If you want to feel what Dublin was like in Joyce's time, then this book is for you. 15 sketches of people, usually bleak and dark, just as I like it. Joyce paints little portraits of people who are stuck in life in one way on another. He is great in adding tiny little details that contribute to the general atmosphere and the realistic portrait of Irish society.

Politics and religion are present in the background: Irish nationalism and the discussion about it (a story about Parnell), the British... The stories follow life: the first ones are told by children, then there are stories about marriage, making a career, failed dreams...

My favourite was Eveline, about a woman who is about to escape her life but can't in the end.