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I've been searching for a collection of short stories I read as a kid. I can't say how old I was, but old enough to read because I read them myself, and certainly I read them over seven years ago (I am 18 now). It was a large book, physically, and thick. It contained short stories (I can't say how many or even if they were all by the same author) and loads of illustrations. In fact, the stories were printed on top of full page or even double spread illustrations. More than that, however, and details get shaky. I'm almost positive one was about making soup; there was one short story that was about a race, and the illustration was of a monster wearing a runners vest, shorts and trousers, and he had yellow or orange skin. There was another story I am almost 100% positive was called "Two heads are better than one". Every story was about monsters and I don't think humans were even involved in any way. Anyone got any ideas? I've filed this under Horror because, y'know, monsters, but I can't even be sure the stories were meant to be scary.

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  • Since you know the title of one of the stories, look it up on ISFDB. There are 3 short stories with this title, hopefully you can determine which one is the one you've read and which collection you read it in.
    – user56
    Commented Feb 22, 2014 at 22:43
  • @Gilles I'm guessing I'm missing something but it comes up with 0 results
    – Mac Cooper
    Commented Feb 22, 2014 at 22:46
  • Make sure to change “Name” to “Fiction Titles” in the dropdown.
    – user56
    Commented Feb 22, 2014 at 22:48
  • Embarassing....
    – Mac Cooper
    Commented Feb 22, 2014 at 22:49
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    Could it be a Ruth Manning-Sanders collection? I'm thinking "A Book of Monsters" but there may be other candidates.
    – Fruitbat
    Commented Feb 23, 2014 at 0:58

2 Answers 2

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I found it!

The specifically named "Monster Stories", 2002, compiled by Andy Charman. Did indeed involve cooking, and a marathon, and has a story called Two heads are worse than one (I was close!)

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Wild guess, is it possible that one of those stories would be Forrest J Ackerman's The Mute Question which ends with a punchline of:

"Two heads are better than none"?

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  • What, no spoiler protection?
    – user14111
    Commented Apr 22, 2016 at 1:17
  • @user14111: Better?
    – FuzzyBoots
    Commented Apr 22, 2016 at 2:56

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