These stories are connected in the way they approach reality while diffusing the traditional boundaries of realism, magical realism, and surrealism. In each, Le Guin finds the detail that reveals the strange in everyday life, or the unexpected depths of an ordinary person.

Contents (with Le Guin's classification by genre):

• Half Past Four (Multiplied Realism)
• The Professor's Houses (Miniaturized Realism)
• Ruby on the 67 (Geriatric Realism)
• Limberlost (Californian Realism)
• The Creatures on my Mind (Bestial Realism)
• Standing Ground (Uncompromising Realism)
• The Spoons in the Basement (Oneiric Realism)
• Sunday in Summer in Seatown (Gertrudean Realism)
• In the Drought (Surrealism)
• Ether, OR (Oregonian Realism)
• Unlocking the Air (Orsinian Realism)
• A Child Bride (Mythological Fantasy)
• Climbing to the Moon (Temporal Fantasy)
• Daddy's Big Girl (Real Fantasy)
• Findings (Syntactical Fantasy)
• Olders (Vegetable Fantasy)
• The Wise Woman (Visionary Fantasy)
• The Poacher (Revisionary Fantasy)