Bernhard Schlink brings to these seven superbly crafted stories the same sleek concision and moral acuity that made The Reader an international bestseller. His charactersmen with importunate appetites and unfortunate habits of deceptionare uneasily suspended between the desire for love and the impulse toward flight.A young boys fascination with an eerily erotic painting gradually leads him into the labyrinth of his familys secrets. The friendship between a West Berliner and an idealistic young couple from the East founders amid the prosperity and revelations that follow the collapse of communism. An acrobatic philanderer (one wife and two mistresses, all apparently quite happy) begins to crack under the weight of his abundance. By turns brooding and comic, and filled with the suspense that comes from the inexorable unfolding of character, Flights of Love is nothing less than masterfulFrom the Trade Paperback edition.