The Forty Rules of Love
The magical tale of love and self-discovery from the bestselling author of The Island of Missing Trees
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4.5 • 171 Ratings
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- £4.99
Publisher Description
THE INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER
*One of the BBC's '100 Novels that Shaped the World'*
"Every true love and friendship is a story of unexpected transformation. If we are the same person before and after we loved, that means we haven't loved enough . . ."
Ella Rubinstein has a husband, three teenage children, and a pleasant home. Everything that should make her confident and fulfilled. Yet there is an emptiness at the heart of Ella's life - an emptiness once filled by love.
So when Ella reads a manuscript about the thirteenth-century Sufi poet Rumi and his mentor Shams of Tabriz, and his forty rules of life and love, she is ready to look at her life anew. Compelled to embrace change, she embarks on a journey to meet the mysterious author. It is a quest infused with Sufi mysticism and verse, taking Ella and us into a faraway world where faith and doubt are heartbreakingly explored. The Forty Rules of Love is a mesmerising tale of discovery, language, truth and, of course, love itself.
'Enlightening, enthralling. An affecting paean to faith and love' Metro
'Colourfully woven and beguilingly intelligent' Daily Telegraph
'The past and present fit together beautifully in a passionate defence of passion itself' The Times
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Celebrated Turkish novelist Shafak (The Bastard of Istanbul) serves up a curious blend of mediocre hen lit and epic historical to underwhelming results. In present-day Boston, dull suburban mother and cheated-on wife Ella Rubinstein takes a job as a reader for a literary agent and becomes entranced by Aziz Zahara, the author of a manuscript about the relationship between 13th-century poet Rumi and Sufi mystic Shams that, for better or for worse, becomes a story-within-a-story. Aziz and Ella strike up an e-mail relationship, largely made up of Ella's midlife crisis and Aziz's philosophical replies. Meanwhile, Aziz's novel, Sweet Blasphemy, is occasionally interesting but mostly dull, weighed down by Rufi's and Shams's theological musings. Its better moments concern tangential characters; Rumi's son, Aladdin, who is resentful of his father's closeness to the mystic, and Rumi's adopted daughter, Kimya, whose doomed marriage to Shams is touching in a way Ella's failed relationship with her husband never manages. The rumblings against Shams reach a peak, and Ella and Aziz finally meet, tying the story lines together into a readable, if not enthralling, tale.
Customer Reviews
Such an amazing book !
Take your time when you read it, write notes and dive into the story, let the words paint pictures in your mind, and see what new words you discover with your self.
Best book so far
Excellent story with an inception within spiritually and duality
Resonates with our contemporary era while bouncing back to 13th century in such a brilliant way
Thank you for a refreshing book
Lovely
Came up on my bookbub recommendations, never read anything like it before, lovely, lovely story. Intrigued by the Sufi way of life now, but also will read more of Elik Safak's books. Excellent read. Thank you