The Shell Collector: Stories garnered a remarkable number of awards and was similarly well-received by reviewers. Called a “skillful first collection,” in the New York Times Book Review, the book was praised in Library Journal for its characters that “are limned by the things around them.” Library Journal compliments Doerr for his “subtle linguistic self-consciousness [and] fluid and eddying plots.” A reviewer for Publishers Weekly adds that “Nature, in these eight stories, is mysterious and deadly, a wonder of design and of nearly overwhelming power.” The Publishers Weekly reviewer notes too that this “delicate balance” is sustained in the title story about the discovery of a poisonous snail that can both “kill and . . . effect a rapid recovery from malaria.” The attention that this event brings to the protagonist, the reviewer writes, disrupts “the...