"Language through Literature: An Advanced Reader of Contemporary Chinese Short-Short Stories" is specially designed for North American students at the intermediate high and advanced levels. It includes twelve short-short stories which have been published in the past ten years. Each short-short story has approximately 1,200 to 1,800 characters. The stories fall under six thematic units: jobs, interests, marriage, the countryside, friends, and education. Each unit has two lessons. Each lesson contains a short-short story, a vocabulary list, a section with important expressions and grammatical structures, and a group of exercises.