The heart beats when love leaps - twelve great stories about a little bit of happiness. What remains when the great happiness is no longer attainable and life threatens to drift away? In equally spectacular and delicate stories, Feridun Zaimoglu narrates the search for that small, joyful remnant. Feridun Zaimoglu sends lonely seekers of happiness into the field - whether in the renovated neighborhoods of German cities, in the backyards of tourist resorts, or in archaic villages. On the marketplace of the sexes, hard bargaining takes place: vengeful husbands and hypocritical ex-girlfriends, romantic rogues, agents of desire, and unpurchasable saleswomen become entangled in the transactions of love. In the award-winning story "Häute" from the Bachmann Competition, the longing for the simple and original collides with the crude laws of capitalized satisfaction of needs.