DOMESTIC ARRANGEMENTS

The "Selected Shorts" series is justly famous for choosing stories that stand alone and also give actors something to perform, not merely read aloud. This assortment is particularly fine. In a story called "Who's Irish," Freda Foh Shen is flawless and funny doing Gish Jen's Chinese grandmother, indignant at a world in which her own daughter can marry an Irishman. Meryl Streep makes William Trevor's "Broken Homes" vivid and distressing as well as entertaining. William Hurt and Anjelica Huston are equally fine, and the stories they read equally memorable. As audio literature, this is just about perfect. B.G. (c) AudioFile 2002, Portland, Maine [Published: APR/MAY 02]