Delightfully different, a short story collection with a wealth of quirky characters who live out their tales in such unlikely places as a Jain hospital in Hyderabad; a crewel embroidery exhibition in Jerusalem; an Aboriginal dance performance in Melbourne; and an ultra Orthodox Jewish family reunion in New York. Two of the stories draw on the memoirs of Gluckel of Hameln, a remarkably independent Jewish woman in seventeenth century Europe. Wendy Dickstein is a prize-winning author whose writing is characterized by gentle humor and a rare appreciation of the foibles of humanity.