I have great admiration for this author. There were quite a few stories I liked, but I've only mentioned the ones that I rated three stars or more. As with any collection of short stories or anthologies, there are only a few really good ones, the rest are just so so. I often feel resentful that it takes so much time to get through these, just to see if there's one more good one left.

Pleasure, 3 stars
The Witness, 4 stars
The Eye of God in Paradise, 3 stars
The Other Woman, 4 stars
Wow, does this author know men and
their lying ways! This was really
triggering for me.
One Off the Short List, 4 stars
Fabulous put-down of a boorish, gauche
man.
A Woman on a Roof, 3 stars
An Old Woman and Her Cat, 3 stars



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Dorris Lessing was at her best as a short story writer. This anthology has all 35 of her short stories, except early Africa ones. ( )

This is a collection of all Lessing's short fiction up to 1978, excluding those with an African setting. As a Lessing fan, I continue to be interested in everything she writes, yet her published work is very uneven, particularly with regard to stories and essays. Some of these pieces are short descriptions of the sort one might find in a journal or perhaps the fruit of writing exercises similar to the thirty-minute dailies recommended by Natalie Goldberg. "The Temptation of Jack Orkney" was as sharp a piece of observation as one will find, even among Lessing's other finest writing, and her scenarios of heterosexual lust, with particular attention to love triangles ("The Other Woman" and "A Man and Two Women"), is so acutely and painfully accurate that readers re-live the experience (even if they never had it). There are perhaps a half dozen stories that demand to be read, yet despite the fine writing and keen observation to be found here and there in this collection, my favorite Lessing story remains "The Black Madonna." ( )

wonderful stories by one of Britain's best authors ( )