Speaking With the Angel

This short story collection edited by the author of ''High Fidelity'' boasts a litany of hip writers: Zadie Smith (''White Teeth''), Irvine Welsh (''Trainspotting''), and Dave Eggers among them. Like Bono's campaign to reduce Third World debt -- Hornby's comparison -- Speaking With the Angel supports a worthy cause: the school Hornby's autistic son attends. But there's no need to buy this book for charity's sake: Its quality is incentive enough. Standouts include Roddy Doyle's ''The Slave'' and playwright Patrick Marber's ''Peter Shelley,'' a perfect love story about a boy, a girl, and a Buzzcocks single told in the spirit of a punk song.