<p><i>The Hill Bachelors</i> - a remarkable collection of stories from the master storyteller William Trevor<br><br>''There is no better short story writer in the English-speaking world'' <i>The Wall Street Journal</i><br><br><i>The Hill Bachelors</i> is a stunning meditation on men and women and the heartbreak of missed opportunities: three people are frozen in a conspiracy of silence that prevents love''s consummation; a nine-year-old dreams that a movie part will heal her fragmented family life; a brother and sister forge a new life amid the terrible beauty of Ireland after the Rebellion; and in the title story, a young man chooses between his longtime love and a life of solitude on the family farm. These twelve beautifully rendered tales reveal Trevor''s unrivalled compassion for the human condition.<br><br>''His tight, perfected short stories - each an astonishing performance in which melodramatic situations are turned, by acute psychological insight, into classic drama - make him