Snugglepot and Cuddlepie

 

Image credit: QBD Books

Well and truly on the mend from my recent ailment, I’ve been making up for lost time concerning the ‘Australian children’s classics’. After finishing Babe –one of the sweetest little tales ever- I went totally bush and plucked and old copy of Snugglepot and Cuddlepie off the shelf. 

The book is made up of three separate tales chronicling three adventures of the gum nut baby foster-brothers Snugglepot and Cuddlepie. Beginning with their travelling from home to see a human, the gum nuts make all manner of friends and have all manner of adventures in which they escape from Mrs. Snake’s dungeon, live temporarily at the bottom of the sea, and rid the bush of the wicked Banksia men. 

While this is a very sweet little trilogy of tales unique to the Australian outback, it’s one of those children’s books that definitely works for a single age group. While I enjoyed the anthropomorphism of the flora and fauna that makes my home country so beautiful, the book itself is very much written for a younger audience. So, if you’re reading as an adult, it’s cute but rather simple and not particularly exciting. 

Image credit: www.anbg.gov.au

While there is certainly a lot of drama and sinister events taking place, the prose hand waves away the seriousness of it all by using simple sentences with a nonchalant tone that, for me, doesn’t spark any real attachment to the characters or events. I believe this book would be better read out loud in the classic oral tradition of telling stories. 

Nevertheless it’s cute and it is regarded as an Australia children’s classic, so I am glad that I have read it.

Author: May Gibbs, 1940

Illustrator: May Gibbs

Published: Angus & Robertson Publishers, 1940

The Artemis Fowl Files

Image credit: Amazon.uk

One of the little things in life that I really enjoy is the days when I successfully read a book. One book in one day! For me, being a slow reader and prone to procrastination (right now, Animal Crossing), being able to complete a book in a day is a real achievement and I was able to revel in the success of this recently, as I took a break from the last instalment of the Artemis Fowl series that I’ve got and read The Artemis Fowl Files.

The book features two short stories and a series of small interviews with various characters, as well as one from Colfer himself, and I have to say that’s it’s a fun little read. Taking place between The Arctic Incident and The Eternity Code, the two short stories are really what’s worth reading.

The first is LEPrecon, which tells the story of Holly Short’s initiation into the LEP. Her test assignment gets significantly botched when a psychotic ex-LEP captures her and Trouble Kelp in the hope of using them to lure Commander Julius Root into a dangerous and fatal trap.

The story establishes Holly’s incredible moral code, her quick thinking, and the relationship that she and Commander Root enjoy in the Artemis Fowl novels. It’s a very fun little action-packed story.

Image credit: HarperCollins Publishers

The second is The Seventh Dwarf, which follows the recently escaped and presumed dead Mulch Diggums, who is out to steal a famous tiara from a Chinese dignitary. Mulch is tricked and cornered by Artemis Fowl who also has plans for the tiara, which has unfortunately already been stolen by another group of dwarfs. Mulch reluctantly teams up with Artemis to steal the tiara, but things go slightly wrong when Captain Holly Short shows up after hearing Fowl’s name come through on a surveillance sound file.

This is a fun little heist story where everyone (with the exception of Holly) is a bad guy and the whole good vs. evil thing doesn’t play much of a part. A groovy little tale of villains chasing villains, I really enjoyed it.

Author: Eoin Colfer, 2004

Published: Puffin Books, the Penguin Group

The Pit and the Pendulum

Image credit: Goodreads

I am by no stretch of the imagination a seasoned reader; my profound lack of reading books during my most ‘informative years’ puts me at a bit of a disadvantage in terms of the amount of works that I have read. So please correct me if I am wrong, but I don’t think there has ever been any author anywhere who has been able to create a glimpse into the complexities of the human psyche better than Edgar Allen Poe.

Although he arguably gives an incredible flourish to his narratives in terms of the dramatic and gothic imagery he conjures, he’s the closest author (that I have come across) who is able to actually put the distressed mind state of the mentally ill individual into words that are extravagant, but not clichéd. This morning’s traverse down the gothic rabbit hole was The Pit and the Pendulum.

This short story tells the chilling tale of a political prisoner sentenced to death and then tossed into a dungeon cell where all manner of nightmarish tortures await to turn him mad including infernal darkness, demonic images painted on the ceiling, an infestation of ravenous rats, a dark and ominous pit, and a slowly descending, razor-edged pendulum that drops ever towards his bound body.

