June Holiday Reading 2

Another book I read during this June Holidays is a book named " Ten Short Stories " The author of this book is Roald Dahl. This book consists of ten short stories.

There is not a modern short story writer anywhere to be compared with Roald Dahl. Each of his stories is so clever and has such a startling twist at the end of it that it leaves the reader gasping. The ten short stories in this book may depict human nature at its darkest, but they are also brilliantly funny and definitely completely unforgettable.

One of the stories that I liked was " The Umbrella Man ". In " The Umbrella Man ", an old man went around on a rainy day exchanging an umbrella for one pound. As it was raining cats and dogs, the people waiting at the taxi stand were desperate for an umbrella.

The old man of about seventy years of age claimed that he had walked to the shopping mall but forgot to bring a pound for the taxi fare. He said that he did this everyday as he was too tired to walk back home.

The old man spoke politely to the author's mother and successfully completed the trade. Upon getting the pound, the old man walked off hurriedly to the opposite road. This led the author and her mum to get suspicious. He did not seem tired to them at all! They followed him until he reached a bar.

The old man hung up his coat and hat and ordered a drink worth one pound. After finishing the drink, he grabbed his coat and hat, and in a manner so superbly cool and casual, he took one of the wet umbrellas hanging at the coat-rack and went back to the shopping mall.He went on exchanging his new umbrella for another pound but when to another bar this time. He was very clever, he never went to the same bar twice.

Another story I like alot is " Parson's Pleasure " . Mr Boggis is a knowledgeable but not honest antique dealer. He disguises himself as a clergyman and claims to be the president of the Society for the preservation of Rare Furniture.He travels around the countryside to buy antiques far less than they are worth.

Mr Boggis parks his rather large estate car far away so as not to arouse suspicion. At one of the farmhouses, me meets three men: Mr Rummins, the owner, Bert, his son, and a neighbour named Claud. After alot of persuasion, Mr Rummins finally allows Mr Boggis to enter his house and have a look.

Boggis sees an extremely valuable and rare piece of furniture, only four of existence. It is a type of chest of drawers named The Chippendale Commode. Although Boggis is excited, he keeps his emotions to himself in order not to arouse the men's suspicion. He pretends to be scornful of the furniture. Eventually, he claims that although it is of very little value, the legs from the chest of drawers might be useful to him because he has a coffee table whose legs are damaged.

Boggis casually offers to buy the chest of drawers. In order to get the drawers at a lower price than Mr Rummins claims, he keeps persuading Rummins that it is a fake and merely a reproduction. After some bargaining, Rummins agrees to sell it at a price of 20 pounds.

Boggis immediately left to fetch his car,and the three men think that the furniture will definitely not be able to fit inside Boggis' car as clergyman will only have a small vehicle.

The three men decide to cut off the legs of the chest of drawers as they think this will save Boggis time instead of doing it himself. Afterwards, they still think that the furniture is too large to fit inside a car, so they chop it further into smaller pieces. At this point, with the priceless furniture in small pieces, they see Mr Boggis returning.

This story left me laughing away while the previous story impressed me. I would have never thought of such a clever way to get money. " Ten Short Stories" is a really interesting as well as funny book and I encourage all to pick up this book and read it. It really gave me a good impression.

June Holiday Reading

This is about a book I read during this June Holidays. The book is entitled " The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night- Time "

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time is a murder mystery novel like no other. The detective, and narrator, is Christopher Boone. Christopher is fifteen years old and unfortunately, he has Asperger's Syndrome. He know a lot about maths and very little about human beings. In the book, Christopher took his A level Maths and got an A grade. What's more, he is only 15! He hates the colours yellow and brown and also being touched by someone else. In the early part of the story, he punched a policeman who grabbed his arm.

In the book, his neighbour, Mrs Shears, had a dog. One night, he wanted to go over and say hi to the dog as he loved dogs. Upon reaching the house, he saw a garden fork sticking out of the dog, and the dog was breathless. He decided to write a book on this murder case. He went around all his neighbour's houses and asked them if they knew of anything suspicious. His father scolded him for poking his nose into other people's business.

One day, his father spotted Christopher's book and read it from head to toe. After doing that, he kept it away in a shirt box. Desperate to get the book back, Christopher searched around the house one day. Finally, he found the shirt box inside his father's cupboard. Together with the book, he also found a bunch of letters. The letters were signed to him by his dead mother.

This was the second mystery in the book. The dates on the letters were way after his mother had passed away. On another day, he opened up the letters and read them. After reading them, he found out that his mother had never died and his father was lying to him all along. Christopher's mother had run away with Mr Shears as both of them could not get along with their spouse.

After learning about the truth, Christopher vomited and fainted in the bed. When his father came back, he saw all the letters around and immediately understood what had happened. When Christopher had awaken, he explained the whole thing in tears. He had no choice, he wanted to protect his son. His father also admitted that he was the one who had killed Wellington, the dog belonging to the neighbour.

Christopher went to bed straight but he did not sleep. He knew that his father had killed Wellington, and he was scared that he might have him killed too. He planned to escape the next morning. He went into the garden and spent the night there as he felt mush safer. The next morning, his father had come to the garden, but he was well hidden and his father drove of to find him.

He had no where to go, he knew he could not stay at home, nor could he stay with his teacher. He finally made up his mind to live with his mother. Christopher was on a difficult task, as he needed to travel all the way to London all by himself. After much difficulty, he found the train station and started his journey.

Apparently, his father made a police report and the police were looking for him. A policeman spotted him on the train and was planning to alight at the next stop. Christopher went to the toilet and when he came out, he hid in a shelf where commuters out their luggage on. He successfully arrived at London without the policeman in sight.

With the help of a map, he found his mother's house. No one was at home so he waited in the rain until he heard his mother and Mr Shears voices. He stayed in his mother's house for a few days before his father came knocking on the door. Christopher's mother had to settle something in his hometown so they made their way back, dropping by at his house to get some clothes.

The rented a small house somewhere else. A few days later after they reached, Christopher had to take his A level Maths exam. There were three parts to the exam and he went back for three days consecutively.

His father wanted to apologize to Christopher and bought him a golden retriever after the exams. His father wanted to spend time with his son everyday so that they will learn to trust each other more and get along better.

I have no particular favourite part in this story but i throughly enjoyed it. I recommend those who have not read this book to pick it up and read it now.