Honey, you do me wrong but still I'm crazy about you      Stay away too long and I can't do without you      Every chance you get, you seem to hurt me more and more      But each hurt makes my love stronger than before        I know flowers grow through rain      But how can love grow through pain        Ain't that peculiar.      - Marvin Gaye When I started to read Life’s Peculiarities , “charming” was a word that tended to engulf my sensibilities about this collection of short stories. And while there is a poignancy and dramatic nuances that permeate the stories in this collection, charming tended to be the end point for me. Now, I realize that some readers may feel that this descriptive reference is trite and overly simplistic. However, a central facet of that word and the literary work it characterizes is its sublime elegance; it...