James Joyce 
Dubliners 

Dubliners is a collection of 15 short stories, the last The Dead has remained one of the most poignant stories written by a modern writer. The stories encompass the streets of Dublin, paint a vivid picture of the people from Dublin, and pose questions over life and the unpredictability of it. The protagonists’ age as the book progresses, so while the first story is from the point of view of a seven-year-old child, the final story is recognizably about death and old age. Joyce offers us a synthesis of people and their actions, their fears, their misconceptions, their loves, and their hates. Brief zoom-ins into the details that make up Dublin of his time. For readers scared of reading Joyce’s Ulysses, Dubliners proves to be a good beginning to his writing.