Unaccustomed Earth by Jhumpa Lahiri

This is the third book by Jhumpa Lahiri that I have read (after her novel, The Namesake, and her collection of stories, Interpreter of Maladies), and I have very little to say except that I loved this as much as I have loved everything I have read. Lahiri writes primarily about Indian-American families. She writes most often of the children of parents who have emigrated to the United States for work and education, but her characters and stories ecompass a wide range of human experience. Her prose is beautiful and simple, yet simultaneously detailed, and it opens up onto complex inner worlds.

I don't read many stories. Just as with television I am more engaged by the development of characters and story arcs over long periods of time, so too I tend to prefer a novel where I grow into and become attached to the people and to their stories. But reading Jhumpa Lahiri's book makes me feel like I want to give short stories more of a chance. Each is it's own, detailed little world, in which I get a small glimpse and then move on, but enjoy every moment.