Book of the Heart, The

Politics & Social Sciences

Louisa Young

Philosophy

Flamingo

'A ravishing, celebratory and funny history of the human heart. Disarming, canny and beguiling, it deserves to become a cult book.' Independent 'There is a universal human fascination with the heart which no other organ has inspired - not the brain, not the eyes. The heart is simply a lump of muscle, a pump, and yet it is the home of love, and courage, and religion, and soul, and almost any other human feeling you care to think of.' This is Louisa Young's starting point, and she goes on to produce a book that is readable, erudite, funny, intriguing, stimulating and made to be given, from the heart, as a gift. The book is in four parts (like the heart): The Physical Heart; The Religious Heart; The Heart in Art; and The Written Heart. The first part covers, amongst other things, anatomy and the history of ideas about how the heart works; weaknesses of the heart and disease; surgery and transplants; and other animals' hearts - the heart as the seat of life. The second has the Bleeding Heart of Christ; pagan sacrifice; saints' attributes; the heart in Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism etc - the heart as the seat of the soul. The third looks at votive art, the 'heart/fruit thing'; sublimated visual hearts; kitsch; advertising and logos; cartoons - the heart as visual symbol. The fourth explores expressions of love in literature, from the Greeks' musings on eros and agape via myths and legends and the invention of courtly romance to the romantic novel; also song lyrics - the heart in writing.

The Book of the Heart

Arts & Photography

History & Criticism

Paperback. Pub Date :2002-12-02 Pages: 320 Language: English Publisher: HarperCollins UK The sparky. funny sequel to Louisa Young's acclaimed first novel of belly-dancing. motorbikes and single-parenthood.Angeline Gower. ex-bellydancer. ex -biker. single mother of a little girl who is not actually her child. is mired in problems again in this wonderful sequel.Her relationship with Harry. the lover turned cop. remains fraught. the lure of the glamorous but no good Eddie hasn ' t gone away.And there is yet another element complicating things know -. the seductive and mysterious Sa'id With Angeline older and a little wiser. Louisa Young weaves a tale that is richer. sexier and more moving than 'Baby Love'. while remaining just as exciting.Shifting between Shepherd's Bush and Cairo. full of the contrasts between the West and the Middle East. 'Desiring Cairo' thrills and enthrall...

Desiring Cairo

Literature & Fiction

Contemporary

HarperCollins, UK

My Dear I Wanted To Tell You

Set on the Western Front, in London and in Paris, MY DEAR I WANTED TO TELL YOU is a moving and brilliant novel of love, class and sex in wartime, and how war affects those left behind as well as those who fight. While Riley Purefoy and Peter Locke fight for their country, their survival and their sanity in the trenches of Flanders, Nadine Waveney, Julia Locke and Rose Locke do what they can at home. Beautiful, obsessive Julia and gentle, eccentric Peter are married: each day Julia goes through rituals to prepare for her beloved husband's return. Nadine and Riley, only eighteen when the war starts, and with problems of their own already, want above all to make promises - but how can they when the future is not in their hands? And Rose? Well, what did happen to the traditionally brought-up women who lost all hope of marriage, because all the young men were dead?

My Dear I Wanted to Tell You

Harpercollins

The Heroes' Welcome

The Borough Press

HEROES WELCOME PB

Literary

HarperCollins, Publishers

DEVOTION- PB

HARPER/COLLINS

You Left Early: A True Story of Love and Alcohol

‘Spectacular. I can’t stop thinking about it. Louisa Young is a beautiful, beautiful writer’ Cathy Rentzenbrink, author of The Last Act of Love 
This brutal, beautiful memoir from award-winning novelist Louisa Young is a heartbreaking portrayal of love, grief and the merciless grip of addiction. 
Louisa first met Robert Lockhart when they were both 17. Their stop-start romance lasted decades, in which time he became a celebrated composer and she, an acclaimed novelist. Always snapping at their heels was Robert’s alcoholism, a helpless, ferocious dependency that affected his personality before crippling and finally, despite five years of hard-won sobriety, killing him. 
There are a million love stories, and a million stories of addiction. This one is truly transcendent. It is at once a compelling portrait of a unique and charismatic man; a bittersweet reflection on an all-consuming love affair; and a completely honest and incredibly affecting guide to how the partner of an alcoholic can possibly survive when the disease rips both their lives apart. 
This is a hugely important book – raw and unflinching but also uplifting and elegiac, it should be essential reading for anybody who’s ever lost someone they loved.

Biographies & Memoirs

Extraordinarily powerful Emma ThompsonThere are a million love stories, and a million stories of addiction. This one is transcendent.Louisa Young met Robert Lockhart when they were both 17. Their stop-start romance lasted decades, in which time he became a celebrated composer and she, an acclaimed novelist.This is both a compelling portrait of a lifelong love affair, and an incredibly affecting guide to how the partner of a 'charismatic, infuriating, adorable, self-sabotaging alcoholic can find the strength to survive when the disease rips both their lives apart.

You Left Early

Arts & Literature

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Books by Louisa Young