Quick as a Wink: 60 stories

If characters make a story this book has a deluge of them. The stories are deliberately brief so as not to stretch the time-keeping skills of busy modern society. However readers will find within most stories characters they identify with either in vexed or more usually pleasant ways. Human characters include chefs grans gossips siblings entrepreneurs; possibly a queen makes a dubious appearance. Children feature in naïve yet wise ways and deservedly bookend the collection. Animals (characters also as we know) invite you into their worlds including a ladybird a pelican an anti-hero bee and eccentric turkeys. Objects too such as a Buddhist statue and a gnome are in a twinkle brought to life. Delicately rather than by blows to skulls themes of abuse abortion and ageing weave through the stories. The desolation of broken families and the devastation of war are implicitly exposed. Ultimately sizeable serving spoons of humour brazen or subtle are the keys to many tales. This too is deliberate: readers need to be cheered mostly by the unsuspecting characters who inhabit our world.