A Touch of Love [Hardcover]

Jonathan Coe (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 1989

Political and personal events contrive to make a young student retreat from his normal lifestyle causing consternation among his friends although it is another recluse who attempts to help him through his problems. The author has also written "The Accidental Woman".

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Editorial Reviews

Review

Witty and intelligent Guardian A very funny novel The Times Literary Supplement Unusual and intriguing Sunday Times --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

About the Author

Jonathan Coe was born in Birmingham in 1961. His most recent novel is The Rain Before It Falls. He is also the author of The Accidental Woman, A Touch of Love, The Dwarves of Death, What a Carve Up!, which won the 1995 John Llewellyn Rhys Prize, The House of Sleep, which won the 1998 Prix Medicis Etranger, The Rotter's Club, winner of the Everyman Wodehouse Prize and The Closed Circle. He has also published a biography of the novelist B.S. Johnson, which won the Orwell prize in 2005. He lives in London with his wife and two children. --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 156 pages
• Publisher: Duckworth Pub (March 1989)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0715622773
• ISBN-13: 978-0715622773
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #10,403,427 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Intelligent and intriguing but failed to captivate me, January 13, 2005

By 

maria1971 - See all my reviews

This review is from: Touch of Love Pb (Paperback)

Robin, the book's [anti-] hero, is an eternal student, making no progress on his thesis, but making a mess of his life in the meantime.

Almost as if it was written as the events occurred, one chapter at a time, with no sense of what would follow, the book flips back and forth from the narrative to Robin's short stories. Although well-written, it is almost self-consciously so, so that it doesn't let you flow with it, and although witty (in an ironic / sarcastic way) and funny in parts, it doesn't really allow you to laugh with it, as the overall feeling is rather sad.

This is not a book you'll regret reading, but it was a bit too melancholy for my liking, and definitely not up to the expectations I'd built up based on his previous boks.