Il libro delle storie di fantasmi

I was seriously impressed by this collection of ghost stories. I would estimate that 10 out of 14 were genuinely frightening and it took me a while to focus on the present day after being taken into the past. Also the calibre of these stories was exceptional (as Dahl states in his introduction) 'The Leggi tutto

Funny, although ten out of the 14 stories in this book are ones I like, at least to some degree, I'd really rather read them in some other collection. I think it may be Dahl's rambling, discursive and inconclusive introduction. He rides an utterly irrelevant hobby horse (children's writers don't get Leggi tutto

Roald Dahl spent years reading over 700 ghost stories to put together material to make a TV show with. I would think it would've been like the Twilight Zone. The pilot did not get picked up, so Roald put the stories together in this little book. The ranger from the late 1890s to the 1970s is the lat Leggi tutto

A novelist receives strange and disturbing post cards from an unknown fan ; lonely children speak to and about what their parents or guardians dismiss as imaginary friends until contrary evidence materializes ; an impoverished writer visits an antique shop finding different surroundings and tenants

This is a really depressing book. In his weirdly sexist preface, an author I greatly respect says that he has read through 749 ghost stories to select these 14 as the very pinnacle of the genre. And, let's ruin all the intrigue from the start, they kinda suck. So either these 14 really are the best

Maybe I’m desensitized... but wow this sucked 😱 I would say no fault to Roald Dahl because he obviously didn’t write any of these but I mean he compiled them in a book and just wow. I came so close to DNFing this. It was torture. I tortured myself. Torture. The only thing scary in regards to this boo Leggi tutto

To elaborate on the background given in the description above, Dahl's extensive reading of ghost stories in the late 1950s and early 60s was originally undertaken to select quality specimens for adaptation in a projected TV series (which was never made). He was previously unread in this type of lite Leggi tutto