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The History of Love

by Nicole Krauss

3.85 · rating details · 39,526 ratings · 5,481 reviews

A long-lost book reappears, mysteriously connecting an old man searching for his son and a girl seeking a cure for her widowed mother's loneliness.Leo Gursky is just about surviving, tapping his radiator each evening to let his upstairs neighbor know he's still alive. But life wasn't always like this: sixty years ago, in the Polish village where he was born, Leo fell in lo...more

Paperback, 260 pages

Published May 1st 2006 by W. W. Norton & Company (first published January 1st 2005)

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Community Reviews

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Jul 26, 2007

Matthew rated it

Nicole Krauss is married to Jonathan Safran Foer. They both live in Park Slope, Brooklyn, and they both write clever, critically acclaimed novels featuring preciously innocent narrators, magical realism, and some safe postmodern "experiments" (blank pages, pictures, excessive repetition, etc.) that you'd notice just by flipping through. I loved Foer's Everything is Illuminated, liked his Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close okay, and liked Krauss's History of Love a little less. I'm won...more

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Mar 01, 2007

Sansanee rated it

Shelves: book-group, fiction

Have you ever felt so moved that it's as if you're possessed? Reading The History of Love was like having my chest cracked open, the words flooding into me.

Some passages I loved:

The floorboards creaked under my weight. There were books everywhere. There were pens, and a blue glass vase, an ashtray from the Dolder Grand in Zurich, the rusted arrow of a weather vane, a little brass hourglass, sand dollars on the windowsill, a pair of binoculars, an empty wine bottle that se...more

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Aug 11, 2007

Teresa Jusino rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: readandreviewed

I finished reading "The History of Love" by Nicole Krauss a few days ago. Here's a synopsis:

"An unlikely and unforgettable hero, Leo Gursky is a survivor -- of war, of love, and of loneliness. A retired locksmith, Leo does his best to get by. He measures the passage of days by the nightly arrival of the delivery boy from the Chinese restaurant and has arranged a code with his upstairs neighbor: Three taps on the radiator means, "ARE YOU ALIVE?, two means YES, one ...moreI finished reading "The History of Love" by Nicole Krauss a few days ago. Here's a synopsis:

"An unlikely and unforgettable hero, Leo Gursky is a survivor -- of war, of love, and of loneliness. A retired locksmith, Leo does his best to get by. He measures the passage of days by the nightly arrival of the delivery boy from the Chinese restaurant and has arranged a code with his upstairs neighbor: Three taps on the radiator means, "ARE YOU ALIVE?, two means YES, one NO." But it wasn't always so. Sixty years earlier, before he fled Poland for New York, Leo met a girl named Alma and fell in love. He wrote a book and named the character in it after his beloved. Years passed, lives changed, and unbeknownst to Leo, the book survived. And it provides Leo -- in the eighth decade of his life -- with a link to the son he's never known. How this long-lost book makes an extraordinary reappearance and connects the lives of disparate characters is only one of the small miracles The History of Love offers its readers." - from bn.com

My thought at the end of the book was - The ending brought the book up from good to very good. Still not great.

I wanted to love this book. I really did. I had loved the excerpt I'd read in the New Yorker, and I was expecting to love the whole thing. I particularly loved the characters she created: Leo Gursky - who was so vivid, and interesting, with such a distinct voice. Alma Singer - a fourteen year old girl in a novel I could actually relate to for once. Smart, but not annoyingly/precociously so. Body issues, but not to the point where she felt sorry for herself as a person. Bird - my only complaintis that I feel like he got short shrift. He's so interesting, I think he deserved a novel of his own. He was reduced to a plot device, and that really irritated me, because I liked him so much. To have his interest in his faith exist only to serve Alma's search was downright criminal.(and why is his religious fervence treated like an illness instad of as something that can actually help him through his father's death? Just curious...)

What bothered me was that Krauss seemed to be trying too hard to be "experiemental." (whatever that means anymore...) What I loved about Man Walks Into a Room, her first novel, was its language and its directness. How it told a story. But for everything I enjoyed about this book, there were two that either annoyed me or confused me.

There are some beautiful poignant passages in this book - about lost/new love, about identity, about growing older...but then there's a page of charts for no real reason. Alma tells her story in list form. There are pages with only one or two sentences on them (some successful, some not). I dont' feel like any of these "tricks" suited the story she was trying to tell. It didn't feel like that's the way the story needed to be told - also, this didn't feel like Krauss' voice to me. It felt as if she were doing an impression...or at the very least, she was a ventriloquist speaking through a dummy. I missed her voice.