Image credit: Wikipedia

The metaphoric interpretation behind this tale is that it’s an extravagant depiction of the depressed mind –Poe himself suffered from depression and mental illness, which was aggravated by alcohol. More than that, the story is one of the most thrilling stories in which literally nothing happens, but there is always the terrifying promise that some grim and climactic horror is soon to take place. Poe’s ability to pique his readers’ fascination and suspense goes beyond the boundaries of exciting the nerves and straight into shattering them, giving the reader a similar experience to that of his poor, trapped, and tormented protagonist.

This symmetrical reading experience is what makes The Pit and the Pendulum one of his most celebrated works, being masterfully crafted and painfully intimate with its signature first person register, potentially unreliable narrator, and brilliant, but simple prose that perfectly creates the book’s nightmarish images in the mind’s eye as well as superbly establishes its defeated and doomed tone.

The Pit and the Pendulum was written by Edgar Allen Poe and first published in 1843 when it was serialized in The Gift for 1843, Philadelphia.

Armageddon Outta Here

Image credit: Harper Collins Australia

As the series gets increasingly exhilarating, action-packed, and all-around intense, it’s really lovely that Landy has injected smaller books that pop us in the same universe, but distance us from its central drama (a bit like the Marvel movies) so that we can catch our breath and come to terms with whatever terrifying plot twist or character loss we’ve just encountered.

Armageddon Outta Here is an anthology of several short stories and one novella that keeps us playing with our favourite characters, but in between bouts of serious drama. Set between the various volumes in the series –and there’s a chronology in the front to help us keep track- the book chronicles a number of fun and exiting stories that answer a few questions about certain characters and their relationships with others. Beginning with Across A Dark Plain, which chronicles the Dead Men’s tracking of Nefarian Serpine across America as well as how the grudge between Skulduggery Pleasant and Solomon Wreath began, the book tells a series of exciting adventures (all about the end of the world of course) and ends with a sneak peek at a chapter of the final book (obviously when it was believed the series was to end).

This is where we get to see Landy’s love of certain genres and appreciation of iconic artists and works, as well as how they’ve worked as an influence on the series itself. The book, being a collection of short mysteries, is rather reminiscent of The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes as a whole. We’ve got a classic Western vibe that infuses the first story, there’s definitely some Douglas Adams-ness happening in the fun weirdness of The Wonderful Adventures of Geoffrey Scrutinous, a little bit of Stephen King’s It creeps into Get Thee Behind Me Bubba Moon, and the final story, The Button, reminded me particularly of that sci-fi thriller with Cameron Diaz and Frank Langella (The Box).

Image credit: Skulduggery Pleasant Wiki-Fandom

The segmented structure of the book makes it so very easy to just sit and power through and, for the most part, Landy continues to write in the voice of an omniscient narrator that we know and love; Bubba Moon is the one exception, written as a reflection in the first person.

Filled with as much excitement, action, and fun as the series itself, Armageddon Outta Here provides a really lovely respite between the intensity of Last Stand of Dead Men and the final book, The Dying of the Light. It’s a great read and, in a way, is strategically placed so that we might have enough strength to take on the final battle.

Armageddon Outta Here is a short story collection set within the Skulduggery Pleasant universe by Derek Landy and published in 2014 by HarperCollins Children’s Books.

Anthology of Fear: 20 Haunting Stories for Winter Nights

There are times when you don’t want to read an entire 300-page intrigue, but yearn for something short; still packing that suspense and delivering a punch. I found this exact thing in a beautiful hardback little gem sitting precariously atop a pile of pre-loved novels in a Naremburn second-hand bookshop. 

The book: Anthology of Fear: 20 Haunting Stories for Winter Nights. It’s a gorgeous selection of chilling gothic horror stories from an undeniably captivating list of authors. The list looks a little something like this: Mary Braddon who, you’ll remember, wrote the delightfully intriguing Lady Audley’s Secret, Nathaniel Hawthorne who’s name cannot be brought up without attaching The Scarlet Letter, Washington Irving who brought us The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, W.W. Jacobs, M.R. James, J. Sheridan Le Fanu, Frederick Marryat, Edith Nesbit, Bram Stoker (no need to remind you what he’s famous for), and Edith Wharton. With such a strong list of credentials, the appeal of this anthology is, as I said, undeniable! 

