The Darling and Other Stories

Chekhov's tales vary from the slice of life variety to the profound but they often have a sense of wit and intellectual mirth that makes them brighter stories. One can imagine Chekhov smiling in real life whereas one can only picture Dostoevsky gnashing his teeth. The stories are also very easy to read and understand, with the only major difficulty still being so many similar names and very different sounding nicknames attached to full formal names which make it slightly more challenging at times to follow the characters. (Goodreads)