Flights of Love: Stories
by Bernhard Schlink
List Price:
Our Price: $3.97
You Save: $11.03 (74%)
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Buy Used: from $0.01 (click here)
Category: Book
See more book details and other editions
Book Summary Information
Author: Bernhard SchlinkEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2002-11-12
ISBN: 0375725555
Number of pages: 320
Publisher: Vintage
Book Reviews of Flights of Love: Stories
Book Review: A singular male voice and the vagaries of love
Summary: 5 Stars
The Reader was the first book I read written by Schlink. As an American who first moved to Germany as a child as WWII was ending I have had a life long struggle sorting out my feelings about Germany and its people within the context of the Holocaust. Schlink, as a German man who grew up in those same years in Germany seemed to be speaking directly to me. Love, hate, horror, ambivalence and the human face of the common man/woman were true to the events that ensued as Germany sought accountability for the atrocities that had been perpetrated by Germans during the war. I found The Reader mesmerizing, insightful and deeply moving. So I looked forward to reading these stories.
I was not disappointed. This collection of short stories reflects a German man's perspective on where love or the lack of love may take us as individuals and in society. The stories are tightly constructed and the writing crisply realistic. One feels a sense of isolation and even self-conscious alienation in many of his characters. The reader will also learn some of what it has been like for Germans seeking normalcy for themselves in a world that continues to have powerful ambivalence toward them. When a character moves from Berlin to New York, he experiences the discomforts of differences in culture and history when trying to establish an intimate relationship. A man loses his wife to cancer, discovers she once had a lover and after an exchange of letters goes to his community and becomes involved in his life. Another character is fixated upon a mysterious painting of a woman, a painting that had been in the study of his now deceased father, but which he recalls as a source of uneasy undercurrents between his parents. Jews and their place in German history thread through the storie. A particularly interesting tale revolved around friendships and love relationships as east and west Germans interact politically and personally while building a means to achieve reunification.
This is a collection well worth reading. Another reader commented that it was as if two different authors wrote this collection and The Reader. I would disagree: Schlink is very consistent in his worldview and in the way in which he tells a tale. Read his writing and you will hear what it means to be a German today. You will also get some surprising and very unsentimental reflections on love, both in the abstract and as it plays out in the lives of his characters. His is a unique voice for these times.
Short Stories Books
Book Subjects
- Arts & Photography
- Biographies & Memoirs
- Business & Investing
- Children's Books
- Comics & Graphic Novels
- Computers & Internet
- Cooking, Food & Wine
- Entertainment
- Gay & Lesbian
- Health, Mind & Body
- History
- Home & Garden
- Horror
- Law
- Literature & Fiction
- Mystery & Thrillers
- Nonfiction
- Outdoors & Nature
- Parenting & Families
- Professional & Technical
- Reference
- Religion & Spirituality
- Romance
- Science
- Science Fiction & Fantasy
- Sports
- Teens
- Travel
Most talked about in Short Stories Books
The Roald Dahl Treasuryby Roald Dahl
Jonathan Cape; Published: 1997; Hardcover; Book
The Red Pony (Twentieth-Century Classics)by John Steinbeck
Penguin Classics; Published: 1994-10-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $6.28
Price in other shops:
A Good Scent from a Strange Mountainby Robert Olen Butler
Penguin (Non-Classics); Published: 1993-06-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $1.15
Price in other shops:
Guys and Dolls: The Stories of Damon Runyonby Damon Runyon
Penguin (Non-Classics); Published: 1992-11-01; Mass Market Paperback; Book
Best price: $42.35
How We Are Hungryby Dave Eggers
PENGUIN; Published: 2006-02-23; Paperback; Book
Dressing Up for the Carnivalby Carol Shields
Penguin (Non-Classics); Published: 2001-05-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $0.79
Price in other shops:
East, Westby Salman Rushdie
Vintage Books; Published: 2006-10; Paperback; Book
Best price: $6.91
Price in other shops:
Local Girlsby Alice Hoffman
Vintage/Ebury (a Division of Random; Published: 2000-08; Paperback; Book
Best price: $5.25
Price in other shops:
Someone to Watch Over Me: Storiesby Richard Bausch
Harper Perennial; Published: 2000-05-03; Paperback; Book
Best price: $3.60
Price in other shops:
Faithless: Tales of Transgressionby Joyce Carol Oates
Ecco; Published: 2001-03-01; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $4.04
Price in other shops:
Similar books summaries and other product reviews
The Drowned and the Savedby Primo Levi
Vintage; Published: 1989-04-23; Paperback; Book
Best price: $7.61
Price in other shops:
Self's Murder (Vintage Crime/ Black Lizard)by Bernhard Schlink
Vintage; Published: 2009-08-11; Paperback; Book
Best price: $6.98
Price in other shops:
The Weekend: A Novelby Bernhard Schlink
Pantheon; Published: 2010-10-12; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $0.80
Price in other shops:
The Investigationby Peter Weiss
Marion Boyars Publishers Ltd; Published: 2000-07-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $8.74
Price in other shops:
Homecoming (Vintage International)by Bernhard Schlink
Vintage; Published: 2009-01-06; Paperback; Book
Best price: $4.25
Price in other shops:
Survival In Auschwitzby Primo Levi
Touchstone; Published: 1996-09-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $2.71
Price in other shops:
Maus I: A Survivor's Tale: My Father Bleeds Historyby Art Spiegelman
Pantheon; Published: 1986-08-12; Paperback; Book
Best price: $8.17
Price in other shops:
The World Must Know: The History of the Holocaust as Told in the United States Holocaust Memorial Museumby Michael Berenbaum
The Johns Hopkins University Press; Published: 2005-12-09; Paperback; Book
Best price: $17.92
Price in other shops:
Still Alive: A Holocaust Girlhood Remembered (The Helen Rose Scheuer Jewish Women's Series)by Ruth Kluger
The Feminist Press; Published: 2003-04-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $6.84
Price in other shops:
Guilt About the Pastby Bernhard Schlink
House of Anansi Press; Published: 2010-03-30; Paperback; Book
Best price: $4.90
Price in other shops: