From the discovery of a strange creature in the woods in World War II-era England (A.S. Byatt's "The Thing in the Forest" to a strange terpsichorean bargain in an elephant factory (Haruki Murakami's "The Dancing Dwarf"), Bedtime Stories will keep you turning pages -- sometimes past the time you planned to turn out the light.

The compact volume, edited by Diana Secker Tesdell, offers 18 short stories from varied times and very different authors, but each has some element -- whether blatant or subtle -- of the fantastic or unreal. Stories are old ("Young Goodman Brown" by Nathaniel Hawthorne and Robert Louis Stevenson's "The Bottle Imp") and recent ("The Tiger's Bride" by Angela Carter and Neil Gaiman's "Troll Bridge"), including stories you've perhaps read many times before ("An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge" by Ambrose Bierce and Washington Irving's "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow") to ones you've maybe always intended to read ("The Country of the Blind" by H.G. Wells and F. Scott Fitzgerald's "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button").

The stories are all fairly brief -- each is easily read in one or two sittings. Tesdell has put together an engaging selection that any reader who likes a bit of fantasy and mystery -- and perhaps an occasional visceral thrill -- should enjoy. As a bonus, the volume is solid, hefty and well crafted, making it a pleasure to hold.

Keep this one by your bedside, or pass it off to anyone who likes a good collection of enjoyable tales.