I wanted to hear Nicole Krauss speak...I ended up hearing who she thought we wanted to hear. It's not the same thing.
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Sep 26, 2011

Ian Graye rated it

Shelves: reviews, read-2011, read-2007

Original Comments:

I would like to review this novel more formally in the near future, but to do so I'll have to flick through it and refresh my memory.

My reaction at the time was that it was one of the best novels I had ever read.

Nicole Krauss understands people and love and feelings and she writes about them in a word perfect way.

As a reader, I am prepared to go wherever she wants to take me. I will trust her judgement.

I have recently ...more

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Oct 07, 2007

Lucy rated it

I've seen The History of Love on several other blogger's reading lists and after being made aware of the fact that the author, Nicole Krauss, is married to the author of Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, a book I enjoyed only a couple of months ago, I made a reservation at the library.

In the mood for a romance, when it arrived, I bumped this book past others that have been sitting on my nightstand longer. At first, I was completely absorbed in the writing and Leo Gursky. I even to...moreI've seen The History of Love on several other blogger's reading lists and after being made aware of the fact that the author, Nicole Krauss, is married to the author of Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, a book I enjoyed only a couple of months ago, I made a reservation at the library.

In the mood for a romance, when it arrived, I bumped this book past others that have been sitting on my nightstand longer. At first, I was completely absorbed in the writing and Leo Gursky. I even told Emily this book might go on my list of Top Ten favorites. Oh, how I loved Leo's thoughts and his "But." and "And yet." sentences. So stretchy. Those frequently used simple sentences created a narrative of yearning and unfufillment that perfectly expressed Leo's character's disappointment in life.

When it was Alma's turn to speak and disclose, I wasn't nearly so infatuated. Her thoughts and questions lacked the honesty and pain that the much older Leo was able to possess, which makes sense as Alma was only fourteen. Still, I persevered and even enjoyed the minute and slow discoveries she was making.

This book is almost a mystery. The hows and the whys are confusing and it isn't until the end that the missing key is given which opens up the full heartache and confusion of all the characters. Unfortunately, by this time, I was much less enchanted with the entire story as I found way too many parallels with her husband's book that I had already read. They are both about Jewish people divided by a generation who come together through letters. They are both set in New York City with flashbacks to Germany during World War II. They both involve extremely precocious and unnaturally odd children who lose a parent and deal with their grief by setting out on an expedition of discovery. And they both end abysmally disappointing with dysfunction winning over true love. Sigh.

I think I would have loved this book had I read it first or only. Sadly, both books feel tainted to me now. Like, maybe....in a perfect world, I could have enjoyed Singing Bee on NBC. But then Fox came out with Don't Forget the Lyrics. Same idea, different show...I enjoy neither because I don't like copying.

These books don't plagiarize each other or anything, but there are too many similarities for either to be the original and the great books that they are supposed to me. Maybe they need to set their typewriters up in different(less)

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May 13, 2008

Christy rated it

Shelves: books-for-teaching, 21st-century-american-lit

1. What I like about Krauss's novel.

Leo Gursky's melancholy, lonely presence. The sections of the novel told from his perspective are hauntingly beautiful.

Alma's precocious teenager voice. Her voice is less compelling for me than that of Leo Gursky, but still good.

The slow development of the connections between Leo, Alma, Zvi Litvinoff, Isaac, and the book The History of Love, in terms not only of plot but of theme.

2. What is mildly irritating ...more

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Jan 10, 2009

Beth F. rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: general-fiction, 2009, 2009-five-star-reads, i-reviewed-this-bad-boy, tnbbc-winter-2008

If the opportunity to read this book in one sitting would have been available to me, I probably would have taken it. Unfortunately my job tends to cramp my reading style more often than not (admittedly not the worst problem in the world to have), but sometimes I can’t help but think about how much reading I could get done if I didn’t have to spend the best hours of my day doing work. Oh well. I suppose that is what retirement will be for.

I really loved this book. The characters...moreIf the opportunity to read this book in one sitting would have been available to me, I probably would have taken it. Unfortunately my job tends to cramp my reading style more often than not (admittedly not the worst problem in the world to have), but sometimes I can’t help but think about how much reading I could get done if I didn’t have to spend the best hours of my day doing work. Oh well. I suppose that is what retirement will be for.

