Table of Contents

• Your Name in Weetos
• The Lost Language of Hairgrips
• Last to Know
• Flying Lessons with Gary Numan
• Intimate Zone
• Happy Place
• Where We Left Off
• You Know, Quiet
• `Uchafu'
• What You Know is There
• Pets
• Killer Lines
• Click
• Into the World
• Heavy Java Guy
• She's Really Alt-Country
• Smells Like
• Some Call it Loungecore
• Special Interest
• We Are the Robots
• Little Jan
• A Good System
• We Like it Here
• No Turning
• Last Chance to Turn Around
• Mask
• The Kids Are All Right
• Tasting Notes
• Wednesday Night's Alright for Fighting
• Contact Time
• Enclosures
• New Best Friend
• Potato Smiles
• Shop Talk
• Until You are Happy
• Floydy
• The Habits of Unstoppable People
• The Way you Say `Park'
• Lady Pleaser
• First Out
• Light Lunch
• With Tongues
• On This Very Special Day
• Cica Lights
• The World Won't Listen
• Smack
• End of Line
• Server Farmer
• Kick inside
• Pop-Tarts
• The Funny Way I Feel Inside
• The Heartless Chain
• The Man Whose Head Expanded
• A Personal Message
• Doctor Logic
• Dead Star
• Do You Know Where I Am?
• Life Just Bounces

Promotional Information

Utterly brilliant. Hilariously demented and wonderfully succinct. David Gaffney's Sawn-Off Tales are little McNuggets of pure gold. This is writing at its best. -- Graham Rawle David Gaffney writes truly 21st century stories for a fragmented and fragmenting world; they're short, snappy and utterly addictive and they should be required reading for anybody trying to make sense of Britain in 2006; or for anybody in a bus queue with five minutes to spare. -- Ian McMillan

About the Author

David Gaffney comes from Cleator Moor in West Cumbria, and now lives in Manchester. He is the author of three critically acclaimed short story collections - Sawn-off Tales (2006), Aromabingo (2007) and The Half-life Of Songs (2010) - and the novel Never Never (2008). He has written articles for The Guardian, The Sunday Times, The Financial Times and Prospect magazine

Reviews

Funny, pointed, and sometimes even disturbing, Gaffney's stories deserve to be read. -- Jim Burns Ambit This book will knock you out. Packed with emotion, annoyance, and social science fiction, it's a testament to imagination and the skill of illustrating it. -- Harlan Levey MODART David Gaffney is an evolution, a moment in time to be lavished with a literary eye, to be goggled with a mind broad and open enough to look and look anew. Each snippet disturbingly captures everyday life in superbly unique fashion. What a stunning collection. -- Eugen M. Bacon TCM Gaffney has produced the kind of book that makes you wish you spent more time locked in your imagination and less time dismissing irreverent thoughts. -- Lianne Steinberg The Big Issue Almost all the 58 stories in David Gaffney's collection are shorter than this review. Reality becomes dislocated and strange; words and phrases acquire a compelling importance ... One hundred and fifty words by Gaffney are more worthwhile than novels by a good many others. -- Nicholas Clee The Guardian Exceptional and well deserving of the hardcover slapped around them...witty, clever and poignant Gaffney's micro fictions work as funny routines, moving insights and illuminating character sketches, often all at the same time. -- Nicholas Royle Time Out Sawn-Off Tales is an original collection, one that bravely attempts to present modern life in the way that we ourselves experience it - as a series small, occasionally meaningless snapshots, which build to create a rich complexity. -- Lucy Wood Transition Tradition