Gather A Book Of Strange Stories Depicted By Herbert Van Thal Readable In Version

L. Sayers The Cyprian Cat
Dylan Thomas A Visit to Grandpa
Walter De la Mare What Dreams May Come
Aldous Huxley The Dwarf
Gerald Bullett Dearths Farm
G.
Fielden Hughes The Ends of Justice
L, P. Hartley The Island
Margery Sharp The Second Step
Adrian Alington Lady For Drowning
E, Nesbit Mansize in Marble
Alan Wykes Miss Sanders Story
Phyllis Bentley Nemesis
W, Stanley Moss The Zombie of Alto Parana The title says it all! These are all very strange stories almost with very little plot or point to most of them.
Most of them start out seeming to build up into something terrifying but almost always lead into nothing
Every tale is written pretty well but the intriguing enough Okay.
So this was next in line in my Bookishly catch up I was hoping to read this in October but didn't quite make it and I've honestly been really looking forward to reading this! I don't usually go for short story novels I typically like longer stories and don't really connect with short stories but I figured this would be a book of little ghost stories and I'm always on board for that.


Well. It WAS NOT. I thought this was going to be a book filled with supernatural stories, But it's honestly just very aptly named, It's full of super weird stories, most of which I can't even fathom why they were written in the first place.
Most of them are strange and, honestly, a little pointless, So I ended up having to push myself through most of this book because it wasn't really what I was looking for.


There were, however, a few gems in the mix, So here are my thoughts about the ones I enjoyed:

The first story, The Cyprian Cat, is in the supernatural vein and even though I easily guessed what was happening, I did enjoy it.

Aldous Huxley's the only author I even recognize in this collection The Dwarfs was one of the weirder ones but I found it interesting.
It was super sad though and I ended up telling a bunch of people about it because it was so strange and thoughtprovoking.

The End of Justice was my favorite in the collection, It was a fun little haunting story with a little lesson in morals thrown in, The Archdeacon was super fun though and I really enjoyed him,
Lady for

Drowning was exactly the kind of ghost story I was looking for in this collection.
It was intriguing and unsettling and I wish the whole collection had been more like this story,
Miss Sanders' Story I didn't think I liked while reading it but I have found myself thinking back on it enough to reconsider.
The ending is fascinating, as is the story of the two women and their relationship to each other.

And, finally, The Zombie of Alto Parana is a look at madness and it ended up being fascinating.
I think it's the one story in this book that could've been expanded into a novel and benefited from a little more information.
Because I have a few questions and am pretty intrigued by the story,

So. Those are the ones I enjoyed, which is not quite half, Overall, it's an interesting collection, It is aptly named. Though I was looking more for something that would be good for Halloween and this wasn't really it.
So I guess it's good that I didn't get to read it in October, haha,

But. I'm not entirely sure I would recommend it, If, like me, you're looking for collections of ghost stories/thrillers/horror stories, there are better collections out there.
I probably wouldn't have picked this one up on my own, But I'm glad to have read it, It was an interesting time, to say the least, PLACEHOLDER REVIEW: Had cause to reread a story that appears in this collection and so thought I would stick the review here.


In sitelinkL. P. Hartley's "The Island" a soldier, due back at the front, visits his female friend at her home on a semiremote island where she lives in a mansion with servants, her husband having gone to South America after some disagreement.
But Mrs. Santander for that is her name fails to appear for dinner, and the young soldier begins to realize that MR.
Santander has returned home unexpectedly, and may be aware of the untoward relationship he has with his wife.


A fine bit of suspense writing oddly mannered, almost Aickmanesque in its abstractness, and yet it works in summoning up the atmosphere of a muffled grand home, oddly silent as a storm rages outside and no one answers your calls.
Herbert Maurice van Thal, known as Bertie van Thal, was a British bookseller, publisher, agent, biographer, and anthologist.
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