The first set of tales is masterful, well told, full of detail and with a (large) touch of sadism and some humour. The second collection is less surprising but still a joy to read. ( )

Roald Dahl's 'Tales of the Unexpected' and 'More Tales of the Unexpected' are packaged together in this volume. It consists of 25 short stories (16 in 'Tales' and 9 in 'More Tales'), which are humorous, dark, sinister, macabre and delightful - sometimes all at once.

Dahl clearly had a very vivid imagination, and some of the stories are really incredibly clever. My personal favourite is Lamb to the Slaughter, which I feel duty bound not to spoil for anyone who has not read it yet! Suffice to say that I first read this story perhaps twenty years ago, and have never forgotten it. Reading it again - even when I knew the ending - was a pleasure. Others which I particularly enjoyed were Skin, Nunc Dimittis, Parson's Pleasure, William and Mary, The Sound Machine and Genesis and Catastrophe. Most of the stories contain an unexpected and in some cases absurd twist, but Genesis and Catastrophe in particular made me think twice. (Again, I feel that to give away any spoilers would be unfair to anyone who may read it in future.)

As with all short story collections, some did not work quite as well. However, there were no stories in this collection which left me disappointed. Definitely recommended. ( )

Lovely odd stories as only Roald Dahl can invent them. ( )

http://nhw.livejournal.com/1070927.html

This volume combines the short story collections Tales of the Unexpected and More Tales of the Unexpected - I must have read the latter some time, but a lot of the stories in the former were new to me, eg the one with the disembodied brain which I think I would certainly have remembered. They are all real masterpieces, and actually reading them all at one go is probably not the best way to enjoy them - they are best piece by piece. ( )