The Book Report: Thirteen richly imagined stories in a fourth collection of same from Alabama's weirdest living writer, Dr. Joe Taylor. 'Nuff said.

My Review: Full disclosure: I liked Joe Taylor's writing so much that, twenty years ago when I was a literary agent, I took it on and flogged it all over New York. Then as now, safe sells, so Joe and I parted company sadder but wiser. Well, I was, anyway, and not to mention highly entertained by getting to read his stuff first.

Well, Joe's still Joe, albeit older'n dirt and about as pretty these days (really, dude! that author photo!); his eye is still sharp as a flensing knife, though. Stories truly are everywhere in Joe Taylor's world. God help you if you're expecting them to be predictable, or soothing, or bland. They're as unsettling to read as Magritte's paintings are to study. They're packed tight and extra-full, like any good shot that's got to take out the elephant of complacent reading; this book is a laser-sighted musket, focused and powerfully loaded but using for its own ends the fine, old-style craftsmanship of storytelling.

My recommended starter story: "Highway One, Revisited" (despite the fact that it's not the first story of the collection), which begins:

"Sooner or later, it's a dead end, you might philosophically assert. You might say this even as you hear glass shatter ahead, even as you later come upon a six pack of beer bottles snapped across that highway like gaseous stellar matter novaed across the Crab Nebula."

That's pretty much what you are in for; buy the ticket for a mere $20, spend the day surfing the waves and crests of Joe's skewed (his word! his word!) imagination instead of the Internet. Time well spent. ( )