The History of Love: A Novel

by Nicole Krauss

Leo Gursky taps his radiator each evening to let his upstairs neighbor know he’s still alive. But it wasn’t always like this: in the Polish village of his youth, he fell in love and wrote a book. . . . Sixty years later and half a world away, fourteen-year-old Alma, who was named after a character in that book, undertakes an adventure to find her namesake and save her family. With virtuosic skill and soaring imaginative power, Nicole Krauss gradually draws these stories together toward a climax of “extraordinary depth and beauty” (Newsday).

• ISBN10: 0393060349
• ISBN13: 9780393060348
• Publish Date: 24 June 2005 (first published 26 May 2005)
• Publish Status: Active
• Out of Print: 21 December 2016
• Publish Country: US
• Imprint: WW Norton & Co
• Format: Hardcover
• Pages: 264
• Language: English

Reviews

[Kait ✨]

I don’t remember where or when I first heard of The History of Love, but I know it was a long time ago. I think I may have seen the spine in my public library and been caught up by the title, but it’s taken me years to get around to reading it.

I should probably start off by saying that overall I really liked this book: it was moving, this subject matter was interesting, and there were sentences in the novel that made me say out loud to my mom, “Gosh! This writing is just beautiful!” I’ve included a quotation below to show you what I mean, because I don’t know how to describe Krauss’s writing other than lyrical and poetic and awesome:

“Once upon a time there was a boy who lived in a house across the field from a girl who no longer exists. They made up a thousand games. She was Queen and he was King. In the autumn light, her hair shone like a crown. They collected the world in small handfuls. When the sky grew dark they parted with leaves in their hair.”

Read the whole review at Bookish Comforts!