'The Road Less Taken' is a Collection of Unusual Short Stories . . .Theodore Jerome Cohen’s first serious attempt to write a short story for publication was in 1962 while he was working in Antarctica. The story he penned—about a man killed by a pod of orcas—was lost during his return to the United States. It wasn’t until 2009, when he resurrected the tale and incorporated it in his post-modern novel, Frozen in Time: Murder at the Bottom of the World, that the horror of the episode, which was based on a real encounter by three Chilean Army enlisted men with a pod of orcas, appeared in print. Time did not dim the horror of what happened at sea that day!Now, this story and others—unusual stories about Ted’s life as a violinist, about a woman who seeks the help of a fortune teller to divine the future of her daughter, and about a university professor obsessed with the making of coffee—are vividly brought to life in the eleven short stories found in this book. Praise for Theodore Jerome Cohen's Writing Style: "The subtlety of Theodore Jerome Cohen's writing lies in his ability to create a fascinating story within the folds of what appears to be another mundane story about everyday life, but which turns out to be just as fascinating as the first." ~ Joel R. Dennstedt for Readers' Favorite "Brilliant! Above all, Cohen is a masterful storyteller." ~ Mark Mitchell, former editorial page writer for the Wall Street Journal "Cohen is a writing virtuoso!" ~ Gary Sorkin for PacificBook Review "A fresh voice in literary journalism." ~ Richard Blake for Readers Views "Great entertainment . . . sure to delight." ~ Lee Ashcroft for Readers' Favorite "Stands out from the crowd." ~ Krista Schnee for Hollywood Book Review NABE Pinnacle Book Achievement Award Winners for Summer 2017: Best Book in the Short Story category Readers' Favorite 2017 Book Competition Winner: Silver Medal, FICTION-ANTHOLOGY When I was growing up, visitors to our home in Milwaukee,Wisconsin, often surprised my mother by bringing her a Whitman Sampler, an assortment of boxed chocolates. The cashew clusters, cherry cordials, and maple fudge candies were treats to be savored, and indeed, it took every ounce of self-restraint and then some to keep us from eating more than a few pieces at a time. Short stories are like that. Small, bite-sized morsels of literary ecstasy, they're so tasty and easily digested in one sitting that we're often tempted to gobble them up, one after the other, in pursuit of a reading "high." This collection of short stories is like a Whitman Sampler. What you'll find here are, in some cases, excerpts adapted from some of my novels, as in the case of "Requiem for Solly" or "And Then There Were Two . "   In another case, the material is based on an idea I used in a Young Adult (YA) novel written under my pen name "Alyssa Devine." The story lines in both cases involve a fortune teller and the use of tarot cards. I'm particularly proud of "Unforgiven," the story of a man who was asked by his dying father to seek out and thank his World War II Army sergeant for the privilege of having served under him at Normandy and in the Battle of the Bulge. Using some insightful suggestions from the editorial board of the literary magazine  CARVE,  I resubmitted the story to  Glimmer Train, where it won Honorable Mention in that magazine's September, 2015, Family Matters competition . Given that  Glimmer Train  receives between 2,000 and 3,000 submissions a month, I'll take it! This book is a literary "sampler," to be sure,and one filled with bite-sized morsels sure to please any palate. Many are based on real events, some even from my own life, which leads us to the first story in the book: "Write What You Know . " I hope you'll take your time to savor every word. A Collection of Unusual Short Stories . . . Stories from a writer who has walked a road less taken .. . indeed, a road few people ever will travel in their lifetimes, giving us,in some cases, fictionalized glimpses into the lives, and in some cases the deaths , of men and women he knew, through stories inspired by real-life events. "Brilliant! Above all, Cohen is a masterful storyteller." Mark Mitchell, former editorial page writer for the Wall Street Journal (5 Stars) Theodore Jerome Cohen's first serious attempt to write a short story for publication was in 1962 while he was working in Antarctica. The story he penned--about a man killed by a pod of orcas--was lost during his return to the United States. It wasn't until 2009, when he resurrected the tale and incorporated it into his post-modern novel, Frozen in Time, Murder at the Bottom of the World , that the horror of the episode, which was based on a real encounter by three Chilean Army enlisted men with a pod of orcas, appeared in print. Time did not dim the horror of what happened at sea that day! Now, this story and others-- unusual stories about Ted's life as a violinist, abou