A Lover's Almanac: A Novel [Paperback]

Maureen Howard (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 1, 1999

One of the preeminent novelists of our time, Maureen Howard dazzles us with a love story of radiant intelligence and delicious wit. The exhilarating flights and emotional depths of Howard's storytelling balance the fates of two young lovers in New York: Artie, a bastard, perhaps "begot in the mud of Woodstock," now a boyish computer wizard; and Louise, a hot new painter out of the Midwest, seriously committed to her art. Their romance, seemingly shattered on the eve of the millennium, is played out against the tale of two old lovers lost to each other for a half century. As these two couples search through the cultural flotsam and jetsam for love and happiness, Howard spins a superb novel of ideas and transforms, as only she can, the dear Old Farmer's Almanac into a bright book of life.

Product Details

• Paperback: 288 pages
• Publisher: Penguin (Non-Classics) (January 1, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0140275126
• ISBN-13: 978-0140275124
• Product Dimensions: 7.8 x 5.1 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.5 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,892,358 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Absolutely wonderful, July 11, 2000

By 

Nathan Oates (Columbia, MO) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: A Lover's Almanac: A Novel (Paperback)

It is shocking to come across a writer so wonderful and yet so unknown to most readers. This is surely one of the great books of the past 25 years. There are times, when attempting to describe a book, that words absolutely fail in relaying the complex beauty of the work. The prose is perfect, inventive, expansive, brilliant. It restores a sense of time to our contemporary age that so likes to imagine itself cut adrift. If Howard had a million readers, the world would be a better place.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A novel that requires time and thought, February 26, 2002

By 

Nicole (Lawrence, KS) - See all my reviews

This review is from: A Lover's Almanac: A Novel (Paperback)

Maureen Howard's "A Lover's Almanac" is not an easy, pre-packaged, "pop-culture" read. Although the base of this story is a simple love story: boy loves girl, boy gets drunk and proposes marriage, girl gets [angry] and dumps boyfriend, and finally they reunite. This, however, is not what is important about Howards narrative. Whats amazing here is the claims she makes about the characters ties to history -- the importance of history in allowing live as they should. If you're a reader who demands an author of high intellect and wit Maureen Howard is for you. Hopefully, she will one day gain the recognition she deserves

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Fancy digressions but no core, July 11, 2001

By 

John Haber (New York, NY USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: A Lover's Almanac: A Novel (Paperback)

The book promises to be right up my alley. It's about lost love, it's set among New York artsy Yuppies, and its narrative is a formal experiment. A broken couple's story, beginning the morning of the new millenium, moves freely in time and point of view, broken by a true almanac of famous dates, to chart as well a parallel love of the man's grandfather regained after decades. Only we never get any clearer sense of what drove any of them together in the first place, apart, or back together. The prose is blandly elegaic, and the digressions, which could have been copied verbatim from an encyclopedia, never convinced me that the events are somehow paradigmatic of history or, conversely, that the historical anecdotes and Y2K shed any light on the couple. So ambitious but forced and numbing.