Love Today

Stories

Maxim Biller, Anthea Bell

• Publisher: Simon & Schuster
• Year: 2008
• Topic: Literature
• eBook ISBN:
  9781416590248
• Subtopic: Literature General
• Index: Literature

Following the appearance of two stories in The New Yorker, German author, playwright, and journalist Maxim Biller makes his English-language debut with a collection of remarkable and beautifully wrought short stories, Love Today. These twenty-seven exquisite vignettes reveal the frustration, longing, and loneliness of human intimacy and love in the twenty-first century. A moment of dialogue between two people seated in an empty bar in "Baghdad at Seven-Thirty" evokes fragility, helplessness, and regret. The childhood friends who meet accidentally throughout the years in "Ziggy Stardust" are alternately drawn toward and repulsed from each other; and the fleeting text messages exchanged in "The Maserati Years" change everything between two lovers in an instant. Collectively, the result is romantic, voyeuristic, and deeply moving. Already a force in contemporary German literature, Maxim Biller has received praise from critics and readers alike throughout Europe for his perceptive, enchanting prose and the hauntingly familiar emotions his stories can provoke. Love Today introduces a new and gifted writing talent, and an accomplished international literary voice.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Colophon
• Title Page
• Copyright
• The Mahogany Elephant
• Seven Attempts at Loving
• The Maserati Years
• The Statement by Amos Oz
• The Architect
• My Name Was Singer
• Baghdad at Seven-Thirty
• Aviva’s Back
• It’s a Sad Story
• Yellow Sandals
• Ziggy Stardust
• The Sweet Whore
• Dear Arthur
• Song Number 7
• In Bed with Sheikh Yassin
• 80 Centimeters of Bad Temper
• We Were Sitting in Cibo Matto
• Melody
• The Right Time of the Month
• Fearing for Ilana
• The Right of Young Men
• On a Cold, Dark Night
• You’re Greta
• Butterflies
• The Suicide
• Two Israelis in Prague
• Happy Ending with Sticky Tape