I really loved this book. The characters spoke to me and they became real, flesh and blood people. Sometimes non-linear storylines bother me. And I’ve begun to think that is because most writers are not capable of telling a story somewhat out-of-order without making it confusing. Nicole Krauss successfully employed the mechanism in The History of Love and I loved it. I kept reading to find out what it all meant. I kept reading to be surprised--and I was, pleasantly so.

There are three concurrent storylines: Leo Gursky, an 80-something Polish-American immigrant who moved to New York to escape the Nazis. He lost his family, his dignity, his youth, and when he successfully arrived in New York five years later, he discovered that the girl he’d loved since the age of 10, the girl whose “kiss was a question he wanted to spend the rest of his life answering” had married another, assuming Leo had been a casualty in the war.

Alma Singer is a teen girl, living with her mother and younger brother. Her father had died of cancer when she was a child. Alma was named for the character of an obscure book, The History of Love, written by Zvi Litvinoff. Her brother suspects he could be the messiah and her mother is still mourning the loss of her husband and has shown no interest in dating or ever marrying again. This concerns Alma.

Zvi Litvinoff is the author of The History of Love, a book that was originally written in Yiddish and thinly printed/released in Spanish. Litvinoff is dead before the beginning of the novel so the portions of his story are told posthumously.

Krauss keeps you guessing as to what these characters have in common and it’s not immediately apparent how these three characters are connected but by the end, everything is revealed and this story of missed connections, love lost, pride, humanity, sadness, aging and what could have been, all comes together. If I hadn’t finished this book in a public place, I probably would have cried tears of happiness, and the whole time my heart would have been breaking. It was very touching. Fantastic story. Excellent.
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Mar 20, 2008

Briana rated it

I came to this book expecting to be unimpressed, and I am not normally that type of reader. But I had read articles about Kraus and her husband (Jonathan Safran Foer) and how their latest novels were eerily similar. Having loved her husband’s book, I figured The History of Love would be a let down. I was wrong.

While I loved the precociousness of Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close's Oskar, despite many criticizing Foer for it, after reading THOL Oskar just isn’t as appealing. Sure...moreI came to this book expecting to be unimpressed, and I am not normally that type of reader. But I had read articles about Kraus and her husband (Jonathan Safran Foer) and how their latest novels were eerily similar. Having loved her husband’s book, I figured The History of Love would be a let down. I was wrong.

While I loved the precociousness of Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close's Oskar, despite many criticizing Foer for it, after reading THOL Oskar just isn’t as appealing. Sure, his search is poignant and there are moments of pure brilliance in Oskar’s constant inventing and surviving. But, Kraus’ characters are richer and more human; fantastical in their own right (Leo’s desperate attempts to not die on a day that no one has seen him, Alma’s naïve effort to construct happiness for her mother, Bird’s fantasies of being a lamed vovnik), yet believable and real.

At first glance, old man Leo Gursky is depressed and depressing. After responding to an ad in the newspaper, Gursky is hired for $10 as a model for a nude drawing class. The reader is left to feel sorry for Gursky and speculate about why he would go (he craves human interaction, he doesn’t want to die on a day no one saw him, he’s bored). His apartment is covered in stuff---cluttered like that of a collecting recluse. He has a deal with his best friend Bruno to periodically check on each other to make sure one of them hasn’t died without anyone noticing. It’s a heavy dose of depression at the beginning. Yet, once he begins to tell his story, he is not just depressed and depressing. He is sympathetic and delusional, smart yet hopeless. He ends up somehow strangely warm. And funny—really funny!

Alma Singer is equally complex and textured. She’s 15 and awkward, obsessed with books of her dead father’s about surviving in the wild. She sleeps in a sleeping bag on the floor of her NYC apartment and is constantly worried about her little brother Bird and his growing strangeness and religiousness. She has a huge crush on her Russian friend Mischa, yet when he kisses her she pulls back and tells him she likes another boy. He responds to the rejection the only way a 15 year old boy can, by moving on and not calling her. She mopes and secretly hopes for him to call everyday, meanwhile she searches every human record in NYC trying to uncover the secret behind Alma Mereminski, a character from a book and the woman she was named after. When Bird asks her questions about their Dad, she makes up things because she can’t remember and she wants to be able to give Bird something of their late father.

