Have read several of these stories at various times. Greene has sunk in my esteem lately, and I may not return to this book.

I prefer his novels to his stories.

Especially "May we borrow your husband"

I'm a non-fiction gal... I'm too picky with fiction, I guess, since I know this is a classic and most people seem to like it, but oh well.

Just picked a few stories out to read. Didn't do the book, cover to cover. Enjoyed the Blue Movie.

(3.5)

I saw this in the bookstore shortly after I finished reading The End of the Affair. I was entranced with Graham Greene's writing. This book has a variety of different stories.

I can't say I liked a lot of them. Most I found extremely dated, regional, and frankly, boring with no plot or character development even for a short story. The ones I liked I loved intensely. The length of the stories ranges from a few pages to a couple dozen pages.

Despite it not being an all-around five-star read for me, I feel like I came away with a lot of insight and even some inspiration. My favorite stories were The Hint of an Explanation, The Last Word, A Visit to Morin, and An Old Man's Memory.

Studying literature in the US 20 plus years ago, I gathered that Greene had figured in the education of my Chinese colleagues-- had he been assigned as part of the state curriculum for his cold war insights?? Neither I nor any of my US friends had ever encountered him.

I just picked up in the past year or so, and had to mark the short stories as 'read' at some point-- I have dipped in and out for a while but lately feel as if I'm just retracing my steps. It's been uneven-- as are the novels; but my provisional assessment is that he's a slow burn and curious; and the novels are a better bet than the stories. Glad he was as prolific on that front and so many more to sample in future. I suspect by the time I get around I will find it all new again. Which reminds me (short stories and all) to look into Maupessant again, after well over a quarter century. I have found Cheever better (brilliant) with short stories, and as-- but also less consistent than-- Greene on the novels, but maybe that is also a function of the volume, my exposure, or the mls.

As this commendably extensive collection attests, the short story was clearly not the great Greene's form. Too many of the pieces can be categorized as a caprice, a self-amusement, or a premise or scene in search of a larger context. Still, in each, the signature talents that made him a household-name novelist are there: his street photographer's eye, his doomed heroes, his inherently cinematic sense of pace, and the dome of damnation under which his hide-and-seek narratives play out.

Always a joy reading anything from Graham Greene.
I’ve read many of his novels but this was my first time with his short stories.

It took a long time to finish because I decided to read a few at a time between novels. A practice I plan repeat with other authors short story compilations.

As the book's title implies, it collects ALL of Graham Greene's short stories, so those other collections? like Twenty-one Stories, May We Borrow Your Husband & Other Comedies of the Sexual Life, The Last Word and Other Stories? Yep, they're all in here, along with some other stories, 4 of which are 'newly collected', for a grand total of 53 stories.

For my impressions on the 3 individual short story collections mentioned above, I invite you to click on their respective links.

Usually with short story collections, I find that I have to read only a few (stories) at a time - in between other books, let's say - so that the book doesn't become a chore and I don't find myself growing disinterested (or worse: bored!). Sometimes even that is insufficient and I still get bored. Such culprits include Thomas Mann's Collected Stories and Burton's The Arabian Nights. This may change, but right now I can't even go anywhere near these 2 books.

There have been many happy (for me) exceptions to this rule, when the quality of the stories is so constantly good, that I read through the whole thing very fast. This book is a such an exception, and it joins a select club, whose exclusive membership include such gems as The Complete Stories of Evelyn Waugh, Boccaccio's The Decameron, Dashiell Hammett's Crime Stories and Other Writings, and Penguin's 4 short story collections of W. Somerset Maugham - oh, and Rudyard Kipling's Collected Stories.

So it goes without saying that if you like short stories and/or Graham Greene, you should get this collection, because it is 'complete' and you will probably save yourself some $$ by buying one book instead of three.

Okay, okay. Here are some of the stories that I enjoyed more than others:

- Special Duties
- When Greek Meets Greek
- Alas, Poor Maling
- Across The Bridge
- The Basement Room
- The End Of The Party

- A Visit To Morin
- Dream Of A Strange Land

- May We Borrow Your Husband?
- A Shocking Accident
- Doctor Crombie
- The Root Of All Evil

- The Last Word
- The News In English
- A Branch Of The Service

- The Blessing
- Dear Dr Falkenheim



* Excluding this sentence, the word 'stories' was used 11 times in this review, and 'story' was used 3 times. Sorry about that.

Graham Greene is one of my favourite writers but I found collection of short stories slightly disappointing; difficult to read the almost relentless downbeat tales
My favourite was The Last Word

not as grabbed by it as i thought i would be - putting it down for awhile.