In these tiny stories are brief lives that will make you laugh and pity and love. Each story crams a whole world into a couple of pages - you can sneak them one at a time whenever you have a spare minute, or gobble the lot - with a cast of hundreds - in a single day.

These tiny fragile stories are stuffed to the brim with wit and energy and love. Their architecture is perfect, as if a thousand complex worlds had been painted onto a grain of rice. If you're like me you'll want to read them over and over to unearth their secrets and find out why they leave such a long and lovely aftertaste. -- David Gaffney Tony Williams has a special talent for assembling the magical out of the mundane -- whether that be pub carpets, satnavs, mattresses or bananas. These short short stories often deal in pain, in death, in loss and loneliness, in absence, in anger and in shame, but Williams always makes sure that fragments of hope emerge, like the music of an oboe, that short burst of happiness that lights up the dark. -- Tania Hershman

Clicks Movements Lengths C'est magnifique, mais ce n'est pas la guerre We're Kappa Anya's complaint Suki's letter The people seem so small and far away As God intended Why the Renaissance began in Italy Sitting on the bank of a mighty river The wonderful thing Back in a jiffy Names of cakes Call of duty Cichlids The flight Ol' blue eyes Mustelids A glimpse of the glampers Partners The prisoner of Mansfield The best of fathers Laptops Markingitis The blinds Bollockin bollocks You can close your heart but I can still hurt you Dinghyhead What is and what should never be Orangina or Appletise Next door to murder Matthew A long, long time Amuse-bouche The harbour wall The variation Gareth The colonel's execution Meeting in the mittel Dr Scopoli Chestnuts Keith and I The region of dangerous roads Banjo players Training a champion Smoking for rudd Learning to love Mr Lamb A new look Better than cod Judy A White Peak prophecy The whales No longer covered in the training manual Coming home Valid only with reservations Being like Going live Points of contact Five hundred pound Through the birches Chintz almost begins Huskisson and the sea One tape dad Where it was coming from Piece for oboe Satnavs and the Shoa The bowling green Tender is the night The division room When Rachel left All the bananas I've never eaten Acknowledgments