A review by iphigenie72
The Mammoth Book of Modern Ghost Stories by Elizabeth Bowen, E.F. Benson, Kingsley Amis, Vladimir Nabokov, Derek Barnes, M.R. James, Marjorie Bowen, Alec Guinness, Howard Spring, Algernon Blackwood, Philip Pullman, Hammond Innes, Arthur Machen, Joyce Carol Oates, Arthur Gray, A.N.L. Munby, Louis de Bernières, E.G. Swain, Marie Belloc Lowndes, Alexander Woollcott, E. Nesbit, Peter Ackroyd, Fritz Leiber, Jane Gardam, William F. Nolan, Eudora Welty, James Thurber, A.C. Benson, Daphne du Maurier, A.E. van Vogt, Edith Wharton, W. Somerset Maugham, Arthur Conan Doyle, Eric Keown, Peter Haining, Rudyard Kipling, Dennis Wheatley, H. Rider Haggard, Ray Bradbury, George Minto, H.G. Wells, Lord Dunsany

3.0

I didn't get exactly what I wanted when I started this book. I wanted something to scare me and this was more intellectual. I liked it though. The only thing is that it's pretty uneven, some stories are really good and some left me thinking : 'uh'. The book stories are divided in section. One section is called 'Christmas Spirits: Festive Seasons Chillers'... I was expecting stories set at Christmas, but they were PUBLISHED at Christmas which I think was a let down, I don't get that. My favorite section was the last one 'Haunting Times: Tales of Unease' about every story in this section was interesting and very good. I especially liked 'The Ghost' by A.E. Van Vogt, 'Video Nasty' by Philip Pullman and 'Haunted' by Joyce Carol Oates. I think the editor did an overall good job picking the stories; he did make me discover a lot of authors that I had never heard of (and a lot I did know) and I think discovering new authors is one of the main purpose of a short story anthology (with entertaining... obviously).