Kiss Kiss [Paperback]

Roald Dahl (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback
• Publisher: Dell (1961)
• ASIN: B000OKCQA8
• Product Dimensions: 6.5 x 4.2 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #5,249,574 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Roald Dahl (1916-1990) was born in Llandaff, South Wales, and went to Repton School in England. His parents were Norwegian, so holidays were spent in Norway. As he explains in Boy, he turned down the idea of university in favor of a job that would take him to"a wonderful faraway place. In 1933 he joined the Shell Company, which sent him to Mombasa in East Africa. When World War II began in 1939 he became a fighter pilot and in 1942 was made assistant air attaché in Washington, where he started to write short stories. His first major success as a writer for children was in 1964. Thereafter his children's books brought him increasing popularity, and when he died children mourned the world over, particularly in Britain where he had lived for many years.The BFG is dedicated to the memory of Roald Dahls eldest daughter, Olivia, who died from measles when she was seven - the same age at which his sister had died (fron appendicitis) over forty years before. Quentin Blake, the first Children's Laureate of the United Kingdom, has illustrated most of Roald Dahl's children's books.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Dahl-icious, March 29, 2000

By 

Joseph W. Smith III - See all my reviews

This review is from: Kiss Kiss (Hardcover)

Too bad Dahl's short story collections are so hard to find; he was one of the best, right up there with Saki and O. Henry. This early collection has a few really delicious tales, particularly "Parson's Pleasure" and "The Landlady," and one about a baby that gets fed some sort of special food and gradually turns into a giant bee -- just the kind of thing only Dahl could pull off. This collection is worth tracking down, especially if you are a Dahl fan.

3.0 out of 5 stars Good, April 5, 2006

By 

David Blanton (New York, New York) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Kiss Kiss (Folio) (French Edition) (Mass Market Paperback)

There's a quiet zaniness that runs through the lot of these stories. Most of them are crisp, surprising and smoothly written at every turn. "The Way up to Heaven," "Parson's Pleasure," "Genesis and Catastrophe" and "Pig" delivered the best twists and overall fun for my tastes. Great literary and psychological foreplay.

5.0 out of 5 stars No wonder Roald Dahl's stories are always macabre..., June 28, 2005

By 

Captain Genius - See all my reviews

This review is from: Kiss, Kiss (Transaction Large Print Books) (Hardcover)

It's no wonder "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory", "The BFG" and even "Matilda" are thrillingly outrageous stories, because the short pieces in "Kiss Kiss" also display Roald Dahl's macabre and unexpected thoughts. In this case he weaves them around seemingly real-life situations. "Georgy Porgy" is particularly disturbing as George ends up getting drunk and then going mad when he feels he's conquered his fear of women, while "Royal Jelly" shows Albert Taylor turning his baby daughter into a big human bee like himself. Then there's the birth of Adolf Hitler in "Genesis and Catastrophe" and his mother wanting him to live after the deaths of her three previous children - and the whole world knows what he did during the Second World War - while "Edward the Conqueror" shows Edward obstinately refusing to believe that the cat Louisa discovers is a reincarnation of Franz Liszt...before throwing the creature in the fire. In "Mrs. Bixby and the Colonel's Coat" it is clear that Mr. Bixby found out that the mink coat his wife pawned was given to her (by the Colonel) and he punished her by secretly giving it to Miss Pulteney, while in "Pig", vegetarian Lexington becomes a tragic hero by eating a piece of pork and then meeting a death in the packing-house as horribly cruel as it is for pigs. But my favourite story is "William and Mary". It is unnerving in that Mary is appalled by the idea of William's brain being kept alive, together with one of his eyes, after he dies, but when she goes to the hospital to see the conclusion of this experiment, she likes the sight of William's brain immersed in Ringer's Solution with the eye glaring at her, and is adamant about bringing "him" home with her. The experiment itself is also unnerving, as is the short film that Landy watches showing the Russian dog's head licking away food and watching people that gives him the idea for the experiment. It just goes to show you how imaginative, how remarkable and how successful Dahl was as far as all age groups are concerned during his writing career, and that even his adult stories are as macabre as "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" etc. Truly masterful.