A Thousand Morons, Quim Monzós latest collection of short stories, is rife with very unfortunate characters. Theres the young boy in A Cut who is upbraided by his teacher when he rudely shows up for class with a huge gash in his neck. And the prince in One Night who tries everything to awaken a sleeping princessyet fails completely. Seeing that this is a Quim Monzó collection, absurdity offsets the moronic sadness. Such as Love Is Eternal, which features a man who decides to finally overcome his commitment issues and marry his dying girlfriend, only to have everything backfire; or The Fullness of Summer, in which a family meticulously records every moment of their gathering. An excellent combination of longer, elegiac stories of morons, aging, and the passage of timewith short, flashier pieces that display Monzós wit and playfulnessmake this one of the strongest collections in the oeuvre of Catalans short fiction master.