Rating: 
Summary: Vintage Roald Dahl--wonderful, wonderful!
Review: Roald Dahl is at the peak of his powers in this collection. For anyone who knows him only as the author of the Willy Wonka books--or who thinks of him purely as a children's book author--this is the book to change your mind and make you think admiringly about Dahl's considerable powers as an adult writer.The book is comprised of gem after gem. Two of Dahl's most famous stories are here. One is "Lamb to the Slaughter," about the wife of a police detective who kills her husband in a most unconventional way and then disposes of the murder weapon in a manner that would make any criminal proud. The other, "Nunc Dimittis," describes the lengths to which a society smoothie goes for revenge. Dahl's descriptive powers are basic, but his imagination is limitless. He manages to calmly, smoothly pull you into his stories and make the most outrageous things seem perfectly in keeping and perfectly normal--while still just a bit askew. The stories are all vintage Dahl. Each has elements of the macabre and the grotesque, couched in the comfortable trappings of middle-class life: marriage, tidy houses, bills, resentment, secrets, tidy houses, and so on. Dahl pulls off the neat trick of making the macabre laughable, though--he's not trying to scare the reader as much as make us shout with laughter and recognition and then settle back to enjoy a shiver of anticipation. In "William and Mary," the terminally ill narrator is propositioned by a neurosurgeon friend to give his brain up for experimentation after death. Despite the gruesome details, the story is hilarious: " . . . So when I get you on the table I will take a saw, a small oscillating saw, and with this I shall proceed to remove the whole vault of your skull. You'd still be unconscious at that point so I wouldn't have to bother with anaesthetic." "Like hell you wouldn't," I said. "You'd be out cold, I promise you that, William. Don't forget you DIED just a few minutes before." "Nobody's sawing off the top of my skull without an anaesthetic," I said. Dahl doesn't get any better than this!
Rating: 
Summary: too cruel
Review: The beginning is fairly interesting and it seems to be a well-made story. The topics he writes about are problems nowadays, especially this brain thing in William & Mary. But the end is disappointing and his morbid humour disgusting. William & Mary: an understandable, topical, fairly realistic story. The end is less unexpected than it is in the other stories. The argument can be followed. The characters are not really fixed, one has to build his own opinion, because both, William and Mary, are in their own ways enjoyable. Their actions are comprehensible. The end is somewhat too hard for William, he's not as bad as Mary thinks and he hasn't earned such a treating. It was the best story. The wish: a relatively realistic story, too, but totally exaggerated and stupid. You always expect more than there is in the end. Pig: Beginning okay, but the longer it lasts the more stupid it becomes, the end is too cruel, unrealistic and simply macabre. In general we think that these are no stories for children. They are simply scared to death.
Rating:
Summary: deluxe
Review: The book was written very exciting. You see the world through the eyes of a man with a lot of fantasy and black humour. We had a very intensive feeling by reading them and the details were very impressive. You could very well get involved in the main characters. Because of the many details you could easy imagine visually. He has fear of describe disgusting things like to expose calvarium and other operation. He writes with a effrontery. The end is always unexpected but always surprising and refreshing. Two students of Aarau, Switzerland
Rating:
Summary: Mature and witty author injects maximum excitement!
Review: The stories are gripping. The plot you will remember vividly. Roald Dahl is at his best in this collection of short stories. It is interesting and has also been made into a compulsory lower secondary literature text in some first-class Singapore schools. The stories identify with anyone regardless of his/her social conventions or locale simply because of the characters' universal thought processes. Read it. You won't be disappointed.
Rating:
Summary: These are some of the best short stories EVER!!!
Review: This is a terrific book of some of Roald Dahl's most deliciously twisted stories. Always suprising, clever, ingenious and, of course, unexpected!!! Deceptively simple writing with attention to odd and ordinary detail reveals wonderfully wicked stories. I cackled through the whole thing. Some are also quite thought-provoking, like "Genisis and Catastrophe." Favorite stories include "The Sound Machine" "Skin" "William and Mary" and "Georgy Porgy". HIGHLY RECOMMENDED, unless you like your stories cute and wholesome, in which case you'll probably be offended by this book. Thanks for listining!
Rating: 
Summary: For Dahl -- this set is of mixed quality
Review: This series of stories reads more like a series of writing-projects. Some are well done -- with original ideas, subtle weavings throughout that lead to an impressive and twisted end. Others are poorly done -- with unoriginal ideas, contrived plots, and obvious (or stupid) "endings-with-a-twist." Worth buying and reading for all Dahl fans (and most other folks) particularly if you're interested in seeing what happens when Dahl is not at his best. Some of these were adapted for a TV series. I believe that the "Man from the South" TV episode was mentioned in Quentin Tarantino's skit in the movie "Four Rooms"
Rating:
Summary: Roald Dahl is my favorite author and I read all his books!
Review: This was a wonderful book (as all of his books are) and I think you should read it before it goes out of print. I reccomend all of his books to you! (I've read almost all of them!)
Rating:
Summary: Nonsense
Review: We find this book has no sense and that's why we have given this title to the text. The story is very cruel and bloody: We are not very religious but it is against every understanding of moral and ethics. All the endings are pig dummy and absolutly stupid. The only plus point the ends have is their surprising character. We were shocked about Dahl's ideas. How is it possible to have such a morbid fantasy? In a way there are good parts, too. The situations are well described and you can really imagine the scenes. We don't recommand this book, however, because you can use your time in a better way. Carpe Diem! authors: 2 lovely students from cheesy Switzerland
Rating: 
Summary: Well-done!
Review: We just read an interesting book about Death -"Three Tales of the Unexpected" written by Roald Dahl. All the three tales were funny to read but they weren't really deep-going -just entertainment. But they were refreshing to read! It was nice that one time death wasn't a serious business but it was made to be humorous with the irony of destiny. For some people the stories might seem a bit brutal but that's the thing that makes the book different of other books. This book and these stories were written with a lot of imagination, what makes people love those stories all over the world. Two students from Aarau, Switzerland
Rating:
Summary: THRILLING
Review: We really liked reading this book. We admire the fantasy of Roald Dahl and about his black humor we had to laugh a lot. But sometimes he writes in great detail and the story becomes too long. We read this book at school and otherwise we read here an other kind of books. So it was refreshing to read something different. The first moment when you read this book you think its a total non-sense. But then, thinking about it, you see a message. Every story is a metaphor. The title fits because the end of every story is very surprising. We can recommend to read this book.
| 
