I think I enjoyed this a similar amount to the last collection of Borges' short stories that I read - "The Book of Sand"; they are very different books, though there isn't a lot between them in terms of quality. I didn't enjoy all of the stories there, and I enjoyed all but two of the eleven stories here. This collection was put together, and mainly written, when Borges was old, and he is less playful here than he was when he was younger, none of the games with time and infinity, (which do come back in the Book of Sand), as here the stories focus on more serious matters. All but two of the stories, as far as I can remember, involve at least one person dying, or to be precise, in most of them it is someone being killed. More often than not they involve knives. This might make them sound a bit repetitive, but they are not this way at all, they are stories in the best sense of the word, and do not have a message of violence in them unless one reads only the words. They are easier to understand than a lot of Borges' writings, and while this could lead to them being called superficial in comparison to the likes of Labyrinths, they have a certain poignancy and emotive shockingness about them that is not often found elsewhere. I would recommend this book to Borges readers and fans of short stories alike. ( )

http://www.ilpotereelagloria.com/libr... ( )