Fifty Shades of Pessimism is a funny, informative and frank collection of writing from twenty-something who is at odds with the world and its lack of embrace of modern technology. Consisting of opinion articles, technology articles, essays, anecdotes, a short story and even a poem, the book gradually builds into an interesting insight into the mind of a teenage boy progressing through school, university and into a career. ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Thom Barr is a twenty-something young professional with a love of technology and pretzel M&Ms and a distain towards inefficiency and those who dislike change. Quite the opposite, yet somehow strangely similar, to the traditional 'grumpy young man' character, Thom embraces 21st century urban life, complete with tablets, smartphones, social networking and streaming. His annoyance comes from those who don't believe in such, the sort of people that still buy CDs and avoid self-service checkouts due to a fear of hearing 'unexpected item in bagging area'. Over the years he his written for blogs, websites and most recently for the benefit of the BBC as well as editing the Technology section of Leeds Student Newspaper and founding and editing the website yommwire. Thom graduated in Law from the University of Leeds in June 2012 and currently works in the head office of a large retailer. His spare time consists of freelance website and app design, pitiful attempts at exercise and the excessive consumption of books, TV, movies, games and pointless trivia, and discovering yet more things and people that annoy him.