Sharp but kind - Kipling still shines
This collection of short stories was written at the end of the 19th century - I loved it as a teenager just after WWII abd it is just as entertaining now. Kipling's style is clear, sparkling and simple, not at all long winded.
The pictures he paints of social life in India in the hey day of the British raj also show the very human dilemmas that are with us always. Each story is separate but there is a sequence, with the same characters appearing in different snapshots, so that the book makes sense as a whole, without the fragmentation of other volumes of short stories