Whilst the supernatural or paranormal, so ghosts and vamps and unholy agents are the recurrent theme of many of these tales, there is a good sense of variety on offer. From Jacobs’ terrifying tale of the magic monkey paw that grants three wishes in a most Faustian way, to Stoker’s horrid story of a gruesome revenge executed on man by a cat, Anthology of Fear does exactly what its title advertises; stringing up multiple tight threads of suspense and anxiety and then bringing them to perfect breaking point by either providing payoff or leaving the ending open for you to make up your own mind as to what happens. 

The balance between the various realms of Gothic, from the religious evil of devil-worshippers and corruption of purity in Hawthorne’s story through to the idea of villainous houses and traumatic landscapes, reminiscent of Du Maurier’s Jamaica Inn in Irving’s tale, and then the many paranormal horrors of ghosts and hauntings that colour the works of Braddon, Stoker, Wharton, James, and Nesbit make this book a continually enthralling read. 

Many of the Gothic tropes are explored; the fear of the foreign Other, corruption and decay of human decency and purity, the past haunting the present, destruction of innocence, even a little bit of homo-erotica, giving each of the stories this extra layer of depth, meaning, and complexity, so that they manage to accomplish a lot given that they are not very long. Whilst reading these stories, you are strung through an array of emotions and it’s very telling of the level of talent that these authors have that these stories can steer you through such emotional turbulence in so short a space of time. 

This book is filled with everything from pirates, to vampires, to werewolves, ghosts, manifestations of Death, extreme devices of human torture, witchcraft, and unholy unions, all accompanied by striking imagery and an ever-present feeling that the worst is yet to come. I absolutely loved it!

The Turn of the Screw and Other Stories

Written by Henry James, this collection of four morbid and spectral stories proves to be a captivating, but at the same time challenging read. Dealing with a lot of taboo themes, the biggest being the corruption of children and innocence, which cinephiles would probably hold akin to the effect of the first Exorcist movie back in the day, it’s thrilling, chilling, and sometimes funny, but it’s definitely not a light read and sometimes it does pose a challenge in terms of a reading experience. 

Sir Edmund Orme – A young man begins to hold strong affections for a young lady, but is soon to discover that the ghost of a man that her mother had wronged haunts the lady. 

Owen Wingrave – When young Owen Wingrave, a natural born soldier from a family with a strong military history, decides to give up on the service, his tutor, best friend, and domineering Aunt and grandfather host an intervention at their ‘creepy’ family home where, legend says, one of the rooms is haunted. 

Friends of Friends – A woman determines that two of her friends should meet at they have both seen visions of people within the hour of death: she her father, he his mother. A series of timing accidents and misadventures prevent them for several years from ever meeting and when finally they do, it is under circumstances most peculiar as one of them is dead. 

The Turn of the Screw – A young, inexperienced governess takes the job of caring for young Miles and Flora, two small children abandoned by their uncle at his grand country home. Shortly after her arrival, the governess sees the figure of an unknown man lurking around the house. When she describes him to the housemaid, she discovers that the figure is Peter Quint, the master’s old valet, and he has come for little Miles. What complicates the matter is that Peter Quint is dead. 

Obviously the collection of these stories shares a common theme of ghosts, hauntings, and the deceased, but not all of them are quite so black and white as that. The Turn of the Screw, written in first person narration and playing (a little like Poe) with the theme of the unreliable narrator, is possibly one of James’ most controversial and confusing books because, at the end of the day, we don’t actually know whether the children are being designed upon by ghosts or if the governess herself is psychologically unwell. The unreliable narrator device is used to great effect here in that our heroine and narrator reads as being completely sane and rational, but then a spanner is thrown into the works when the housemaid as well as the children inform her (and the reader) that they cannot see what she is seeing. The thrills and suspense is wonderfully built up, in all the stories actually, making this book quite the page-turner once you get over the complexity of the writing. 

I found James’ style of writing to be very challenging. His sentences are very long, convoluted, and feature a multitude of commas and hyphens, which just make them all even longer (a little bit like Jane Austen, but harder to keep track of what’s happening). It took a while for me to settle into the flow of the writing, but once I did I enjoyed turning each page. 