Other characters are equally captivating. Kraus manages to tell a most imaginative story full of countless coincidences, esoteric passages (it’s a book about books, writers and readers), and Holocaust survivors in a very heart-warming and accessible way. This book was both profound and charming—which was really nice to find in one place.
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Aug 21, 2007

Elaine rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: mainstreamlitfic

Disappointing ending & trite, too.
I think the plotting is pretty piss-poor. A very convoluted bifurcated structure of telling a story that hinges on a poor coincidental set of facts, and when you really stop to think about it -- you wonder if you've just spent 200 pages reading and trying to guess at two or three patched up facts that hardly amount to a mystery. Krauss has an engaging storytelling style, even stunning prose at times, punctured with welcome humor, but the strands do not...more

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Dec 10, 2011

Jennifer (aka EM) rated it

Thank you to the lovely, anonymous man in the Port Credit Starbucks who handed me the napkins, without a word, as I finished this up not an hour ago with tears filling my eyes.

It was a perfect moment perfectly matched to this pretty much perfect book.
______________________

Read this book if:
1) you liked Incredibly Loud Extremely Close, Everything is Illuminated and/or The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time
2) you like fictional, character-drive...more

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Dec 23, 2007

Bryn rated it

Recommends it for: anyone in love with language

Shelves: own-it, multiple-narrators, contemporary-fiction, prize-winner

By page 11 I knew I was going to love this book. Krauss' writing style is simply incredible. I will admit I was somehwat confused by the story itself and had to back up several times (and the ending?), but reading this one tasted as good as a box of Godvia chocolates. If I ever catch up with all the books I want to read a first time, I will definitely revisit this one.

P.S. Did a little Google searching to try to figure out what I missed. While I was largely unsuccessful, I did f...moreBy page 11 I knew I was going to love this book. Krauss' writing style is simply incredible. I will admit I was somehwat confused by the story itself and had to back up several times (and the ending?), but reading this one tasted as good as a box of Godvia chocolates. If I ever catch up with all the books I want to read a first time, I will definitely revisit this one.

P.S. Did a little Google searching to try to figure out what I missed. While I was largely unsuccessful, I did find some interesting facts. This book is being made into a movie to debut in 2009. Krauss is married to fellow writer Jonathan Safran Foer, whose book "Everything is Illuminted" I found quite comical, but even more confusing than "History of Love" and certainly not as heartfelt. It was the runner up for the Orange Fiction prize in 2005 and was chosen as a Today Show read, and yet I still missed hearing about it until a couple months ago.

BEST REVIEW:

Monday, August 6, 2007
The History of Love: A Review by Julia Henderson

The History of Love was one of those books I avoided at first. Too many people told me how amazing it was, how much I'd love it, how I should run to the nearest independent bookstore and grab a copy.

All of that made me NOT want to read the thing, so I half-heartedly suggested it for my book club and felt not at all crushed when no one picked it. And then I saw it on a buy-one-get-one rack at the bookstore and picked it up. I really didn't know a thing about the book (except that people thought I'd like it), but from the moment I read the first paragraph, I was hooked by author Nicole Krauss's elegant, careful prose.

The author is married to Jonathan Safran Foer of similarly-topiced Everything Is Illuminated. They both live in Brooklyn and write non-traditionally about the Holocaust, and there's no doubt that Foer is the better-known author. But there was something in Krauss's book that tapped into my emotions much more successfully than Foer ever did.

The premise of the story isn't so unique: Teenaged lovers lose touch after the Germans invade Poland and desecrate a Jewish town and the survivors are never the same again; two adults fall in love over a book a generation later, and start a family; the father dies, the children are different because of his death; the young daughter tries to trace her parents' love; the lives of many people intersect in the small world of New York...but Krauss is so clever in the way she weaves these lives together that the reader finds herself completely and utterly immersed in the story, guessing at endings and seduced by the possibility of hope.

I usually speed-read -- afterall, there are too many good books in this world to justify reading slowly -- but The History of Love made me want to read slowly enough to savor every word. And it didn't surprise me that I stopped breathing for a moment when I read the last few sentences, or that instead of immediately moving on to the next book on my list, I waited a few days to give this one time to settle in. I even get that horrible jealous feeling when I see someone reading the novel on the subway...how lucky they are that they're still in the middle of it, how sad I am that I've finished it.

