Although his selections were good, Michael Chabon's edition of Best American Short Stories 2005 didn't live up to last year's quite excellent entry in the series. As is so common with collections of this sort, I found myself just flipping through more of the stories than I would have liked. But there are good stories here nonetheless, from Dennis Lehane's "Until Gwen" and George Saunders's "Bohemians" to strong entries from BCR #1 heroes Alix Ohlin and Cory Doctorow. (I'm not in love with the Kelly Link story -- it was one of only two from Magic for Beginners that fell flat for me -- but it was very good to see her in there too.)

The overall winner? It's the first story in the book, "The Smile on Happy Chang's Face" by Tom Perrotta, which you can read for free at Post Road. It's about baseball, as well as some other stuff, and it has an A+ ending, not to oversell.