"Selected Short Stories" by Guy De Maupassant

I do not remember how or when I added the French writer, Guy De Maupassant, to my reading list, but I am thankful for the suggestion. The short stories in this collection are flirtatious and efficiently satisfying. Maupassant captured very human episodes that are water-ringed by vague taboos and unseemliness. This collection, translated with an introduction by Roger Colet, was published by Penguin Books in 1971.

From Maupassant's masterpiece, "Boule De Suif":

The others ordered wine, except for Cornudet, who demanded beer. He had his own special way of opening the bottle, giving the liquid a good head, and examining it, first tilting the glass and then holding it up between the lamp and his eyes to appreciate the colour. When he drank, his great beard, which was the colour of his favorite beverage, seemed to quiver with emotion, and he squinted so as not to lose sight of his mug; he looked as if he were performing the one function for which he had been born. It was as though he were establishing in his mind a connexion, or even an affinity, between the two ruling passions of his life—Pale Ale and Revolution—and he certainly never drank the one without thinking of the other.

I enjoyed every word of these 30 stories, but "Boule De Suif" is easily my favorite. 

Maupassant, a French writer and protégé of Gustave Flaubert, is considered a member of the naturalist school and wrote much of his work in the 1870s and 1880s. He wrote, according to Wikipedia, hundreds of short stories, six novels, three travel books, and one volume of verse.