"Dubliners" by James Joyce

The short-story collection Dubliners is an excellent introduction to James Joyce, the Irish author who is widely considered one of the greatest writers of the 20th century but whose major works, Ulysses and Finnegans Wake, are so long and difficult that almost no one makes it through them. If you haven’t read Joyce, this is a great place to start! (And who knows, maybe you'll be one of the few -- or already are one of the few -- who make it through one or both of his monumental masterpieces.)

The 15 stories that make up Dubliners, written between 1904 and 1907 and published in book form in 1914, depict moments in the lives of mostly middle-class people in Dublin at the time. As Wikipedia puts it, “The stories were written when Irish nationalism was at its peak, and a search for a national identity and purpose was raging... Joyce felt Irish nationalism, like Catholicism and British rule of Ireland, was responsible for a collective paralysis--a theme permeating much of the work. He conceived of Dubliners as a 'nicely polished looking-glass' held up to the Irish and a 'first step towards [their] spiritual liberation.'”

Several of the stories involve an epiphany for the main character, yet the endings remain open to interpretation, making them popular assignments in high-school English classes. (“Araby,” anyone?) Here are a few more details about the collection from Britannica:

'“Dubliners” has a well-defined structure along with interweaving, recurring symbols. The first three stories, narrated in the first person, portray children; the next four deal with young adults, and, like the remaining stories, are told by a third person, whose tone and sensibility shifts to reflect that of the changing protagonists; the following four stories concern mature life from middle age onward; and the next three, the public life of politics, art, and religion. The 15th and final story, “The Dead,” is considered not only the jewel of the collection but also a world masterpiece.’