not for the nervous

I finished reading Alfred Hitchcock's Stories Not for the Nervous yesterday. It was a very, very good book of short stories. I picked it up at the library, thinking that they would be stories written by the master himself. The books was actually a compilation of short stories by other authors. Hitchcock only wrote the introduction.

Anyway, the stories were great fun to read. A couple were mysteries and most of them would probably fall into the horror-ish genre (is that a genre? horror-ish?). The book started out with a story by Ray Bradbury. That was a good sign. I'd never heard of most of the other authors. However, judging by the quality of the writing, they were (are?) very talented.

I love how old school the stories were. Some of the dialog sounded almost a bit too formal to be realistic. But you know, I wasn't there so maybe people really all spoke like English professors back in the 60's.

Best story in the book - The Dune Roller. Intelligent characters, good plot, excellent descriptions, exciting to read. very, very good. A+!!!!!

The only part of the book that I really didn't enjoy reading was the last story - Sorry, Wrong Number. I think there was a movie based on that one, so you might have heard of it before. It was about an 'invalid' hypochondriac whose husband has disappeared. Throughout the story, she is in her bedroom making phone calls to determine what happened to her husband. She also overhears a conversation on a crossed phone line about some woman getting murdered, which freaks her out too. The story was too long, the protagonist was annoying, and the story was a little dull. There was some cliché mobster talk too, see? so that got a little chuckle.

That's all I have for now. Have a Happy New Years Eve. Be safe.