''The Thirteen Problems''- Book review

Author: Agatha Christie
Published: 1932

Genres: Short story collection, Mystery, Crime, Thriller

Rating: 4 out of 5

Review

''The Thirteen Problems'' is a short story collection by Agatha Christie, featuring Miss Marple. 

Several guests have gathered in Miss Marple's house: her nephew, Raymond West, Joyce Lempriere (an artist) , Sir Henry Clithering (ex-Commissioner of Scotland Yard), Dr Pender (a clergyman) and Mr Petherick (a solicitor). Each of them decide to tell stories of unsolved mysteries--- the solution of which are generally only known to themselves, and the other guests have to figure out the solution. In each case, nobody, except Miss Marple, can figure out the solution. The first six stories are told in this setting. The next six stories are set several months after the first six stories, when both Miss Marple, and some other people, are staying as guests in the house of Colonel Bantry. The last story is about the investigation of a suicide that is perhaps a murder. Sir Henry Clithering does the investigation, though Miss Marple already guesses the solution...

Sir Henry Clithering and Miss Marple are the two characters who appear in all the chapters. I'd first met Sir Henry in ''The Body in the Library''. In this book, this character gets more, much more depth. I liked this character. And Miss Marple is excellent as always. Her village parallels are really interesting!

I enjoyed this short story collection, a lot. The first few stories were actually quite predictable, but the last seven or eight stories are really unpredictable and absolutely puzzling! Though the first few stories are predictable, there is a kind of atmosphere in them, a kind of charm in them, that makes them really very delightful and really very enjoyable to read. All the stories in this collection are wonderful! My favorite stories in this collection are ''The Companion'', ''The Affair at the Bungalow'', and ''The Blue Geranium''. They were really delightful reads, these stories. There is atmosphere, there is suspense, there are so many puzzles.

4 out of 5

''The Great Automatic Grammatizator and Other Short Stories''- Book review

Author: Roald Dahl
Genres: Short story collection

Rating: 3 out of 5

Book review

I have mixed feelings about this short story collection by Roald Dahl. First of all, a few of the stories are extra-ordinary and highly impressive. Some stories were just good. And a few were disappointing. 

The stories, except perhaps Katina, are all bizarre, strange, some are macabre, some are filled with dark humor. The titular story, ''The Great Automatic Grammatizator'', is a sci-fi type of story about a young inventor who invents a machine which can produce great stories within minutes, and he and his boss start making money by selling the stories they produced with the machine. This story was quite good.

But my most favorite stories in this collection were ''The Landlady'' and ''The Umbrella Man''. ''The Landlady'' is perhaps the only genuinely horror story in this collection. ''The Umbrella Man'' is another weird story about a man, who, on a rainy day, in return of just cab fare, gives his umbrella to a woman and her daughter. But what happens next is simply surprising and unexpected.

 A story I found extremely unsatisfactory were The Butler. It looked promising at first, but then the overall story displeased me.

In conclusion, this story story collection by Roald Dahl is filled with strange stories: some are good, a few are bad. You can read this if you like Roald Dahl. 

3 out of 5