Filled with drama, death, horror, hauntings, romance, comedy, and suspense, The Turn of the Screw and Other Stories is a compelling book and quite the gothic experience. Whilst I found it challenging, I also revelled in and enjoyed the challenge of the James reading experience. 

Coraline & Other Stories

I saw the stop-motion animated film that Henry Selick did of Coraline and man I thought it was weird and twisted in a semi-delightful sort of way. The story itself, written by Neil Gaiman lends itself perfectly to that subgenre of Burton-esque family movies, indeed the Coraline trailer I remember used the music from Nightmare Before Christmas and many people thought Tim Burton had done it because it boasted “from the director of The Nightmare Before Christmas…” Being the Burton nerd I am, I knew they meant Henry Selick. 

Gaiman’s twisted tales in this collection of short stories are pretty great, but I did find them a bit too much like children’s books for my liking. At first I found it really hard to get into, but after 50-70 pages or so the black shining magic started to take some spectral shape. 

After moving to a new house young Coraline sets out exploring, discovering that an ideal version of her own frustrating family lurks behind a mysterious door in the living room. Whilst the first visit is all smiles and good food, the second reveals some dark and scary secrets. Amongst the other adventures this books offers is that of Private dick Jack Horner solving the mystery of who pushed Humpty Dumpty off the wall, the attempts of a bridge troll to eat a boy’s life, an old woman’s discovery of the Holy Grail, and the attempts of two boys to talk to girls at a party, discovering that they might not be girls after all. 

I say that these are really more children’s tales than anything else because they are very simply written. However, this is not to say that the Gaiman quirks and twists don’t shine out on more than one occasion. Each story deals with darker themes and more often than not actually makes light of very dark settings and characters. One such tale is set in a graveyard and the Living are depicted as the villains and the people to be feared. I sort of like how Gaiman humanizes the inanimate or inhuman, breathes this sort of sweet life into it, and then shows it to us in a whole different way than we’ve ever seen it before, making the dark and the scary seem less so. 

There is still great imagery that comes with his prose, you can literally picture everything and even see yourself there in the mix. 

As the for the offbeat quirk that shines through, the second story entitled The Case of the Four and Twenty Blackbirds takes all these classic nursery rhymes like ‘Four and Twenty Blackbirds’, ‘Humpty Dumpty’, ‘Little Jack Horner’ and more and fuses them all together to make this really entertaining and delightfully quirky pulp fiction/gangster noir type story: we’re talking Mother Hubbard as an Underworld figure and Humpty Dumpty was rubbed out. That particular story I found highly entertaining and clever! 

Filled with action, adventure, some nice moral messages, drama, and comedy, Coraline & Other Stories is a nice little collection of intriguing tales, but they would seem more wondrous to a younger readership, I just felt that they a bit too simple and kid-ish for me. 

The New Mammoth Book of Pulp Fiction

Edited and put together by Maxim Jakubowski, The New Mammoth Book of Pulp Fiction is ideal for all your detective, murder, mystery, and noir desires. Whilst admittedly some of the stories are a bit crap, only going for a few pages and not really setting up much in ways of plot or characters, the larger percentage of stories that make up this book are good old fashioned crime stories working in both realms of the seedy, shady, and noir, and the rich, eccentric, and sophisticatedly corrupt. I positively steam-rollered through it, bowling each story over one by one in what felt like a matter of smooth minutes. 

“33 hard-boiled stories” varying in all manner of plots from elaborate robberies, marital murder conspiring, airtight frame jobs, mysterious and accidental dead body discoveries, and all manner of mysteries from deaths, to inheritances, to adultery, to disappearances, to even vampires. 

The New Mammoth Book of Pulp Fiction features works from Samuel Dashiell, Charles Williams, Paul Cain, John D. MacDonald, Robert Turner, James M. Cain, Gil Brewer, Robert Leslie Bellem, Jim Thompson, Day Keene, William P. McGivern, Mickey Spillane, Roger Torrey, William Rough, Lawrence Block, David Goodis, Max Allan Collins, Charles Willeford, Ross Macdonald, Frederic Brown, Howard Browne, Bruno Fischer, Robert Block, Frank R. Read, William F. Nolan, Bill Pronzini, John Lutz, B. Traven, Dan Gordon, Joe Gores, William Campbell Gault, Schuyler G. Edsall, and Donald E. Westlake, rounding out the volume with a range of not only different stories and characters, but different writing styles as well. 

