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First there was David Eggers, then there was Might, then there was McSweeney's. To give the magazine its full title, Timothy McSweeney's Quarterly Concern is an almost quarterly literary journal first published in San Francisco in 1998.

The journal has no prescribed in-house style, in fact each issue is deliberately made to look different from the others. Issues have published in the form of a cigar box, as a pile of "junk" mail, as soft-back books held together with magnets or as a deck of cards. Expect the unexpected is very much the order of the day.

The content of the journal is just as unpredictable. Having begun as a means of getting Eggers' and his friends' work published, the focus is upon fiction articles - but comparing one issue to another is like comparing omelet to sponge cake - both contain eggs but that's where the similarity ends.

To some this approach may appear wacky or just plain pretentious, to others it is youthful, fresh and invigorating. If you subscribe to the journal you are in for a new surprise every three months or so - one of the main surprises being when it will actually turn up in your mail box. Previous well-known contributors have included David Mamet, Roddy Doyle, Neil Gaiman and Stephen King, but the emphasis remains upon nurturing emerging talent.

Potential buyers may like to check out Tim McSweeney's Internet Tendency on-line at www.mcsweeneys.net to get a flavor of this publishing house's output before they part with their cash.

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