"An excellent introduction to the great Czech writer, in both content and form: the book is beautifully bound into a cloth cover and features an impressive number of collages by Jirí Grus that illustrate magnificently the whimsy of Hrabal’s prose. The book is a delight to hold and to read."

Meghan Forbes | Los Angeles Review of Books

"Delightful tales of mischief and wonder set in and around the author’s Kersko hideaway. Short’s translation captures the rough jewels of Hrabal’s rhythmic and roaming phrase-making, which, more often than not, culminates in an astonishing tenderness laden with little wisdoms."

James Hopkin | Times Literary Supplement

"The stories humorously portray the surreal surroundings of a miniscule mountain community in the midst of a totalitarian regime, creating an exquisite fusion of calamity and comedy."

World Literature Today

"The characters . . . ah, these creations are wonderful. . .  . The stories are funny and often frivolous, but they also take on a serious and bittersweet tone when broken dreams of what might have been come into play. . . . This collection would be an excellent starting point for a reader wanting an introduction to Hrabal's writing. Very highly recommended."

Mookse and Gripes

“One of the great prose stylists of the twentieth century; the scourge of state censors; the gregarious bar hound and lover of gossip, beer, cats and women (in roughly that order). . . . In Hrabal’s work beauty, pity, sorrow and high silliness come tightly braided.”

Parul Sehgal | New York Times Book Review

“Hrabal is not only a consistently entertaining storyteller, but some of his novels and stories are comic masterpieces that I wouldn’t advise bringing on planes or to doctors’ waiting rooms, where those overhearing your cackling may get the wrong idea and summon someone in authority to intervene. Serious works of literature that make us laugh uncontrollably are rare. When one remembers that Hrabal lived in a country and at a time in European history when there was absolutely nothing to laugh about, one’s amazement at what he accomplished is even greater.”

Charles Simic | New York Review of Books