Book picks similar to
Dip in the Pool by Roald Dahl


short-stories
fiction
thriller
short-story

Theatre of Cruelty


Terry Pratchett - 1993
    Investigating the incident in his typically direct manner, Carrot Ironfoundersson discovers the truth...

Cold Hand in Mine: Strange Stories


Robert Aickman - 1974
    The story Pages from a Young Girl's Journal won Aickman the World Fantasy Award in 1975. It was originally published in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction in 1973 before appearing in this collection.Cold Hand in Mine stands as one of Aickman's best collections and contains eight stories that show off his powers as a 'strange story' writer to the full, being more ambiguous than standard ghost stories. Throughout the stories the reader is introduced to a variety of characters, from a man who spends the night in a Hospice to a German aristocrat and a woman who sees an image of her own soul. There is also a nod to the conventional vampire story (Pages from a Young Girl's Journal) but all the stories remain unconventional and inconclusive, which perhaps makes them all the more startling and intriguing.• The Swords • The Real Road to the Church • Niemandswasser • Pages from a Young Girl's Journal• The Hospice • The Same Dog • Meeting Mr. Millar • The Clock Watcher

The Prophet's Hair


Salman Rushdie - 1981
    

Twittering from the Circus of the Dead


Joe Hill - 2013
    The show's about to begin. Step right up for the Circus of the Dead: where YOU are the concessions. #CircusoftheDead

The Queer Feet: A Father Brown Mystery


G.K. Chesterton - 1910
    They wear green jackets and have an unusual reason for the colour - to avoid being mistaken for waiters, specifically the black-jacketed ones at their Vernon Hotel dinner. There's a criminal story behind the colour differentiation and a little priest, Father Brown, was involved. Deeply involved. (less)

The Legend of Sleepy Hollow


Washington Irving - 1820
    He was a gullible and excitable fellow, often so terrified by locals' stories of ghosts that he would hurry through the woods on his way home, singing to keep from hysterics. Until late one night, he finds that maybe they're not just stories. What is that dark, menacing figure riding behind him on a horse? And what does it have in its hands? And why wasn't schoolteacher Crane ever seen in Sleepy Hollow again?

Mimsy Were The Borogoves


Lewis Padgett - 1943
    When the box fails to return, he constructs another and tests it the same way, but it also fails to return. Believing the entire experiment to be a failure, he discontinues his efforts and gives up on time machines. The first box arrives in the middle of the twentieth century and the second in the latter part of the nineteenth century. Both have had their time-travel circuitry irreparably damaged by the journey.Originally published in the February 1943 issue of "Astounding Science Fiction Magazine.Novelette, Classic science fiction, the basis for the film "The Last Mimsy"

The Destructors


Graham Greene - 1955
    Each book in the series has been designed with today's young reader in mind. As the words come to life, students will develop a lasting appreciation for great literature.The humor of Mark Twain...the suspense of Edgar Allan Poe...the danger of Jack London...the sensitivity of Katherine Mansfield. Creative Short Stories has it all and will prove to be a welcome addition to any library.

A Rose for Emily


William Faulkner - 1930
    Emily is a member of a family in the antebellum Southern aristocracy; after the Civil War, the family has fallen on hard times.

The Five Boons of Life


Mark Twain - 1981
    

Memento Mori


Jonathan Nolan - 2001
    Because of his inability to remember things for more than a few minutes, he uses notes and tattoos to keep track of new information.

In a Grove


Ryūnosuke Akutagawa - 1922
    Akira Kurosawa used this story as the basis for his award-winning movie Rashōmon."In a Grove" is an early modernist short story consisting of seven varying accounts of the murder of a samurai, Kanazawa no Takehiro, whose corpse has been found in a bamboo forest near Kyoto. Each section simultaneously clarifies and obfuscates what the reader knows about the murder, eventually creating a complex and contradictory vision of events that brings into question humanity's ability or willingness to perceive and transmit objective truth.The story is often praised as being among the greatest in Japanese literature.