Help! My wish list #10
One more title from my ever-expanding reading wish list.
** The cover image is for illustrative purposes only. If you are a publisher and would kindly like to offer me a copy of this book for review, I will change the cover so as to reflect the edition received. **
The History of Love
By Nicole Krauss
Product description: We first meet Leo Gursky when he believes he is nearing the end of his life, living alone in a tiny apartment in Manhattan. He is an elderly Jew who came to America from Poland after the second world war, having survived the Holocaust. [...] Although he seems to be a man without much of a life, we soon learn that he was once rich in art and love. He loved a woman, Alma, in Poland, but because he took too long to get to America she married somebody else. He also wrote a great novel in Poland, The History of Love, but entrusted it to a friend who later told him that it was lost. [...] We soon move from Gursky's empty little apartment to a more lively home, a family where a widowed mother, Charlotte, is bringing up a young boy and a 14-year-old girl who was named Alma after the heroine of a book her father loved. Gursky's novel was not lost. It was published in Spanish in Chile, passed off by Gursky's childhood friend as the friend's own work. And Alma's mother, Charlotte, is now translating the novel for an unknown correspondent. -- Read Natasha Walter's full review here.
Why I want to read this book: because I love novels within novels, translation and love!
** The cover image is for illustrative purposes only. If you are a publisher and would kindly like to offer me a copy of this book for review, I will change the cover so as to reflect the edition received. **
The History of LoveBy Nicole Krauss
Product description: We first meet Leo Gursky when he believes he is nearing the end of his life, living alone in a tiny apartment in Manhattan. He is an elderly Jew who came to America from Poland after the second world war, having survived the Holocaust. [...] Although he seems to be a man without much of a life, we soon learn that he was once rich in art and love. He loved a woman, Alma, in Poland, but because he took too long to get to America she married somebody else. He also wrote a great novel in Poland, The History of Love, but entrusted it to a friend who later told him that it was lost. [...] We soon move from Gursky's empty little apartment to a more lively home, a family where a widowed mother, Charlotte, is bringing up a young boy and a 14-year-old girl who was named Alma after the heroine of a book her father loved. Gursky's novel was not lost. It was published in Spanish in Chile, passed off by Gursky's childhood friend as the friend's own work. And Alma's mother, Charlotte, is now translating the novel for an unknown correspondent. -- Read Natasha Walter's full review here.
Why I want to read this book: because I love novels within novels, translation and love!
I have this on my 'to-be's' shelf, I bought it from the Scout fair at church a few weeks ago, looking forward to it :)
ReplyDeleteThis book seems to be very popular and good accordig to the people who read it. But, it doesn't attract my attention.
ReplyDeleteLet me know what you think after you've read it, Kaz!
ReplyDeleteWhy not, Jeane?
I have read this book several times, Silvia - and every time I get to the end, I cry. In a good way.
ReplyDeleteIt's a slightly quirky story, the characters are original and the theme is universal. It's not for everyone, but if you love a story about destiny and how our loves link us all together, I think you'll enjoy it.