In my professional life (before children), I spent a large amount of time writing things for government ministers to ‘say’ (most often these things were published in documents, brochures and as part of press releases). The aim of the game was ‘sound bites’ – pithy little one-liners that got to the guts of the matter (in my case, it was all about river and water management) and made for ‘quotable quotes’ for ministers.

Idiopathy by Sam Byers is novel written in ‘sound bites’. Punchy, carefully crafted sentences (many of them funny and/or insightful) draped over a loose (and somewhat odd) plot.

“She wondered how people had ever achieved comprehensive worrying before Google, which listed fears you never knew you had in the order other people had them.” Continue reading →