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World of the Short Story: A Twentieth Century Collection
At age 82, Clifton Fadiman continues his prolific publishing career, here presenting 62 of the world's best short stories from 16 countries. His criteria? "Each story had to be both interesting and of high literary merit." Fadiman fulfills both requirements and much more, offering a cornucopia of superior 20th-century writers that includes Franz Kafka, D. H. Lawrence, Isaac Babel, F. Scott Fitzgerald, William Faulkner, Ernest Hemingway, John Cheever, Sean O'Faolain, Graham Greene, Robert Penn Warren, Colette, John Updike, Donald Barthelme, and James Thurber. (Regrettably, J. D. Salinger is not included due to lack of permission.) Here is a truly remarkable collection of this century's short stories that readers from all over the world will read with delight.
Hardcover
First published January 1, 1986
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About the author
Clifton Fadiman
223 books37 followersClifton Paul "Kip" Fadiman was an American intellectual, author, editor, radio and television personality.
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Displaying 1 - 21 of 21 reviews
June 21, 2025
7/12/20: Received this book in 1986. Today may be the first time I ever cracked the cover. First story to read: a Max Beerbaum.
7/23/20: Now have read three stories, including a Collette. Not loving them so far. Next up Somerset Maugham.
7/26/20: Maugham enjoyable and typical of his work. Best of the bunch so far. Skipped ahead to Katherine Anne Porter — another hard-scrabble farmer tale — and on to V.S. Pritchett’s look at antique dealers and their passions.
7/1/22: Time to crack this book again. The cover flap was in the Hemingway story but it didn’t seem familiar after two years, so I went back and read the foreword again, then this review. OK, let’s try V.S. Pritchett again!
7/2/22: The Pritchett story is both funny (in a sad way) and disturbing (if you are so inclined). Lots of realistic observations about antique dealers, I think, having observed them for many years.
7.3.22: A.E. Coppard’s tale of night in a Cotswold inn is short and conjures up memories of TWO nights in a small Cotswold hotel. So I found it pleasant even though strange. (The story, not the hotel I stayed in.) Coppard’s prose is charming.
Horacio Quiroga’s “The Dead Man” was familiar — all three pages of it. Have I read it elsewhere or in this volume? Either way, it IS memorable. Must look up Quiroga — the introduction to the story talks about all the death surrounding Mr. Q, including his own suicide.
On to Kafka. Suitably troubling; Then D H Lawrence -- suitably British. Katherine Mansfield's brief story is about grief -- perhaps based on her loss of a brother in WW I. Katherine Ann Porter's contribution seems familiar . . . spare and good. Ivo Andric is suitably Slavic
7/5/22: Babel’s story is very short and very violent in a strange way. No surprise given my review of Red Cavalry.
7:15:22 — back to this with the F. Scott Fitzgerald story, “Babylon Revisited.” Excellent and sad. I had read the editor’s introductory comments 10 days ago and went back to them after reading this story — and darned if the editor didn’t say the story holds up better if the reader forgets about Fitzgerald’s life story. Uh, OK — why? Is it because the story isn’t fiction IF?
Then Faulkner’s “That Evening Sun.” A nice slice of pre-enlightenment Mississippi race relations but mostly about domestic relations. Heavy use of the “n” word by both blacks and a couple of very young white children. Question: has Faulkner been canceled in English Lit classes because he uses “nigger”? And will this review be removed because it contains that word?
Jorge Luis Borges up next. And down immediately. After one page — okay, even one paragraph — l knew his mysterious babbling was NOT for me.
Elizabeth Bowen’s “Mysterious Kor” is short and spare and delivers a convincing snapshot of the difficulty of relationships & trying to be in love (lust?) in WW II London. That is not the best description of this story but it is the best i can do right now!
3/16/23: Hemingway’s “My Old Man” is quite interesting—short take on life in thoroughbred racing in 1920s (probably) Italy and France, as seen through the eyes of the juvenile son of a journeyman jockey. Not an easy life.
5/26/23: Back to the lake and an E B White story. The introduction to this very brief tale says White never wrote anything like this again and neither would anyone else. Which is a good thing, because the story is ultra-weird — the sort of thing that only an English major in search of a thesis topic could love. Yuk!
No time for another story, so back behind the wall until the next lake trip.
6/10/23: Read “Lovers of the Lake,” by Sean O’Faolain — Irish story about two Irish adulterers on a weekend prayer pilgrimage. Don’t need to read more by this guy, but I’m sure he is a good writer.
