This is a collection comprising 11 short stories extracted from various magazines and texts that recount the experiences of British officials and personnel during the colonization of India. Set as far back as the 19th century, some of these stories offer the reader glimpses of hauntings, myths, and peculiar occurrences.
I don’t think the tales in this book do justice to the title. Save for 2-3 short stories, none of the others even remotely felt like a “ghost story”. Rather, to me, it read like a diary entry capturing sporadic events in the lives of the narrator. If you’ve picked up the book with the intention of reading spooky, thrilling tales, you’re most likely in for a disappointment.
Since these stories are written by diverse writers, the writing style varies substantially. I liked reading the ones by Alice Perrin; they captured the essence of haunting mysteries.
The entire collection is short enough to finish reading in a couple of hours, but due to the kind of tales included I wasn’t all that motivated to read it in one sitting.
I rarely ever feel this way about books but, in hindsight, this is one of those titles that if I had skipped, I wouldn’t have missed much.
The Life Stories 