A Short Book About Love

Love in all its guises is the subject of Nick Murray''s wise and witty fiction. Woven into a comic re-telling of the classic legend of Tristan and Iseut - one of the world''s greatest love stories - is the story of Felix, growing up in post-war Liverpool and, in the wake of a father''s death, trying to come to terms with the meaning of what Philip Larkin, called ''that much-mentioned brilliance, love''.

In between are narratives, playful and serious, on the irresistible topic. This sparkling pocket-epic spans the globe, from Greece to Italy, from China to Russia, offering walk-on parts to Nelson Mandela, Clinton and Lewinsky, Oscar Wilde, Lewis Carroll and countless other poets, philosophers, and legendary lovers, who have learned that ''a world without love is no world at all''.

"... this multi-faceted little jewel is a reader''s delight..."
The Independent

"... profound, warm and witty..."
Independent on Sunday

"... reminiscent of Kundera and of Theodore Zeldin, but owing nothing to anybody but himself."
Paul Binding

Nicholas Murray is a biographer, poet, novelist and critic. The author of acclaimed biographies of Matthew Arnold, Andrew Marvell, Aldous Huxley and Franz Kafka, he is also the Royal Literary Fund Writer for Queen Mary College University of London.