7/17/23: continuing on page order, next up is Kay Boyle. Her very short “Men,” about internees in France during WW I working on a road, is ok but not memorable. Morley Callaghan’s “A Cap For Steve” is about a poor man trying to save face in front of his son — I can see it as a scene from a 1930s movie. Frank O’Connor’s “The Drunkard” is sad-funny; one might say a typical Irish character.
Thanksgiving weekend 2023: Read Graham Greene story about English woman married to a New Englander, the only man she’s ever known (speaking Biblically), but she is a tiny bit hopeful she might be able to have an affair during her August stay in Jamaica while the hubby is in Europe. Story is funny/sad, as the people involved and the Jamaican resort all are “sad sacks”.
Isaac B Singer story about young Jewish woman possessed by demons: very good and a bit humorous.
6/21/24 — back to lake house and back to this. Good to be making progressive notes and reading front-to-back because I certainly would not remember where I left off! Now on to the John O’Hara story “Flight.”
“Flight” is quite interesting character-wise and plot-wise. Don’t remember reading much (if any) John O’Hara — who knows why? Liked it!
7-5-24: Robert Penn Warren story about a poor Tennessee farm family is a very nice surprise. A stereotype buster.
4/4/25: Italian writer Dino Buzzati’s “The End of the World,” whipped out in 2.5 pages (about six paragraphs), wherein a large hand appears in the sky, is taken by the townspeople to be God and the imminent end of the world, which generates a panicked search for priests to take confessions. But who will confess the last priest?
/
6/12/25: Next up: Eudora Welty’s “Death of a Traveling Salesman.” Yep, that’s what happens. Interesting character study before the last heartbeat. Probably some literature teacher somewhere has made her suffering students chew on this.
6/21/25: John Cheever’s “The Five-Forty-Eight” is one of textbook short stories that are straightforward and easy to like. A mix of clear plot and interesting characters, this time really just two — a man trying to get home from work and a woman desperate to confront him. Bad behavior meets its reward.
7/23/20: Now have read three stories, including a Collette. Not loving them so far. Next up Somerset Maugham.
7/26/20: Maugham enjoyable and typical of his work. Best of the bunch so far. Skipped ahead to Katherine Anne Porter — another hard-scrabble farmer tale — and on to V.S. Pritchett’s look at antique dealers and their passions.
7/1/22: Time to crack this book again. The cover flap was in the Hemingway story but it didn’t seem familiar after two years, so I went back and read the foreword again, then this review. OK, let’s try V.S. Pritchett again!
7/2/22: The Pritchett story is both funny (in a sad way) and disturbing (if you are so inclined). Lots of realistic observations about antique dealers, I think, having observed them for many years.
7.3.22: A.E. Coppard’s tale of night in a Cotswold inn is short and conjures up memories of TWO nights in a small Cotswold hotel. So I found it pleasant even though strange. (The story, not the hotel I stayed in.) Coppard’s prose is charming.
Horacio Quiroga’s “The Dead Man” was familiar — all three pages of it. Have I read it elsewhere or in this volume? Either way, it IS memorable. Must look up Quiroga — the introduction to the story talks about all the death surrounding Mr. Q, including his own suicide.
On to Kafka. Suitably troubling; Then D H Lawrence -- suitably British. Katherine Mansfield's brief story is about grief -- perhaps based on her loss of a brother in WW I. Katherine Ann Porter's contribution seems familiar . . . spare and good. Ivo Andric is suitably Slavic
7/5/22: Babel’s story is very short and very violent in a strange way. No surprise given my review of Red Cavalry.
7:15:22 — back to this with the F. Scott Fitzgerald story, “Babylon Revisited.” Excellent and sad. I had read the editor’s introductory comments 10 days ago and went back to them after reading this story — and darned if the editor didn’t say the story holds up better if the reader forgets about Fitzgerald’s life story. Uh, OK — why? Is it because the story isn’t fiction IF?
Then Faulkner’s “That Evening Sun.” A nice slice of pre-enlightenment Mississippi race relations but mostly about domestic relations. Heavy use of the “n” word by both blacks and a couple of very young white children. Question: has Faulkner been canceled in English Lit classes because he uses “nigger”? And will this review be removed because it contains that word?
Jorge Luis Borges up next. And down immediately. After one page — okay, even one paragraph — l knew his mysterious babbling was NOT for me.
