An open tray contains eight small, hardbound books of modern takes on fables. The books are each fifteen pages long and heavily illustrated. The covers form a picture: the top four make one picture and the bottom layer of four make another related picture. I can't really remember any of the fables, probably because they are so short. While this issue's design is super-creative, the books are held in place in the tray by four elastic bands which can snap over time. Whenever I take this issue off the shelf, the books fall out of the open-faced tray. A little clumsy. ( )

Tiny little stories. It'll take you all of 20 minutes to read the entire collection. ( )

The best McSweeney's in a while. Eight short, pithy fables, each in its own hardcover book, with cover art that comes together to create an image. ( )

To be honest a book which I am going to hang on the wall gets some kudos before I even open it. This time from Mcsweeny's (quarterly books of short stories), we get four small books which joined together make a picture and, like a box of chocolates, underneath there is another 4 forming a new picture.

Each small book, like a child's fantasy book has a short tale, heavily and wonderfully illustrated. The stories like most short stories are mixed but nothing is bad and as everything is so short it's such fun trying the next tasty morsel. So from Brain Evensons black fairy story and a girl trying to survive the apocalypse to the Arthur Bradford's tale of a women who gave birth to an octopus, they are all worth a try. ( )

I nice little collection of modern fables from a variety of authors and illustrators. My favorite was Virgil Walker, the one about an octopus named Virgil and his turtle friend Mr. Beeker. The drawings made me laugh out loud. The creepiest one was about the girl and her book which she used in some sort of apocalyptic disaster. ( )