Lesley Choyce writes rings around most Canadian authors. This collection of short stories, Dance the Rocks Ashore, is certainly choice Choyce.

Dance the Rocks Ashore contains substantial new stories including “Dance the Rocks Ashore,” a bittersweet account of an elderly couple’s decline; the hilarious and bizarre “My Father Was a Book Reviewer” “The Third or Fourth Happiest Man in Nova Scotia,” with a peculiar hero reminiscent of Noah; and “The Wreck of the Sister Theresa,” in which spring fever hits like “a handshake in hell.” Favourite stories from previous books include “Losing Ground,” the pivotal chapter in Choyce’s acclaimed 1989 novel The Second Season of Jonas MacPherson, as well as “The Cure,” “Dancing the Night Away,” and the complex and disturbing “Conventional Emotions.”