Whilst it’s usually tricky to read a book that is essentially a book of short stories that all begin and end rather rapidly, the changes in registers from first to third, the narrative voices from upper class to underworld, and the sometimes non-lineal progressions of the stories funnily enough adds to the reading experience by really keeping you on your toes and thus reading in a way that is really conducive to the atmospheres amidst which each plot is set. Because the pace of the stories are quite jagged and fast to begin with, the jaggedness and brokenness that the collection of stories has sort of inspires you to distance yourself just that little bit and read everything with a heightened sense of scrutiny, like a detective novel. 

Filled with absolutely everything from sex, romance, betrayal, adultery, to murder, drama, revenge, the wrong-man scenarios, kidnapping, corruption, underworld deals, and everything in between, The New Mammoth Book of Pulp Fiction is a fantastically captivating collection of noir stories that just suck you in right from the get-go by means of their easiness to read, fast-paced plots, and recognisable characters. Yes, it’s 33 stories and it’s over 800 pages long, but you seriously don’t notice the length or amount of text on the page because you positively power through each page with the minutes of the day being flicked away with every turn of a page!

I, Robot

Written by Isaac Asimov and having since been made into a blockbuster movie starring Will Smith (it’s got to be my favourite of his pictures so far), I, Robot doesn’t appear to be anything special on first glance, but it’s actually one of the most important and influential works in science fiction literature. 

The Three Laws of Robotics: 

1) A robot may not injure a human being, or through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm. 

2) A robot must obey orders given it by human beings except where such orders conflict with the First Law. 

3) A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law. 

A journalist is putting together a profile of the life of famous robopsychologist, Susan Calvin. During these interviews, Calvin depicts the world and humanity’s evolving relations with robots and the Machines, regaling the journalist with her own personal stories of robot evolution where a robot as interpreted the Three Laws and something has gone wrong. 

The thing that is most incredible and phenomenal about this book is Asimov’s startlingly accurate predictions about the evolution of technology and humanity’s changing relations with it. I, Robot was first published in 1950 and to think about how the book reads to a modern audience is pretty spooky really. Asimov was lightyears ahead of the curve! 

The writing is nothing special, indeed the entire book is a mere 250 pages made up of 9 chapters that are each a short story about a drama with a robot. The stories are all interlinked with their relevance to robotics and that they are all memories of Susan Calvin, that she had been directly or indirectly in one case, involved. The book’s simplicity in terms of narrative and indeed character establishment serves to highlight the ground thoughts on which the book is written, making it a gripping book in that it the story doesn’t rope you it, it’s the ideas associated with the happenings of the chapters. I, Robot is a hugely thought-provoking book, which ironically has much more relevance to today than it did back when it was first published. Asimov’s establishment of the Three Laws of Robotics is a set of rules that other science fiction writers have adopted and base their more modern works on. See? Despite its size and apparently unprepossessing simplicity of narrative structure, characters, and plot, I, Robot is one of the most influential books in literature. 

Filled with horror, technology, science, emotions, tensions, drama, and a little dash of sly comedy, I, Robot is a fantastic book that no one can afford to skip reading. In his autobiography, Does the Noise in My Head Bother You? Steven Tyler said that this was one of his favourite books! There you go, instant cred! It’s easy to read, the individual stories are rather gripping, but the thoughts associated with each robotic escapade are what gives this book its phenomenal cosmic power! 

The Tales of Beedle the Bard

Written by J. K. Rowling after its crucial role in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, The Tales of Beedle the Bard is a lovely little collection of fairy tales and fables that are, to wizards and witches, what tales such as Cinderella and Beauty and the Beast are to non-magic folk or “muggles”. 

The Wizard and the Hopping Pot tells the tale of the son of a great wizard who used his magic to help his muggle neighbours. When his father dies, the son refuses to help his neighbours and is then tormented by his father’s cooking pot, which vividly illustrates all the suffering that the son has refused to ease with his magic. 

The Fountain of Fair Fortune tells the tale of three unfortunate witches who work together to make it to a fabled fountain that, when bathed in, will grant the bather fair fortune. 

The Warlock’s Hairy Heart tells the tale of a warlock who has vowed never to fall in love and has locked his heart away in a chest. 

