Let's get the minor kvetching out of the way right at the start. You'll Catch Your Death features an especially inappropriate book cover. Garish, heavy-handed, technically inept, and graceless, it is everything that Hood's stories are not.

“More Birds” opens this volume, a tale that manages to engage more moral and aesthetic issues in ten and a half pages than many novels. This is Hood at his best: compelling first-person voice; simple, elegant narrative line; evocative, resonant imagery; and a commitment to messy, life-affirming irresolution. “Getting Funding” follows, a rather facile bit of sarcastic fluff aimed at government arts councils and the CBC. Next up: “Third Time Unlucky,” a beautifully realized comic tale of paranoia that packs an O. Henry ending, and then “Deanna and the Ayatollah,” this reviewer's favourite, which finds an exiled Ayatollah Khomeini getting image tips from Disney and Warner Bros. cartoon characters via former child star Deanna Durbin.

A cultural theorist specializing in fast food—he cheers the triumph of the quarter-pounder over Marx, Darwin, and Freud—prefers an intensely romantic reverie to the instant gratification of quickie sex with “Jolene from Moline” in the story of that name. And in “Two Bridport Tales,” Hood offers up a couple of unfortunates to the spirit of Thomas Hardy: two men fall victim to malevolent Fortune despite their best efforts to outwith her. “Rip Flip” plays out a white-knuckle yarn of Good Samaritan bravery in high realism, while “Disappearing Creatures of All Kinds” explores the serendipitous nature of imagination and its role in our communicating with the world around us.

Of the remaining stories, only two fail to satisfy: “You'll Catch Your Death” and “Don't Bother Coming,” both tragic victims of a somewhat flaccid sentimentality. For the most part, Hood is smart, funny, caring, and eclectic—an old master who's completely in touch with today. This collection's excellences far outweigh its few faults—even that awful cover.