The History of Love - Softcover

Krauss, Nicole

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0141025786 ISBN 13: 9780141025780

Publisher: Penguin, 2006

Synopsis

Leo Gursky is a man who fell in love at the age of ten and has been in love ever since. These days he is just about surviving life in America, tapping his radiator each evening to let his upstairs neighbour know he's still alive, drawing attention to himself at the milk counter of Starbucks. But life wasn't always like this: sixty years ago in the Polish village where he was born Leo fell in love with a young girl called Alma and wrote a book in honour of his love. These days he assumes that the book, and his dreams, are irretrievably lost, until one day they return to him in the form of a brown envelope.

Meanwhile, a young girl, hoping to find a cure for her mother's loneliness, stumbles across a book that changed her mother's life and she goes in search of the author. Soon these and other worlds collide in The History of Love, a captivating story of the power of love, of loneliness and of survival.

About this title

Review:

Charming, tender, and wholly original.--J. M. Coetzee, author of Elizabeth Costello

Confirms the depth and breadth of her talent.

A work of art, not one false note or wrong beat. She reminds me of Gogol and Fellini. --Andre Aciman, author of False Papers

A stirring, soulful novel that speaks to our own losses and loves....will break your heart and at once mend it. --Ken Kalfus, author of The Commissariat of Enlightenment

A book to be read slowly both to savor the luminous prose and to stave off reaching the last page. --Myla Goldberg, author of The Bee Season

Emotionally wrenching yet intellectually rigorous, idea-driven but with indelible characters and true suspense. --Boris Kachka, New York Magazine

Charming, tender, and wholly original. --J. M. Coetzee, author of Elizabeth Costello

The writing is gorgeous, and Krauss's questing characters follow surprising and touching paths. --Andrea Barrett, author of Ship Fever and Voyage of the Narwhal

Nicole Krauss is proof positive that great literature is being written today. --Elizabeth Berg, author of The Art of Mending

Vertiginously exciting.

At least as heartbreaking as it is hilarious.

Krauss writers like an angel.

It 's the sort of book that makes life bearable after all.

A significant novel, genuinely one of the year 's best. Emotionally wrenching yet intellectually rigorous, idea-driven but with indelible characters and true suspense.

Moving and virtuosic.

Vertiginously exciting. "

At least as heartbreaking as it is hilarious. "

Krauss writers like an angel. "

Moving and virtuosic. "

It restores your faith in fiction. It restores all sorts of faith.--Ali Smith

It s the sort of book that makes life bearable after all."

A significant novel, genuinely one of the year s best. Emotionally wrenching yet intellectually rigorous, idea-driven but with indelible characters and true suspense."

One of the most passionate vindications of the written word in recent fiction. It takes one's breath away.

It's the sort of book that makes life bearable after all.

A significant novel, genuinely one of the year's best. Emotionally wrenching yet intellectually rigorous, idea-driven but with indelible characters and true suspense.

From the Publisher:

Described by JM Coetzee as ‘charming, tender and wholly original’, an extract from The History of Love appeared in the New Yorker earlier this year. Nicole Krauss is one of the most exciting writers to have emerged from America in recent years and The History of Love is truly unforgettable: wonderfully funny, vivid and heartbreaking in equal measure.

About this edition

• Publisher: Penguin
• Publication date: 2006
• ISBN 10: 0141025786
• ISBN 13: 9780141025780
• Binding: Mass Market Paperback
• Number of pages: 400