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  • Published: 28 April 2016
  • ISBN: 9780241962121
  • Imprint: Penguin eBooks
  • Format: EBook
  • Pages: 256

The Course of Love

An unforgettable story of love and marriage from the author of bestselling novel Essays in Love




A philosophical novel about modern relationships, from the bestselling author of The Consolations of Philosophy

Rabih and Kirsten meet, fall in love, get married. Society tells us this is the end of the story. In fact, it is only the beginning.

Over the years this ordinary couple will miscommunicate and misunderstand each other, will worry about money, will have first a girl and then a boy. One of them will have an affair, one will think about it. Both will have doubts. This will be the real love story.

Twenty-first century depictions of love and marriage are shaped by a set of Romantic myths and misconceptions. With his trademark warmth and wit, Alain de Botton explores the complex landscape of a modern relationship, presenting a realistic case study for marriage and examining what it might mean to love, to be loved - and to stay in love.

  • Published: 28 April 2016
  • ISBN: 9780241962121
  • Imprint: Penguin eBooks
  • Format: EBook
  • Pages: 256

About the author

Alain de Botton

Alain de Botton was born in Zurich, Switzerland in 1969 and now lives in London. He is a writer of essayistic books that have been described as a 'philosophy of everyday life.' He's written on love, travel, architecture and literature. His books have been bestsellers in 30 countries.

 

Alain also started and helps to run a school in London called The School of Life, dedicated to a new vision of education. 

Also by Alain de Botton

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Praise for The Course of Love

Curious, humorous and dazzling... It contains more human interest than most fiction

John Updike on 'How Proust Can Change Your Life'

Alain de Botton likes to take big, complex subjects and write about them with thoughtful and deceptive innocence

Observer on The Architecture of Happiness

Alain de Botton's gift is to prompt us to think about how we live

Jeanette Winterson

Anyone who is, has been, or would ever like to be, in a satisfying, successful relationship, would do well to read de Botton. A brave couple might even read it together

Irish Independent

Engaging, sympathetic, meticulous, acutely perceptive...There's a refreshing honesty in what De Botton has to say

The Guardian

His prose is lovely: clear, gently persuasive, light of touch

Observer on Religion for Atheists

Publisher's description. Rabih and Kirsten meet, fall in love, get married. Think this is the end of the story? It's only the beginning. With his trademark warmth and wit, Alain de Botton explores modern relationships with a novel that asks what it truly means to love and to be loved.

Penguin

Thought-provoking... [a] worldly wise romance

Mail on Sunday

Well-observed and imbued with a tenderness that feels authentic and uncynical. It may even save some marriages

Evening Standard