Babbity Rabbity and Her Cackling Stump tells the tale of a foolish King who wishes to learn magic, but proclaims to have all witches and wizards burned. A charlatan tricks the King, but then gets into trouble when the washerwoman, a real witch called Babbity, discovers the truth. 

The Tale of the Three Brothers tells the tale of three brothers who, being learned in the magical arts, manage to evade death. Death then cunningly tricks the brothers by presenting them with gifts, which will only lead the brothers to ruin and Death. 

Essentially, these are just a collection of fables that would be popular bedtime stories in the magical community, but it’s still great for older readers to read them because they are very much like the fables and fairy tales that we have all been brought up on. Stories that take five minutes read and have very strong morals and messages about generosity, humbleness, and wisdom. 

In a few of the tales we can even recognise elements from our own traditional bedtime stories e.g. The Warlock’s Hairy Heart has smacks of Beauty and the Beast and the tale of Davy Jones in it. And the foolish King in Babbity Rabbity and her Cackling Stump is not that dissimilar to the emperor in The Emperor’s New Clothes. 

The stories can get a little grim, not unlike the fairy tales of Hans Christian Andersen, but that’s the point of fables isn’t it; to convey a moral message and scare children into behaving. 

Filled with magic, wonderful characters, and morals, The Tales of Beedle the Bard is a wonderful little read. Very easy and broken up by notes by Albus Dumbledore and J. K. Rowling, it’s a great little book. 

Matchless

Written by Gregory Maguire, based upon the story The Little Match Girl by Hans Christian Andersen, Matchless is a Christmas story about the poor battling against poverty and the cold. 

Frederik is a boy who keeps himself warm by keeping a secret. His mother is a seamstress to the Queen and one Christmas Eve, she is forced to leave Frederik on his own so that she might mend the Queen’s hem. Unknown to his mother, Frederik has created a small model village in the attic. Unfortunately his residents are in need of company and Frederik leaves the house in search of a discarded treasure that might serve as a boat to take his two citizens across the sea to find companions. As fate would have it, Frederik finds a discarded slipper, which, until recently, had belonged to a poor little match girl. 

Divided into four parts, Matchless is really a children’s book, one that can be easily read in about ten to fifteen minutes, as I literally just did. 

It’s a pretty little story as it takes Andersen’s tragic tale and sheds some light on it, by having the path of Frederik cross with the little math girl’s more than once, bringing a happy ending to the original tale of gloom and sadness. 

With pretty illustrations to accompany the images painted by the words, Matchless is a very beautiful little children’s story written very simply, but conveying powerful images and themes, some of which can become a little gloomy, but all in all it was a lovely little illumination of a classic tale. 

A Christmas Carol and Other Christmas Writings

Written by Charles Dickens, this assortment of Ghost and Christmas tales focuses on the more attractive human emotions that are heightened at that festive time of year: love, kindness, forgiveness, unselfishness, sacrifice, and comfort. 

Christmas Festivities paints the perfect picture of a good old-fashioned family Christmas party. Children laughing and chasing one another, adults seated around a fire chatting merrily, and a huge feast of turkey and roast beef, sauces and gravies, mince pies and plum pudding. 

The Story of the Goblins Who Stole a Sexton tells the tale of a graveyard worker who is as cold as the frozen earth he disturbs with his shovel. But when he is kidnapped by a group of goblins, his perception of the world changes as he is shown what beauties it holds. 

A Christmas Episode From Master Humphrey’s Clock tells the tale of a friendship that blooms between the two most unlikely of people who both find themselves alone at a bar on Christmas. 

A Christmas Carol is the timeless classic tale of Ebenezer Scrooge, the cold-hearted skinflint who wishes everyone a “bah humbug” instead of a “merry Christmas.” But when the ghost of his business partner shows him a glimpse of what awaits him beyond the grave (a grim fate indeed), Scrooge welcomes the chance to change his ways. Being haunted by three Spirits, Scrooge’s perception of the world is altered and his cold countenance is melted away. 

The Haunted Man and the Ghost’s Bargain tells the tale of a man haunted by loss and grief who makes a deal with a Spectre. As the Spectre dispels the man’s grief, the man is given the power to change the emotions of those he encounters. Turning love into loss and humility into selfishness, the haunted man becomes a cursed man and begs for nothing more than to be rid of this terrible power. 

