I enjoyed most of these stories ok and didn't expect to read anything else by Joyce. Until I got to the end. Although, first: many of the endings here are odd and abrupt. I'd hear a new reader announce a new story and that would be the first clue I had the previous story was over. But the reason Joyce is still on the to-be-read shelf is "The Dead." What a great story. I know lots of people read it in school and I'm sorry I didn't. This is one I'm going to read again at some point. The alst few pages/minutes of it were just wow.