‘The Umbrella Man’ was my introduction to the delightful world of Roald Dahl. After that I never skipped a chance to read Roald Dahl’s book – and honestly, I did not like all of them equally. But I do believe that Roald Dahl is the master of short stories, especially the creepy and macabre ones. ‘The Best of Roald Dahl’ is a collection of outright creepy stories.
You browse along happily page after page and then suddenly the tale twists and gets your skin crawling. While all of them are good, my favorites would be ‘ Parson’s Pleasure’ the story of a rare antique collector who cheats dull-minded farm people of their rare furniture pieces and how he meets his match, ‘Taste’ the story of an arrogant wine taster and ‘Lamb to a slaughter’ – the story of a harmless wife turned murderer.
The others are good but some of them like ‘Pig’, ‘Ratcatcher’, and ‘William and Mary’ are too graphic and icky for my liking. None of the stories are truly scary – at least not in the ghost-story kind of way which is good coz you can sleep at night.
Verdict : Highly recommended
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hmmm…I kindof hate creepy stories although I dont mind reading some of the gothic books. I’ve come across so many of Ronald Dahl’s books but couldn’t bring myself to read them.
Can I borrow this book? :d. Iv read Dahl’s Chocolate factory, Matilda , excellent reads
Zoya – trust me you are missing a great writer
Medha – Would have loved to lend this to you but its my sis-in-laws book and as a policy i dont further lend out already borrowed books 🙂