A Christmas Tree focuses on childhood memories that are attached to certain decorations that are placed upon a Christmas tree. And with the memories comes the stories told in the Witching Hour on Christmas Eve. 

What Christmas Is, As We Grow Older reflects on hopes and dreams that were never achieved and tells of forgiveness of all and everything regardless of how much wrong has been done over the year. 

The Seven Poor Travellers tells the story of a magnificent Christmas feast that is made for six poor travellers: the result of one impulsive decision from a complete stranger. Peace on Earth and goodwill toward men. 

I have to say at this point that Dickens was a fantastic wordsmith. He uses such powerful sentences that are filled to the brim with so many words to convey something so simple to the reader. It really paints a picture, but it makes your imagination work as well. Wonderful. 

Admittedly, the writing can be a little too wordy to follow at some points, but ultimately A Christmas Carol and Other Christmas Writings was a very good and very festive collection of Christmas tales that remind us that amidst all the cruelty, selfishness, greed, and corruption that the human race embodies, there are still some beautiful things like love, generosity, sacrifice, humility, and goodwill: important traits that ought to be remembered all year round. 

Fairy Tales

This book contains a large collection of fairy tales by Hans Christian Andersen, including tales that many of us have been introduced to through Disney type animated movies such as The Little Mermaid, Thumbelina, The Ugly Duckling, The Princess on the Pea and The Snow Queen.

Now if you're like me and only know the child-friendly versions of these stories, I recommend that you read this book because these are those tales in their original form, full of unhappy endings and very macabre. It's the truth that many of those Disney fairy tales that we've watched as kids, have been adapted from these original stories and fables that I think traditionally were used to frighten children.

I think these stories would appeal more to the Twilight crowd, young adults who are cultured enough to read books filled with macabre and Gothic twists. This collection of fairy tales will make you watch Disney in a whole new way.

The tales featured in this book are as follows:

1. The Tinder Box
2. Little Claus and Big Claus
3. The Princess on the Pea
4. Thumbelina
5. The Travelling Companion
6. The Little Mermaid
7. The Emperor's New Clothes
8. The Steadfast Tin Soldier
9. The Wild Swans
10. The Flying Trunk
11. The Nightingale
12. The Sweethearts
13. The Ugly Duckling
14. The Fir Tree
15. The Snow Queen
16. The Red Shoes
17. The Shepherdess and the Chimney Sweep
18. The Shadow
19. The Old House
20. The Little Match Girl
21. The Story of a Mother
22. The Collar
23. The Bell
24. The Marsh King's Daughter
25. The Wind Tells of Valdemar Daae and his Daughters
26. The Snowman
27. The Ice Maiden
28. The Wood Nymph
29. The Most Incredible Thing
30. Auntie Toothache

With interesting illustrations, like the one above, littered throughout the book before each different story, Hans Christian Andersen's Fairy Tales is a great read for those who love fairy tales and fables in all their original glory.

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes

The classic character of detective Sherlock Holmes and his faithful companion Dr Watson, created by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, show us just a handful of their adventures together in The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes.

Out of his smoke-filled rooms in Baker Street stalks a figure to cause the criminal classes to quake in their boots and rush from their dens of iniquity...

Consisting of 12 mysteries, this book is the first collection of Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson's adventures together. Written from the point of view of Watson, the book tells the stories of the following cases:

1. A Scandal In Bohemia
2. A Case of Identity
3. The Red-Headed League
4. The Boscombe Valley Mystery
5. The Five Orange Pips
6. The Man With The Twisted Lip
7. The Blue Carbuncle
8. The Speckled Band
9. The Engineer's Thumb
10. The Nobel Bachelor
11. The Beryl Coronet
12. The Copper Beeches

Each mystery is about 10 to maybe 30 pages long and all are very easy to read. Admittedly, in comparison to the crime novels and thrilling mysteries of today, some of these stories are a little bland or dated, but the book is easy enough to become enthralled in, as you see Sherlock Holmes at the height of his game, making these grand conclusions from the most minuscule details, and trying to beat him to it. Sherlock Holmes is a character that has appeared on page and screen time and time again, and it's very interesting to go back to these earlier mysteries and see how characters and situations have evolved. A very good read.