You'd be doing yourself a disservice not to read this book. If you need to borrow a copy, just let me know. I want my own copy to be passed to so many people that I get it back waterlogged by flood, fire-tarnished, tattered and worn.

Julia Henderson is Art Editor and Webmistress of Fringe.
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Nov 24, 2008

Shannon rated it

Shelves: 2008, fiction

This beautiful story is about an eighty year old Jewish-Polish immigrant and retired locksmith, Leo Gursky; a fourteen year old girl, Alma Singer, who is trying to find a way to make her mother not sad anymore; and Zvi Litvinoff, the author of an obscure book called The History of Love. What they each have to do with one another isn't at first apparent, but becomes all too clear and inseparable as you read on.

It is a love story, a story of survival and ageing, of memory and imaginati...more

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Jan 25, 2008

Erin rated it

Shelves: book-club-selections

This book was promising at the beginning, but proceeded to get sloppy and puzzling, and then ended in an unsatisfying and unclear way. It's a convoluted plot involving a Polish Jew who falls completely for a childhood girlfriend, writes a book about her, and then is separated from both by the Holocaust. Not knowing the book was eventually published by the friend to whom he gave it for safekeeping, he now lives his old age in New York, lonely and waiting to die. His story is interwoven with th...more

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Mar 27, 2009

Laurel rated it

I know everyone talks about how Nicole Krauss and Jonathan Safron Foer are married and perfect and live in Park Slope and blah blah blah. I can see the connections between their work, for sure, but I really liked this book a lot more than the Foer I have read. For instance, Krauss' non-traditional use of the page, the parts in the beginning and the end, don't bug me like they did in Foer's recent book.

I like how Krauss connected the lives of so many people in a way that seemed confu...more

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Aug 20, 2007

Brynn rated it

Shelves: summer2007

"To paint a leaf, you have to sacrifice the whole landscape. It might seem like you're limiting yourself at first, but after a while you realize that having a quarter-of-an-inch of something you have a better chance of holding on to a certain feeling of the universe than if you pretended to be doing the whole sky." (45)

"He ran his fingers down the spine over her thin blouse, and for a moment he forgot the danger he was in, grateful for the world which purposefully put...more"To paint a leaf, you have to sacrifice the whole landscape. It might seem like you're limiting yourself at first, but after a while you realize that having a quarter-of-an-inch of something you have a better chance of holding on to a certain feeling of the universe than if you pretended to be doing the whole sky." (45)

"He ran his fingers down the spine over her thin blouse, and for a moment he forgot the danger he was in, grateful for the world which purposefully puts divisions in place so that we can overcome them, feeling the joy of getting closer, even if deep down we can never forget the sadness of our insurmountable differences." (63)

"Sometimes you need a stroke of genius and, lo and behold, genius comes and strokes you." (87)

"The fact that you got a little happier today doesn't change the fact that you also became a little adder. Everyday you come a little more of both, which means that right now, at this exact moment, you're the happiest and saddest you've ever been in your whole life." (91)

"Contrary to logic, the feeling of surprise wasn't born immediately. It came only after people had enough time to get used to things as they were. And when enough time had passed, and someone felt the first feeling of surprise, someone, somewhere else, felt the first pang of nostalgia." (107)

"At the end, all that's left of you are your possessions. Perhaps that's why I've never been able to throw anyways away. Perhaps that's why I hoarded the world: with the top that when I died, the sum total of my things would suggest a life larger than the one I lived." (165)

"Now that mine is almost over, I can say that the thing that struck me most about life is the capacity for change. One day you're a person and the next day they tell you you're a dog. At first it's hard to bear, but after a while you learn not to look at it as a loss. There's even a moment when it becomes exhilarating to realize just how little needs to stay the same for you to continue the effort they call, for lack of a better word, being human." (236)(less)

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Jan 16, 2008

Charissa rated it

Recommends it for: hopeless poets wandering in the wilderness

Recommended to Charissa by: fate

Shelves: literature, fairy-tales, all-time-faves

This is the sort of book that I didn't expect to like, given that the title seems ridiculously ambitious. But in a moment of optimism I bought it anyway, and boy did it pay off. Nicole Krauss skirts the intimidating topic of romantic love by sneaking up behind other kinds of love and encouraging them to stop leaning against the wall at the dance and get out there and share their groove thang. She weaves together disparate threads of lives until, by the end, you see the vast, beautiful, silken...more

