HOTEL OF THE SAINTS (2012)

The best-selling author of Stones From the River returns with her first collection of short stories in more than a decade. These are little crystals of human interaction, some brittle and cool, others throbbing with light. In ''Moonwalkers,'' an old man receives the heart of a 27-year-old future librarian and can't stop mourning her. In ''Freitod,'' a German woman serenely plots her suicide, a dive into the Sea of Cortes, an undesperate act that feels both hopeful and empowered. The weaker stories are bloated with airy-fairy fantasizing, like the unfortunately titled ''Stolen Chocolates.'' But at her best, Hegi paints fine portraits of the wildly individual moments when people find faith.