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A review by nuffy375
Roald Dahl's Book of Ghost Stories by Roald Dahl
3.0
First of all, stories are not written by Roald Dahl, which is my fault for not paying more attention, but reading the other reviews makes me feel better for not realizing that as well. The publishers definitely knew what they were doing when they designed this book cover, because I definitely only bought this book thinking the stories were written by Dahl.
But I'm a fan of ghost stories, so I was still on board. Like any collection of short stories, each story is different, and the quality ranges. It seems when Dahl was picking ghost stories, the creepy factor was not high on his list. Very few of the stories are creepy at all (and some of the ones that try to be creepy very much miss the mark).
My top stories in this collection: Harry by Rosemary Timperley, The Corner Shop by Cynthia Asquith, Playmates by A.M. Burrage, The Ghost of a Hand by J. Sheridan L Fanu (actually creepy).
The weakest stories imo: Elias and the Draug by Jonas Lie, Ringing in the Changes by Robert Aickman (started promising, but REAL weak conclusion), The Telephone by Mary Treadgold, Afterward by Edith Wharton
But I'm a fan of ghost stories, so I was still on board. Like any collection of short stories, each story is different, and the quality ranges. It seems when Dahl was picking ghost stories, the creepy factor was not high on his list. Very few of the stories are creepy at all (and some of the ones that try to be creepy very much miss the mark).
My top stories in this collection: Harry by Rosemary Timperley, The Corner Shop by Cynthia Asquith, Playmates by A.M. Burrage, The Ghost of a Hand by J. Sheridan L Fanu (actually creepy).
The weakest stories imo: Elias and the Draug by Jonas Lie, Ringing in the Changes by Robert Aickman (started promising, but REAL weak conclusion), The Telephone by Mary Treadgold, Afterward by Edith Wharton