Elizabeth Bowen’s “Mysterious Kor” is short and spare and delivers a convincing snapshot of the difficulty of relationships & trying to be in love (lust?) in WW II London. That is not the best description of this story but it is the best i can do right now!
3/16/23: Hemingway’s “My Old Man” is quite interesting—short take on life in thoroughbred racing in 1920s (probably) Italy and France, as seen through the eyes of the juvenile son of a journeyman jockey. Not an easy life.
5/26/23: Back to the lake and an E B White story. The introduction to this very brief tale says White never wrote anything like this again and neither would anyone else. Which is a good thing, because the story is ultra-weird — the sort of thing that only an English major in search of a thesis topic could love. Yuk!
No time for another story, so back behind the wall until the next lake trip.
6/10/23: Read “Lovers of the Lake,” by Sean O’Faolain — Irish story about two Irish adulterers on a weekend prayer pilgrimage. Don’t need to read more by this guy, but I’m sure he is a good writer.
7/17/23: continuing on page order, next up is Kay Boyle. Her very short “Men,” about internees in France during WW I working on a road, is ok but not memorable. Morley Callaghan’s “A Cap For Steve” is about a poor man trying to save face in front of his son — I can see it as a scene from a 1930s movie. Frank O’Connor’s “The Drunkard” is sad-funny; one might say a typical Irish character.
Thanksgiving weekend 2023: Read Graham Greene story about English woman married to a New Englander, the only man she’s ever known (speaking Biblically), but she is a tiny bit hopeful she might be able to have an affair during her August stay in Jamaica while the hubby is in Europe. Story is funny/sad, as the people involved and the Jamaican resort all are “sad sacks”.
Isaac B Singer story about young Jewish woman possessed by demons: very good and a bit humorous.
6/21/24 — back to lake house and back to this. Good to be making progressive notes and reading front-to-back because I certainly would not remember where I left off! Now on to the John O’Hara story “Flight.”
“Flight” is quite interesting character-wise and plot-wise. Don’t remember reading much (if any) John O’Hara — who knows why? Liked it!
7-5-24: Robert Penn Warren story about a poor Tennessee farm family is a very nice surprise. A stereotype buster.
4/4/25: Italian writer Dino Buzzati’s “The End of the World,” whipped out in 2.5 pages (about six paragraphs), wherein a large hand appears in the sky, is taken by the townspeople to be God and the imminent end of the world, which generates a panicked search for priests to take confessions. But who will confess the last priest?
/
6/12/25: Next up: Eudora Welty’s “Death of a Traveling Salesman.” Yep, that’s what happens. Interesting character study before the last heartbeat. Probably some literature teacher somewhere has made her suffering students chew on this.
6/21/25: John Cheever’s “The Five-Forty-Eight” is one of textbook short stories that are straightforward and easy to like. A mix of clear plot and interesting characters, this time really just two — a man trying to get home from work and a woman desperate to confront him. Bad behavior meets its reward.
May 13, 2009
anthologies are always interesting to read. they can introduce you to writers you've heard of but never gotten around to, they can introduce you to writers you've never encountered before, and they can show you new sides of writers whose works you are familiar with.
such is the case with this anthology. usual suspects like hemingway, faulkner, fitzgerald, updike, cheever, borges, marquez, kundera, nabokov, greene and capote, are cheek by jowl with authors i was less familiar with (for example, kazakov, buzatti and beerbohm), giving us the best of both - or rather - all three worlds.
but there are also some strange idioscyncasies that mr. fadiman has let play. he hates, for example, fitzgerald and calls him highly over-rated in several places. and yet includes "babylon revisited", a truly powerful and amazing story. and he is still mad at the germans (whom he does not distinguish from the nazis and whom he does not include in this collection). and while he fawns over hemingway and calls sherwood anderson "dated", the hemingway story he includes ('my old man") is such an obvious copy of anderson's "adventure" as to misrepresent the former's style and ability.
nevertheless, this remains a valuable compendium of short stories, and one that i would recommend to anyone interested in the form.
such is the case with this anthology. usual suspects like hemingway, faulkner, fitzgerald, updike, cheever, borges, marquez, kundera, nabokov, greene and capote, are cheek by jowl with authors i was less familiar with (for example, kazakov, buzatti and beerbohm), giving us the best of both - or rather - all three worlds.
but there are also some strange idioscyncasies that mr. fadiman has let play. he hates, for example, fitzgerald and calls him highly over-rated in several places. and yet includes "babylon revisited", a truly powerful and amazing story. and he is still mad at the germans (whom he does not distinguish from the nazis and whom he does not include in this collection). and while he fawns over hemingway and calls sherwood anderson "dated", the hemingway story he includes ('my old man") is such an obvious copy of anderson's "adventure" as to misrepresent the former's style and ability.
nevertheless, this remains a valuable compendium of short stories, and one that i would recommend to anyone interested in the form.
