I guess just looking at the names of the authors on the cover I thought this would be one stunning short story collection. I can’t really say that is was, but it was good. None of the stories were terrible, a couple were kind of weak, but most were solidly good, and a couple were great. Almost all of them would be in the 3-4 star range for me. ( )

In 1975 I left home for the first time with a new mechanical engineering degree and moved to a small town in Alabama to work at a nuclear plant that was then under construction. Moving from the big city to a small southern town was a huge culture shock, and I was very lonely. There was a small bookstore on the town square where I went one day and bought this book. The first story I read was Carson McCullers' "The Sojourner." I was already depressed and lonely, and this story shattered me. I put the book away, and in nine months had quit my job and moved back home. It has taken me 36 years to finally finish reading this book. It was worth the wait. These are by-and-large brilliant examples of the form by some of the preeminent writers of the first half of the 20th century. Every story has a quality that recommends it, but I find myself most often telling people about "The Open Window" by H.H. Munro. I think though that F. Scott Fitzgerald's "Winter Dreams" has the most delicious writing. Here is my favorite quote. "He knew the sort of men they were-the men who when he first went to college had entered from the great prep schools with graceful clothes and the deep tan of healthy summers. He had seen that, in one sense, he was better than these men. He was newer and stronger. Yet in acknowledging in himself that he wished his children to be like them he was admitting that he was but the rough, strong stuff from which they eternally sprang." Gives you goosebumps, huh?-David ( )

The title does not lie. An excellent collection of short stories. ( )