Reproduction of the original.

Dahl is a master at introducing readers to a new sense of what lurks beneath the ordinary.

Conversation analysis, discourse analysis and the study of rhetoric are combining to form a powerful interdisciplinary field of social scientific inquiry. Robin Wooffitt, in a systematic analysis of how people describe their paranormal encounters as factual experiences, introduces this field to the student and reader unfamiliar with its methods and theoretical constructs. Powerful cultural scepticism about the paranormal ensures that such experiences not only provide an implicit challenge to common-sense understanding of the world, but also undermine the pronouncements of the scientific orthodoxy. Wooffitt focuses on the ways in which accounts are organized in order to warrant the speaker's claim that the experiences actually happened and were not, say, the product of misperception, wish fulfilment or psychological aberration. He also examines the design of descriptive sequences through which speakers portray themselves as 'normal','rational' people; and contributes to the study of identity construction in discursive practices. Wooffitt has illustrated and simplified complex theoretical arguments in conversation and discourse analysis with relevant empirical materials, and he usefully clarifies points of convergence and divergence between these analytic traditions.

Take a pinch of unease. Stir it into a large dollop of the macabre, add a generous helping of dark and stylish wit, garnish with the bizarre and what do you have? Roald Dahl at his brilliant, hypnotizing best, cooking up some of the most unusual stories ever told. Here in one volume are Tales of the Unexpected and More Tales of the Unexpected, making this a superb compendium of vengeance, surprise and dark delight.

The open door felt like an invitation, or a trap. Bastien wasn't sure which, but with no other choice, he stepped inside...and hoped he'd make it out again alive.Bastien Bonlivre is a boy with a big imagination, determined to finish the story his parents started, left to him in a red notebook.On the other side of Paris, bestselling author Olivier Odieux is struggling to complete his latest novel. Along with his villainous brothers, he is masterminding his greatest plot yet...one that will spread fear throughout the city and beyond.What connects these two stories is a dangerous secret, a hidden mystery and an unexpected race across Paris for the truth. Can Bastien and his friends Alice, Theo and Sami be brave enough to stop Olivier stealing the ending they deserve?A classic adventure story about friendship, hope, bravery and the power of imagination.

Royal Jelly is a brilliant gem of a short story from Roald Dahl, the master of the sting in the tail. In Royal Jelly, Roald Dahl, one of the world's favourite authors, tells a sinister story about the darker side of human nature. Here, a husband and wife, unable to get their new baby to feed, hit upon a novel and disturbing solution . . . Royal Jelly is taken from the short story collection Kiss Kiss, which includes ten other devious and shocking stories, featuring the wife who pawns the mink coat from her lover with unexpected results; the priceless piece of furniture that is the subject of a deceitful bargain; a wronged woman taking revenge on her dead husband, and others. 'Unnerving bedtime stories, subtle, proficient, hair-raising and done to a turn.' (San Francisco Chronicle ) This story is also available as a Penguin digital audio download read by Oliver-award-winning actor Adrian Scarborough. Roald Dahl, the brilliant and worldwide acclaimed author of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, James and the Giant Peach, Matilda, and many more classics for children, also wrote scores of short stories for adults. These delightfully disturbing tales have often been filmed and were most recently the inspiration for the West End play, Roald Dahl's Twisted Tales by Jeremy Dyson. Roald Dahl's stories continue to make readers shiver today.