Amazing stories specially the school days, swami and friends and the talkative man. have read this book over and over again. Trust read it once and you wil llove it. undoubtly the best book out of the lot is swami and friends. the short stories about the his experiences and adventures with his friends somu, ranjam etc are so facinating that it takes you back to your childhood days. it also reminds you of the sweet innocence we used to have in those early years. his experiences connects so well with everyone like how he used to hate school and his teachers and he always felt like in heaven whenever he was with his friends. forming MCC XI crickt team was also an amazing acheavement and how he ran away from his home. everything is just so great an dreal about this book. you will find a lot of similarities in all the books written by R.K. narayan. he usually takes Malgudi town inpre independence era as the base in all his books. I dont know what facination he had with malgudi but I really like the name malgudi. I have also seen the television series of malgudi days and I must say that the shaw was pretty close to what you would visualize from reading the book.