Did I mention that I am shamelessly superficial when it comes to books? I think I did. I am also a shameless scrounger, so when a publicist who works at Penguin mentioned on Twitter that they had a new set of ten Penguin Essentials - twentieth century classics which have been given fancy new covers by modern illustrators and artists - I was, within seconds, all up in her tweets like “OH HOW INTERESTING DO YOU KNOW I WOULD LOVE TO READ ONE OF THOSE.”
She took the hint and graciously said she’d send me a couple (commence much rejoicing on my part) and then she actually sent me all ten of them because she is a queen among women and the recipient of my endless gratitude. Seriously, these books are very lovely indeed. They’re small and beautiful and there are so many of them and rrrrrrrrrrrrr/other noises like that.
Anyway, after I’d finished putting them all on the floor and then rolling around in them like Scrooge McDuck, I decided to do the proper thing and actually start reading them. I was a bit overwhelmed by the choice so in order to decide where to begin, I employed the entirely superficial tactic of lining them up in order of how pretty I thought they were, taking out the ones I’d already read, and going from there.
Thus I came to The History of Love, which I’d never even heard of before, but whose cover I liked. And KNOCK ME DOWN WITH A FEATHER but this is a good book. I’m normally a poker-faced reader. I might weep at John Lewis Christmas ads, and laugh until my colleagues actually think I’m actually mental whenever I see a ‘Nailed It’ posts on Buzzfeed, but with books I can usually hold it together.
Not so this one. I laughed on public transport. I had all the feels. Actually I probably made a lot of weird faces (apologies, fellow riders of the Piccadilly line), but I don’t regret it.
This is one of those books which it’s hard to describe because it’s so complex, so vast-despite-being-small, and so eccentric. It’s a book about a book (a book called The History of Love), the author of that book, the real author of the book, the translator of the book, and a young girl who’s trying to piece together a rather tricksy puzzle. The book within the book is first written in Yiddish in Eastern Europe, then crosses the sea, is translated into Spanish, disappears, reappears, and ends up in America. It’s a book about love which tells both a specific and a universal story… as does the book that it’s within. It’s heartbreaking but hilarious, and I will be reading it again. Plus any/all of Nicole Krauss’ other books.
Last but not least: the very handsome cover because, of course, these are specially-designed reissues and deserve a moment’s attention. It’s credited to an illustrator named Ricardo Valiente, who isn’t actually a real person - not with quite that name anyway. This could be just an eccentric whim on the part of the designer (not unlikely in this instance) but I prefer the notion that it’s an entertaining and apposite nod to Spanish pen names.
How to read it: It’s all about public transport because people are going to be jealous of your fine-looking book. And then they’re going to judge your reading faces.
