View source for Simon Snootle and Other Small Stories by Lorin Morgan-Richards

{{infobox1 
|title= Simon Snootle and Other Small Stories
|author= Lorin Morgan-Richards
|reviewer= John Lloyd
|genre=Short Stories 
|summary= A bijou boutique book of wry whimsy that could go further - although I fully expect its creator to do so.
|rating=3.5 
|buy= Maybe
|borrow= Yes
|pages=68 
|publisher= A Raven Above 
|date=January 2009
|isbn=978-0615270524  
|sort=Simon Snootle and Other Small Stories
|cover=0985044748
|aznuk=0985044748
|aznus=0985044748
}}

I have never been in the market for hand-made, very limited bindings of books, so it was a surprise when the book reviewing gods offered this for me to review.  Everything here has been done by the author - the binding, in veggie-friendly 'leather', the artwork, the decision to limit this to 250 copies (as it stands...) and more.
 
Inside these firm covers is a wee little item, containing seven wee little stories.  They're of the gently absurd, wry, dark whimsy you come across now and again.  So we find a boy who likes nothing better than to delve inside of, and nibble away at, school bus seats, to emulate the friend he has at home.  Here's a bush with light fingers, as it were - stealing things from passers-by, and finding some form of comeuppance.  Elsewhere, the melancholy will see dead birds, and a young man will live at the bottom of a cistern.
 
All well and good, if that's your choice, but the brevity of the stories do not allow for a great deal of growth.  Yes, this is a blunt world, where we can be introduced to a man at the top of the page only for him to die by the foot.  However I was seeking a little more - sometimes the dismissive endings were too abrupt for my personal taste.
 
There is of course the exception that proves the rule - the man and woman who meet despite being complete opposites have an unexpected conclusion together, which is certainly the best laugh of the book just because it is so blunt.
 
I liked the novelty of such a boutique book in my hands, although I wish someone had proofread the punctuation a little more closely.  These ''small stories'' offer a glimpse of an author's world and his Edward Lear-styled pictures and absurdity, and hopefully are a stepping stone for him to produce something longer, and as a result more substantial.  Either by his own hand or more conventionally...
 
I must thank the author for my review copy.
 
Other whimsical short stories can be found in [[Bears of England by Mick Jackson]], while [[The White Road by Tania Hershman]] reveals a mistress of the very concise and brief.

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