Short Story Goodbye to Berlin Christopher Isherwood             Goodbye to Berlin contains six connected short stories- book is referred as novel in many reviews- written by Christopher Isherwood centered on Berlin of the early 1930s just before the takeover of Germany by Hitler. Isherwood lived in Berlin then and gave private tuitions in English for a living. These six pieces do not form a continuous narrative but have a common thread connecting all.   The common thread is the setting of time and place and the narrator, the author himself. In the book Christopher Isherwood appears as himself. He is not only the narrator but an important character in most of the stories. Book is semiautobiographical. Most reviews of the book have praised it for its beautiful evocation Berlin’s past in those prewar years when disaster was just around the corner but life in the bars, homes and offices continued albeit with the premon...

*****/*****                                                                                                                Short Story Collected Short Stories Vol 2 W. Somerset Maugham ‘Some people read for instruction, which is praiseworthy, and some for pleasure, which is innocent but not a few, read from habit, and I suppose that this is neither innocent nor praiseworthy.’ Thus, William Somerset Maugham summarised reading habits. E...