September 25, 2009
The best collection ever. Some 20 years ago I read a story a day at lunch and I was never disappointed. Very comprehensive, immensely enjoyable and educational in the best sense. The key word is "world"; it goes for a global outreach, although as in most such things it's heavily predicated toward the west.
Each story in introduced with a few smart paragraphs from Fadiman. It introduced me for the first time to William Trevor, whom Fadiman called the best English writer alive, and it had fine examples from such usual suspects as Franz Kafka, John Cheever, John Updike, William Faulkner, Flannery O'Connor, and Morley Callaghan as well as Nadine Gordimer and Mark Helprin and many others. Totally out of print I'm sure. I rue the day I loaned it out.
Each story in introduced with a few smart paragraphs from Fadiman. It introduced me for the first time to William Trevor, whom Fadiman called the best English writer alive, and it had fine examples from such usual suspects as Franz Kafka, John Cheever, John Updike, William Faulkner, Flannery O'Connor, and Morley Callaghan as well as Nadine Gordimer and Mark Helprin and many others. Totally out of print I'm sure. I rue the day I loaned it out.
Want to read
June 18, 20121) A.V. Laider; Beerbohm, max
2) The Other Wife; Colette
3) The Facts of Life; Maugham, Somerset
4) Dusky Ruth; Coppard, A.E.
5) The Dead Man; Quiroga, Horacio
6) In the Penal Colony; Kafka, Franz
7) Odour of Chrysanthemums; Lawrence, D.H.
8) The Fly; Mansfield, Katherine
9) He; Porter, Katherine Anne
10) Thirst; Andric, Ivo
11) My First Goose; Babel, Isaac
12) The Greatest Man in the World; Thurber, James
13) The Piano; Machado, Anibal Monteiro
14) Babylon Revisited; Fitzgerald, F. Scott
15) That Evening Sun; Faulkner, William
16) Tlon, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius; Borges, Jorge Luis
17) Mysterious Kor; Bowen, Elizabeth
18) First Love; Nabokov, Vladimir
19) The Door; White, E.B.
20) Lovers of the Lake; Sean O'Faolain
21) The Camberwell Beauty; Pritchett, V.S.
22) Men; Boyle, Kay
23) A Cap for Steve; Callaghan, Morley
24) The Drunkard; O'Connor, Frank
25) Cheap in August; Greene, Graham
26) The Dead Fiddler; Singer, Isaac Bashevis
27) The Patented Gate and the Mean Hamburger; Warren, Robert Penn
28) The End of the World; Buzzati, Dino
29) Death of a Traveling Salesman; Welty, Eudora
30) The Five-Forthy-Eight; Cheever, John
31) The Living; Laving, Mary
32) The Vertical Ladder; Sansom, William
33) Medal from Jerusalem; Shaw, Irwin
34) The Southern Thruway; Cortazar, Julio
35) The Jewbird; Malamud, Bernard
36) A Silver Dish; Bellow, Saul
37) The Interior Castle; Stafford, Jean
38) Madame Zilensky and the King of Finland; McCullers, Carson
39) The Gift of the Prodigal; Taylor, Peter
40) One Off the Short Life; Lessing, Doris
41) The Supper; Borowski, Tadeusz
42) Going Ashore; Gallant, Mavis
43) Letter from His Father; Gordimer, Nadine
44) Miriam; Capote, Truman
45) Three Million Men; Mishima, Yukio
46) The Artificial Nigger; O'Connor, Flannery
47) Nikishka's Secrets; Kazakov, Yuri
48) Death Constant Beyond Love; Marquez, Gabriel Garcia
49) The Shawl; Ozick, Cynthia
50) A Complicated Nature; Trevor, William
51) The Hitchhiking Game; Kundira, Milan
52) Game; Barthelme, Donald
53) Bardon Bus; Munro, Alice
54) Pigeon Feathers; Updike, John
55) Eli, the Fanatic; Roth, Philip
56) How I Contemplated the World from the Detroit House of Correction and Began My Life Over Again; Oates, Joyce Carol
57) The Man from Mars; Atwood, Margaret
58) Weekend; Beattie, Ann
59) The Schreuderspitze; Helprin, Mark
2) The Other Wife; Colette
3) The Facts of Life; Maugham, Somerset
4) Dusky Ruth; Coppard, A.E.
