Short stories don't usually interest me. They are typically so fleeting. At least the contemporary short stories. These concise, varied and multi-layered stories take you into a group of characters and scenarios so deftly (if that is the right word) that you truly feel like you've gotten to know them in a very short time. ( )

A collection of earlier short stories by the German Nobelist Heinrich Böll. They are for the most part well written and concieved--though nothing really extraordinary and tending to stick to the same thematic territory familiar to the author and set mostly in post World War II Germany. It's a good book--maybe even a good one for a reader who has not read Böll to get an idea about his work. ( )