Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman Review

All you need is… Tesco pizza. Tesco pizza is all you need…?

But Tesco pizza is all Eleanor Oliphant has.

Beat It, Rufus by Noah Van Sciver Review

Rufus Baxter is a never-was, pathetic moron of a failed rock star. Fed-up with scrounging a living on the music circuit for decades, his drug-addled brain somehow concocts a semi-coherent plan: he’s gonna road trip cross-country to the blighted town of Camden, New Jersey, to finally claim royalties on his ‘80s record, Funky Cool, from his scummy label, Bliggum Records, and retire in style. Will he get what he deserves - and what was the fate of his two bandmates all those years ago?

Payment Deferred by CS Forester Review

It was a dark and stormy night…

… when a nephew, fortuitously flush with cash, that Mr Marble didn’t know he had appears on his doorstep, just when he’s up against it with bills he can’t pay! Desperate, Marble is seized with a wild idea of murder - an action that sets him on a doomed path of further pain and misery.

Junji Ito's Cat Diary: Yon & Mu by Junji Ito Review

Cats - the final frontier.

At least it feels like it’s inevitable that if you’re a comics creator then you’re going to make a cat comic at some point in your career - even horror mangaka Junji Ito’s made one!

Batman, Volume 4: Dark Prisons Review (Chip Zdarsky, Jorge Jimenez)

Batman’s in prison because… And Zur is in Failsafe and he’s Batman because… Then Absolute Poo-er means more robots and Batman’s gotta… Yeah, so Batman the series is in shit shape. Chip Zdarsky’s run has been about as bad, if not worse, than Tynion’s, and DC needs to change things sharpish.

The Anechoic Chamber and Other Weird Tales by Will Wiles Review

Of the nine stories in Will Wiles’ short story collection, The Anechoic Chamber and Other Weird Tales, about two were ok and the others were generally quite bad.

The Custard Heart by Dorothy Parker Review

I’ve known of Dorothy Parker for a while now - she was this fabled female American Oscar Wilde wit, writing for the New Yorker and part of the Algonquin Round Table, a group of artists from the 1920s - but never read her until now. And maybe her wit comes across more strongly in her non-fiction because I didn’t see anything funny or clever in her fiction, three stories of which are collected in this small book.