Nathan Englander: Englander

Nathan Englander Alfred A. Knopf Dept: Novels often get graded on a curve. The occasional boring patch is easily tolerated - an implausible plot twist, here and there, is to be expected. The point is: you can still love a flawed novel, according to Montreal Gazette. It's not surprising, then, that the eight stories that make up Nathan Englander's new book, What We Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank, can be read as a collection of running gags. They have the distinction though - as do Englander's two previous books - of not just being seriously funny, but deadly serious and wHAT WE TALK ABOUT WHEN WE TALK ABOUT ANNE FRANK By Nathan Englander Alfred A. Knopf, 207 pages, $27.95 Short stories, by comparison, are pass/fail. Either they work or they don't. In this respect they have as much in common with jokes as they do with literature. (www.immigrantscanada.com). As reported in the news.