Hilarious, cutting, and sharply aimed at exposing hypocrisy and self-delusion, this wonderful collection of stories was strangely evocative of Dorothy Parker for me. Saunders tackles war, commercialism, the lucrative business of making people feel good, even at the expense of doing bad, as well as the smaller tales of giving up, and breaking through. Saunders villians are self-deceiving types intent on turning a blind eye at the service if institutions adept at pretending the evil is good, his heroes are those who expect little of themselves, but see the world with clarity, surprising everyone but mostly themselves with small acts of heroism. It's a cynical, but not entirely bleak, world view, if one best suited to small takes with respite in between. It is tempered by gorgeous and simply laugh out loud and roll around the floor humour. Worth savouring.