Eric-Emmanuel Schmitt is the author of three luminous collections of short stories published by Europa Editions, including the bestselling Most Beautiful Book in the World , and one novel, Three Women in a Mirror . His subject in these stories rarely changes: What is happiness and how to we attain it? In this latest collection, two young lovers secretly love the child they will never be able to have; an esteemed physician and survivor of the Nazi concentration camps finds inner peace thanks to the love of a faithful dog; a man loves his wife through the memories of her first husband; and a mother rediscovers love for her child when someone tries to take that child from her. And finally, Severine and Benjamin understand that they have lost the love of their lives when they see themselves through the eyes of a young terminally ill girl. Love is not easy, and not always easy to find; at times, it is obliged to circumvent social norms, and thus transform them; it must be desired, sought, defended. We cannot know what life has in store for us, but we do know that whatever it is, it will only be meaningful if borne on the wings of love. Schmitt's sublime stories remind us how true this is. 'There is a surprising sweetness to Schmitt's stories of redemption and reconciliation. They carry a slight pleasant aftertaste, a lingering hint of delight.

' The Boston Globe 'Schmitt's stories capture a quirky, clever, feminist, very French sensibility.' Publishers Weekly 'Moral fables, gilded mini-legends: Eric-Emmanuel Schmitt's stories are fiendishly efficient. Schmitt is a prodigious story-teller with a style both elegant and assured.' Les Echos.