5) The Dead Man; Quiroga, Horacio
6) In the Penal Colony; Kafka, Franz
7) Odour of Chrysanthemums; Lawrence, D.H.
8) The Fly; Mansfield, Katherine
9) He; Porter, Katherine Anne
10) Thirst; Andric, Ivo
11) My First Goose; Babel, Isaac
12) The Greatest Man in the World; Thurber, James
13) The Piano; Machado, Anibal Monteiro
14) Babylon Revisited; Fitzgerald, F. Scott
15) That Evening Sun; Faulkner, William
16) Tlon, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius; Borges, Jorge Luis
17) Mysterious Kor; Bowen, Elizabeth
18) First Love; Nabokov, Vladimir
19) The Door; White, E.B.
20) Lovers of the Lake; Sean O'Faolain
21) The Camberwell Beauty; Pritchett, V.S.
22) Men; Boyle, Kay
23) A Cap for Steve; Callaghan, Morley
24) The Drunkard; O'Connor, Frank
25) Cheap in August; Greene, Graham
26) The Dead Fiddler; Singer, Isaac Bashevis
27) The Patented Gate and the Mean Hamburger; Warren, Robert Penn
28) The End of the World; Buzzati, Dino
29) Death of a Traveling Salesman; Welty, Eudora
30) The Five-Forthy-Eight; Cheever, John
31) The Living; Laving, Mary
32) The Vertical Ladder; Sansom, William
33) Medal from Jerusalem; Shaw, Irwin
34) The Southern Thruway; Cortazar, Julio
35) The Jewbird; Malamud, Bernard
36) A Silver Dish; Bellow, Saul
37) The Interior Castle; Stafford, Jean
38) Madame Zilensky and the King of Finland; McCullers, Carson
39) The Gift of the Prodigal; Taylor, Peter
40) One Off the Short Life; Lessing, Doris
41) The Supper; Borowski, Tadeusz
42) Going Ashore; Gallant, Mavis
43) Letter from His Father; Gordimer, Nadine
44) Miriam; Capote, Truman
45) Three Million Men; Mishima, Yukio
46) The Artificial Nigger; O'Connor, Flannery
47) Nikishka's Secrets; Kazakov, Yuri
48) Death Constant Beyond Love; Marquez, Gabriel Garcia
49) The Shawl; Ozick, Cynthia
50) A Complicated Nature; Trevor, William
51) The Hitchhiking Game; Kundira, Milan
52) Game; Barthelme, Donald
53) Bardon Bus; Munro, Alice
54) Pigeon Feathers; Updike, John
55) Eli, the Fanatic; Roth, Philip
56) How I Contemplated the World from the Detroit House of Correction and Began My Life Over Again; Oates, Joyce Carol
57) The Man from Mars; Atwood, Margaret
58) Weekend; Beattie, Ann
59) The Schreuderspitze; Helprin, Mark
August 18, 2025
Life changing. Simply life changing.
November 10, 2022
Often, after reading what is considered to be great literature, I find myself doubting my own intellect. This large volume consists of short stories penned by legendary writers, from Kafka to Fitzgerald, Hemingway to Roth, Updike to Carver and on and on. And yet, upon finishing I found almost nothing memorable, nothing thrilling, most simply vignettes or slices of life without true endings. The prose itself is impeccable, the structure, the descriptions, the vocabulary…and yet I came away empty, puzzled. Therefore, it must be me. If you like the current fiction in the ‘New Yorker’, these stories will please you. If, on the other hand, you appreciate the tale more than the telling, A Poe, an O’Henry, a Bradbury, you may want to pass.
March 3, 2021
62 carefully selected short stories by some of the best known names in the field. A very weighty volume, both physically and metaphorically with stories ranging from the comic to the shocking and in one case the bizarre. I enjoyed dipping in and reading a story a day - this is not a book for speed reading!
