THE ORANGE FISH by Carol Shields...

THE ORANGE FISH by Carol Shields (Penguin: $10). Shields infuses her stories of contemporary metropolitan life with a pleasant irony. In “Hazel,” a self-effacing widow stuns her friends and children with her newfound aplomb when she takes a job demonstrating kitchen gadgets. The title story focuses on an upscale young couple who discover an extraordinary lithograph has changed their lives--then see the magic undone by a flood of cheap copies. Shields often examines the problems of maintaining communication within a relationship, but adds offbeat twists to the popular theme: In “Milk Bread Beer Ice,” ordinary roadside signs become a mantra that promises the rehabilitation of a marriage eroded by the prosaic routines of daily life.