New From Star Contributors

Fifteen short stories by Al Burrelli, a frequent contributor to The Star who died in 2014, have been collected in “Nuggets: Short Story Treasures.” The volume was self-published by his wife, Louise Burrelli, who wrote a foreword to the book.

A retired public school teacher who turned to writing during the last five years of his life, Mr. Burrelli was awarded a literary prize for his first short story, “The Bride Wore Red,” and had a number of stories published by The Star over several years.

“Death by Pastrami,” a short-story collection by Leonard S. Bernstein, another contributor to The Star, who lives part time in Amagansett, received a positive review in a piece on the NPR radio program “Fresh Air” on Dec. 31. Maureen Corrigan called Mr. Bernstein’s stories, which mostly center on life in New York City’s garment district, “both quaint and timeless,” and said the author has “a flair for crafting parables about the comic futility of life.”

The book is a University of New Orleans Press reissue of Mr. Bernstein’s “The Man Who Wanted to Buy a Heart,” from 2012, with the addition of a new story, “Kessler and the Grand Scheme,” which appeared in these pages in November.