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Apr 16, 2008

Susan rated it

Shelves: jewish-interest

A powerful story about the loneliness of an elderly man, a Holocaust survivor, Leopold Gursky. He is a writer who is never heard, at least not in his own voice. Krauss paints the portrait of invisibility with such sorrowful accuracy. Leon is completely alone and "all I want is not to die on a day when I went unseen." Because of this, he purposely draws negative attention to himself, just for the sake of getting noticed. Such as dropping change on the floor in a busy checkout line. ...more

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Mar 31, 2008

Chak rated it

Shelves: literary-snackers, fiction

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. The characters were the best part of this book for me, though there was a lot to like. There are many characters in the book, though only three really narrate (Leo - an elderly yet scrappy complainer who narrowly escaped the Nazis when they occupied Poland; Alma - a tween survival enthusiast pulled too tightly by the needs of her strange and possibly mentally challenged younger brother and her depressed, widowed mother, as well as her own developing needs to clarify her identity; and "Bird...moreThe characters were the best part of this book for me, though there was a lot to like. There are many characters in the book, though only three really narrate (Leo - an elderly yet scrappy complainer who narrowly escaped the Nazis when they occupied Poland; Alma - a tween survival enthusiast pulled too tightly by the needs of her strange and possibly mentally challenged younger brother and her depressed, widowed mother, as well as her own developing needs to clarify her identity; and "Bird," the aforementioned younger brother of Alma who sells lemonade to finance his presumed destiny of saving mankind). The author (Nicole Krauss) gave them fascinating attributes and interests and writes them with clarity, tenderness (even when they are unlikeable) and such a strong voice that the reader would know who was narrating even if there was only a sentence or two.

Much of the dramatic tension in the book is due to the way Ms. Krauss reveals the story in a non-linear fashion so that much of it is obscured until the last pages, in which she takes (what I consider to be) a literary cop-out by making an important part of the story be a figment of someone's imagination. The reader was unecessarily tricked from the get-go (pages 5 and 6 to be exact) into a highly detailed and realistic vision of an imaginary friend. Why? I felt the story would have been a lot better and the writer would have showed more storytelling skill if she resolved that issue in a more creative way (or even kept the friend real), and that is why this book got four stars from me instead of five. Aside from that, though, I loved everything else.

A recurring theme in the book was that nearly every character wrongly kept information from a loved one in order to protect them. Only the eventually-omniscient reader was able to see the heartbreaking truth that these omissions only hurt the loved ones even more. That particular theme was expertly and consistently well-written and helped the reader identify with every character and understand his or her intentions.

In spite of the sorrowful and bittersweet tone of the novel, there were humorous parts that were highly entertaining, but never distracted from the larger story.

I would highly recommend this book. After 252+1 pages that I feverishly read, I still wished for more. (less)

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Aug 29, 2007

Sara* rated it

I just finished The History of Love by Nicole Krauss on my way to the office this morning. I started reading History after I read Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer. The two authors are married. The two authors write incredibly similarly so just about every book selling website suggests that you read both if any at all. Like a lamb, I followed the advice of one Amazon.com blindly without realizing I may have needed a break between the two.

Anyway, the History ...more

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Sep 11, 2008

Jon rated it

How about the history of me bawling my face off.

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Jan 19, 2008

Chris rated it

Shelves: favorites

Post-modern trickery, deceased fathers and their precocious offspring, WWII/Holocaust-era backstories, interweaving narratives tied together by endearingly convenient coincidences and gradually unveiled personal histories. No, I’m not speaking of Jonathan Safran Foer’s Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close (which, admittedly, I adore), I’m referring to his other half’s novel.

The novel that introduced me to one of my favorite voices in contemporary fiction: Leo Gursky.

