There are many kinds of stories in this book I hope you will find some that you like... In going where you have to go, and doing what you have to do, and seeing what you have to see, you dull and blunt the instrument you write with. But I would rather have it bent and dulled and know I had to put it on the

grindstone and hammer it into shape and put a whetstone to it, and know that I had something to write about, than to have it bright and shining and nothing to say, or smooth and well-oiled in the closet, but unused.ERNEST HEMINGWAY, from his Preface

'Mr Hemingway, applying that quick eye and wrist of his to the rings of the boxer and bull-fighter, achieves some unforgettable reporting of the world in which blood is argument.. The author's exceptional gift of narrative quality gives the excitement of a well-told tale to what is, in fact, a simple description of a scene. Guardian