This is what stands on the cover of the book:

"Suburban witches, defiant old ladies, ageing monsters, suicidal Lottery winners, wolf men, dolphin women and middle-aged manufacturers of erotic leatherwear. In these twenty-two short stories from the author of HOLY FOOLS and FIVE QUARTERS OF THE ORANGE, the miraculous goes hand-in-hand with the mundane, the sour with the sweet, and the beautiful, the grotesque, the seductive and the disturbing are never more than one step away.

JIGS & REELS is Joanne Harris’ first collection of short stories. As she says in her Foreword, a good short story can startle, ignite, and illuminate…giving you vivid, anarchic glimpses into different world, different people. Here, she proves she is as good as her word by creating an eclectic selection of tales for our times that will delight, surprise, entertain and horrify in equal measure. Sly, funny, sometimes provocative but always personal, JIGS & REELS shows a side to Joanne Harris you have never seen before. So go on, be tempted. After all, it's only dancing. "

and I couldn't describe the book better my self. It is differnt Joanne Harris indeed. She mixes the the normal modern world with all kinds of unlikely/unusual things/events. JH really is one of the best writers I know. I mean, usually I don't even like shortstories. I only started reading Jigs & Reels because it was Joanne Harris, wonderful Joanne Harris. And I was very positively surprised. I really enjoyed every single one of JH's stories! And she can really provoke thought on the subjects she writes about. Many of these stories I will never forget. I write about all of them here, not even about all the very brilliant ones. But I think the first story "Faith and Hope go shopping" is the most worthy example. It's about two old women that run away from an old people's home to go to London to find a pair of read shoes Faith has dreamed about for a long time. The point is that thay are still people like any of us "young people" and they want to do things just like we do, and they have minds of their own. That's really something to think about. I think it gets to me so strongly, because I myself have experience of old people's homes and the people there. Sometimes it's really just the bodies that have failed the people there (and not the minds/brains), which u ought to remember... And that was just one example of a story...

Betyg 4

Jag tyckte mycket om denna novellsamling, som ger oss nya prov på Harris fantasi. Vem visste att hon kunde skriva om vampyrer? Att hon hade mycket starka åsikter om nutidens ålders- och utseendefixering? Vissa av berättelserna håller naturligtvis inte samma höga kvalitet som andra, men detta är ändå en av de mest underhållande novellsamlingar jag läst.

Betyg 4