I’m ...more

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Jan 02, 2008

Siobhan rated it

Meh. There's a lot to think about here, and a warmth and generosity that's very appealing. but I was not entirely satisfied with the way the book handled itself--either style-wise or theme-wise. Which I will attempt to explain:

Themes That Seemed Interesting and Really Worth Thinking About, But Which Seem Inadequately Explored:
* The conflation of Holocaust survivors' guilt (and second-generation survivors' guilt) with the familiar, authorly notion of "anxiety of influence."...more

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Aug 08, 2007

Kristina rated it

Even though we're all a bit alone in the world, there are certain things that bind us together as human beings. What really made me stop and think about this, actually, was the bridge collapse last Wednesday. No matter where you were, you knew it was on everybody's mind, and somehow knowing, even when I was just sitting in Starbucks, that everyone around me was thinking about the same thing made me think about how we're all in this together. The woman who sold me my morning bagel at Brueggers...more

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Jul 25, 2007

Annie rated it

A well-crafted, suspense-inducing plotline, along with some moving characters make for a totally engrossing reading experience.

The book begins with the very credible voice of Leo Gursky who ruminates on the state of being old. I have never read such a true, honest, and hillarious testimony of the fears that come with aging. Running parellel to Gursky's story is the voice of Alma, a curious young teenager with a name full of history and meaning. Throughout the book we wait to see if ...more

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Nov 04, 2009

Allison rated it

Shelves: 2007, 2009

SUCH A POWERFUL ENDING. This would make an amazing movie, if done right. This book was mildly confusing for the first 200 pages (or maybe just for me -- I was confused by all the old foreign guys doing different things), but things get cleared up really quickly toward the later part of the book, and- just- how things all came together, making the conclusion succinct and bittersweet, and, like I said, just really powerful.

And the POEM AT THE END. I always admire a good ending, an...more

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Apr 01, 2008

Rosianna rated it

Recommends it for: EVERYONE

Recommended to Rosianna by: Rita Gill

Shelves: favourite-books, books-with-strong-female-characters

This is one of the most fantastic books I have ever read. It has that brilliant combination of different styles of storytelling, multiple narratives and that intelligent writing on life observations that is so precious. I adored this book and will be telling everyone about it.

If you liked Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, The Book Thief or Five People You Meet In Heaven - or even if you didn't like these - you'll love The History of Love.

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May 21, 2010

JSou rated it

Shelves: fiction, favo-u-rites, owned

It's funny how just straightening up your bookshelves can lead to opening a book just to read the first couple lines...next thing you know you've read half of it.

____________________________________________________

I never expected this to be so good. Really, it was just beautiful. Just thinking about Leo Gursky's character gives me a lump in my throat. Even typing his name, I'm blinking back tears.

I loved this book.

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Jan 20, 2012

Amanda rated it

I truly read this book to see if it lived up to the title, for I believe love does have a history.I have no idea how to explain the story. Alma was Leo Gursky's life, and he never stopped thinking about her, and thinking about his son, and thinking about every little thing that happened. He lost contact with the girl he loved; and on her death bed he didn't tell her the way he felt.
I feel like love can never be explained with just words, but this book is made out of more than just love, th...more

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Oct 24, 2008

Michele rated it

Recommends it for: Literary Fiction Fans

Recommended to Michele by: Book Club

My Highest Recommendation
This tale is woven together so masterfully it’s nearly impossible to put down. The characters are rich, unique, and memorable in a way that has worked into my own personal history of the love of reading.

We begin by getting to know “the oldest man in the world,” Leopold Gursky. There’s an ironic aspect to “Leo” as he attempts to make himself known to the world everyday. He’s afraid he’ll die and no one will know he’s missing. This is, perhaps, the result...more

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Jul 11, 2007

Eileen rated it

Shelves: fiction, american-writers

I eyed this book for months. As it first came out in hardback I flirted with thoughts of buying it. With a volunteers salary of nothing every purchase has to be thought through, rethought, doubted, and then thought out again before walking away and buying something else, like food. Unsure of this book there were so many other books that won me over before this one. And then it made it into my hands.....
It was most definetely a love/hate tug-of-war with this book.
Every time it bored...more

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About Nicole Krauss

Nicole Krauss is the author of the international bestseller The History of Love, which was published by W.W. Norton in 2005. It won the William Saroyan International Prize for Writing, France’s Prix du Meilleur Livre Ėtranger, was named #1 book of the year by Amazon.com, and was short-listed for the Orange, Médicis, and Femina prizes. Her first novel, Man Walks Into a Room, was a finalist for the ...more

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“Once upon a time there was a boy who loved a girl, and her laughter was a question he wanted to spend his whole life answering.” — 3,040 people liked it

“there are two types of people in the world: those who prefer to be sad among others, and those who prefer to be sad alone.” — 521 people liked it

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