Disturbing, intriguing flash fiction run through with a self depreciating humour. Modern day horrors, snippets of almost poetry, twisting short tales all dark all quite beautiful. It's a book to dip into and savour, to laugh at life’s dark heart and his true yet exaggerated take.

"I am the noise you hear at night. I am the lights, you wish in your heart, we're an identified flying object.
Oh yes. It's me. It's not distant thunder and it's not a further distant atomic explosion.
It's me, in an aeroplane, bored nearly out of my mind,
And it's so beautiful up here."

Two of my favourites showcase the expanse. One is a mere three quarters of page, a musing of love versus life’s darkness shot through with dark humour on how silly we can be and then a frisson of oddity, of a disturbing narrator. The second (one of the longest stories) is a tale of having to take an awful job to pay the bills and having your worst fears come true, no pay, bullying, incompetence and murder, yet funny.

Highly recommended for those with a darker humour, a love of language or short sharp, surreal shocks. ( )

Brilliant

Collection of short stories by the artist of Radiohead’s album covers

Donwood is the artist for Radiohead and his book looks like an album cover. This collection of stories is his second and he says of it “'These were written to avoid staring for too long at a night-filled window that only reflected my own sorry-for-itself face”. Each story is short, some less than half a page but each is well crafted and together form a coherent collection. I devoured this in one sitting, all 41 stories and Mr. Donwood is propelled immediately to being one of my favourite short story writers. Donwood promotes the book on his website as “Ideal as a Zmas stocking filler for the slightly deranged.” These are darkly grey stories and could be viewed as depressing if it wasn’t for the self-depreciating black humour throughout. Donwood’s oeuvre is despair, where litter, decay and long dead insects on windowsills are the background upon which the characters fail to fit in with the world.

Overall – Brilliant collection of flash fiction. ( )