Anne Fleming’s short story collection Pool-Hopping and Other Stories (1998), above all else, reminded me how much I love reading short stories. I’ve never really understood why so many readers who are keen to pick up novels are somehow reluctant to check out a book of short stories. Are people really so lazy they don’t want to take the trouble to reorient themselves a few more times throughout a book instead of just at the beginning? Fleming’s short stories are definitely worth the effort: I would count Pool-Hopping among some of the best short fiction I’ve ever read, up there with Ivan E. Coyote’s thousand-word one-time punches and Alice Munro’s strangely familiar tales.

See the rest of my review on my blog: http://caseythecanadianlesbrarian.wordpress.com/2012/07/02/the-extraordinary-in-... ( )