Collected Stories of F. Scott Fitzgerald: Flappers and Philosophers and Tales of the Jazz Age (Barnes & Noble Library of Essential Reading) Book

Okay, this is my first Goodreads review ever, so bear with me, folks. For me, Fitzgerald's short stories have always been a pleasant contrast to his novels. When reading each it is just as easy to imagine a Fitzgerald disenchanted with life, struggling to write a story that will earn back his praise or finances, as it is to imagine him so in love with the world that he must bottle some words in a jar to keep on the shelf for all of time.

That's not to say that each story is of the same value - there are only five of which I would rate as worthy of five golden stars. The rest were either uneventful or became similar, yet I remained surprised by Fitzgerald's imagination throughout. At times, I would come across a single sentence written so beautifully that it nearly saved an otherwise typical story, a single bloom among shrubbery.