How to recommend a Bobbie Ann Mason sampler? Just share the table of contents to University Press of Kentucky’s new title. This volume offers a representation of all of her recognized artistic directions (short stories, chapters from longer fiction, plus essays and appreciations and criticism). There are also interviews and previously-unpublished flash fiction. The organization of the material is close to chronological, but not obsessive — but then, there’s no point in replaying Mason’s career as if she traipsed along a gradual learning curve. With stories like “Shiloh” and a novel like “In Country,” she’d become a fully-formed literary voice and a Kentucky institution within a few productive years.