Why only 4 stars? Well, any anthology is a product not just of great writing but also a prisoner of the editor’s personal reading history and preferences, his publisher’s ideas of what will sell and of course the language of the anthology -this one being in English so great foreign stories could only be considered for inclusion if they have been translated. This seems to have led to a collection which is dominated by white American (especially many American Jewish gems), British and Irish writers - the two “African” writers included are both white. As far as I can see there is nothing from the US’s own rich pool of African American storytelling.
Would I challenge the choice of any particular story in the collection? Probably not, each one is very special, but it is sad that this World of the Short Story was not “The World in Short Stories”
Why only 4 stars? Well, any anthology is a product not just of great writing but also a prisoner of the editor’s personal reading history and preferences, his publisher’s ideas of what will sell and of course the language of the anthology -this one being in English so great foreign stories could only be considered for inclusion if they have been translated. This seems to have led to a collection which is dominated by white American (especially many American Jewish gems), British and Irish writers - the two “African” writers included are both white. As far as I can see there is nothing from the US’s own rich pool of African American storytelling.
Would I challenge the choice of any particular story in the collection? Probably not, each one is very special, but it is sad that this World of the Short Story was not “The World in Short Stories”
January 31, 2026
what a collection! I absolutely loved a handful or two. liked nearly all. and only found a few to be utterly boring. 62 stories from 62 authors. most I hadn't heard of let alone read before. found a few authors I can't wait to check out their stuff. I wrote a review of each story in my journal and those along with the editors' 1 page introduction before them really helped me to appreciate it all. glad I got into short stories last year. I read Faulkner's, O'Connor's, "Great American Short Stories, "American Short Story Masterpieces, and the sampling book called "The Outlaw Bible of American Literature. Now to add this The World of the Short Story is a nice addition. I've got "50 Great Short Stories", Fitzgerald's, Nabokov's, Hawthorne's, Eudora Welty's and "Great American Short Stories" on my shelf waiting for me. That's a couple years worth of short stories probably. "I like!"
December 29, 2020
My chief issue with this collection is that it feels to me unbalanced, with significantly more short stories that are weighty and depressing than otherwise uplifting. However, I still think it was worth the read. There were some great stories in here that I’m glad to have read, and a good bit of the depressing ones were very good as well, though I would be more likely to pick and choose my stories next time rather than read the whole thing.
July 18, 2025
A rather thick collection of prose from the first half and two-thirds of the 20th century, from primarily English-speaking authors. I come away impressed with Fadiman as an editor; while I didn't enjoy all stories equally, of course, they were universally of high quality and to some degree engaging. I'd recommend the volume for someone interested in the mainstream fiction of the era.
September 18, 2020
A star-studded cast of "great" writers from the past. But I did not enjoy most of these stories. The Thurber one was great, the Truman Capote one was very good, and i enjoyed the Joyce Carol Oates story as well. The rest were just boring. Not worth plowing through 850 pages, for me at least.
January 23, 2025
I technically DNF’d with about 200 pages left, I did like some of the short stories but in general I don’t think it was for me. I can appreciate the purpose of the book, giving recognition to great writers.
November 4, 2025
Very much a book from 1986. The stories, most of which center on middle-class baby boomers, read like they're from an alien planet now. It's difficult to enter into the "world of the short story" when a story's assumptions about the world are so dated and strange.
February 21, 2012
This huge collection (my hardcover has 845 pages of stories) includes many important classic short story writers and I enjoyed most of them. But what made this collection educational and awesome is the editor's short forward on each story, placing the reader in the author's time and place, telling us of the author's influence (or perhaps lack of) on the writing world and the short story genre. I'll likely revisit this one, forever.
October 18, 2023
I recently started this book and have just come upon a "dark" story. I really do not want to read this story, but I am a devoted sequential reader and cannot get to the next story without it. So I have paused here to get myself into a state of mind to get through this story and move on. The Story is Franz Kafka's In the Penal Colony and is about a machine for executing prisoners in a most gruesome way.
April 21, 2008
Kafka, Faulkner, Greene, Capote... around 60 authors in all... a very representative collection...
Want to read
September 20, 201072/845
July 23, 2014
Because I need it for my project!
April 9, 2016
As with every collection of stories, this one has some highs and some lows. However, the best ones are really memorable and well-written. Definitely a keeper !
August 10, 2016
It was awesome. Days and days of great reading, and discovery of some authors I hadn't known.
August 7, 2016
3 1/2 stars
Displaying 1 - 21 of 21 reviews