Very fun fantasy. This is (I believe) the third book in the Murphy's Lore series and it is fast becoming a favorite of mine because of the good stories, great characters, and the awful puns. (Awful is actually good where puns are concerned.)
I also recommend the first two books-Tales from Bulfinche's Pub and Fools' Day.

Did you hear the one about the bar in New York where all kinds of weird non-human characters hang out? You know the one: the patrons tell horrid puns, help others resolve their problems, and secretly saved the Earth from total destruction? One of the regulars, a widower, narrates the stories.

No, this is not Callahan's Crosstime Saloon, though it feels awfully familiar. But where Spider Robinson wrote science fiction, Bulfinche's is pure fantasy -- the bar is owned by a leprechaun and inhabited by various characters from mythology.

The chapters are written like separate short stories, with brief re-introductions of the characters and setting in each. The early Callahan books actually were short story compilations, but I've found no evidence that these were ever published separately, so it may just be for effect.

The book isn't as good or as memorable as Callahan's. It also suffers from a desperate need for editing. Misspellings such as a Passover "Sater" or a fragrance "ode de __" are not typos, and display a sloppiness that detracted from the stories.

Even though the tales don't quite measure up to Spider Robinson's, they are still quite enjoyable. So if you have a hankering to revisit familiar turf, I do recommend it.

I had read the paperback of Murphy's Lore a few years ago and loved it. It has a rare blend of humor and pathos and can deal with magic and legends in the "real world" and make them seem real. It does bring to mind Gavagan's Bar and Callahan's but is unique with great characters (I love Paddy the owner of Bulfinche's Pub and the homeless woman Rebbecca) and settings. I recently found that it had been re-released in trade paperback with 4 stories that weren't in the original, which I enjoyed. Some typos in the original have been corrected in this edition. I was also happy to find there are 2 more books in the series, Fools' Day and Through the Drinking Glass, with apparently more to come.

A great fantasy short story collection set in a magical bar in New York. This one has a lot-drama, humor, magic, gods, angels, demons, vampires, leprechauns, rainbows and a wise cracking bartender/narator. The reader really cares about the characters by the end of the book. The individual stories weave together to form a rich universe. I recommend it.