeth Strout's short-story collection, "Olive Kitteridge," claimed the Pulitzer Prize. "Olive Kitteridge" has sold 472,000 copies according to Nielsen BookScan, which tracks about 75% of book sales—impressive for any kind of literary fiction.