Master storyteller Sandy Compton has gathered tales for decades, and from all around the world. These are 20 of his best. The Dog With His Head On Sideways is a collection years in the making.

The earliest story, “Redemption at the Hand of Alice Lundberg” was written in the 1980s. The title story was inspired by a village dog encountered near the Siberian oil town of Nizhnevartovsk in March, 2001, just months before 9/11 changed the world immutably.

Two late additions, “Two By Four” and “The Longest Day of the Year,” were found in the author’s archive of starts — many writers keep such — and finished during the crazy trip around the sun we will always remember as 2020. Sappy and sentimental they may be, but they are also well-told, thought provoking and rife with the sensibilities of love, honor and good will, which our world can certainly use in these times.