Lovers for a Day: New and Collected Stories on Love

'Lovers for a Day' sounds like the title of some racy paperback, and if i didn't know who the author was, this book i would never have picked up. Klima, however, is a leading Czech author, whose works were banned in his country until the mid-1990s (his writings are considered more political than that of Kundera). This book is a collection of vignettes about love in its myriad forms; nothing grandiose, however, but love as u and i know it. Some were written in the 60s, and others from the 80s and 90s, and while the political milieu is not explicitly mentioned in any of them, one somehow understands the context, pre- and post-Communism, through the extent to which the characters are able to explore or define the limits of love. The show more stories are easy to like because these are snatches from lives of ordinary people, and characters are so lifelike they could be anybody we know. Klima writes with acuity and refreshing humor, which makes this collection a good, light although not flimsy diversion from serious, heavy reading. show less