The Lovers

Paolo Cognetti, Stash Luczkiw

Publisher: Vintage Publishing

Publication Date: 27/06/2024 ISBN: 9781529920550 Category: Books

Paperback / Softback Original price was: £9.99.Current price is: £8.99.

Mr B's review

Inspired by Kent Haruf’s Plainsong, this quietly beautiful novel transports us high into the Italian Alps. Here we follow Fausto who has left his life in Milan behind and taken up a chef position in a remote alpine village. Living by the seasons, Fausto feels at home here in the mountains – feeding the lone mountain men who drift in and out at the same time every day, and striking up friendships that will alter the course of his own life.

It is here in this restaurant that Fausto meets Silvie, almost half his age, but with an eye to climbing glaciers and pushing herself in ways she’s never been able to before. Needless to say, Fausto and Silvie quickly form a bond, and as their needs and desires pull them apart and push them back together again and again, they each seek something only this community, landscape and it’s magnificent mountains can give them.A gorgeous book that still makes me smile every time I think of it. – Emma

Description

From the author of international bestseller The Eight Mountains comes a story of love and community in the wild beauty of the Italian Alps

The remote alpine village of Fontana Fredda lives by the seasons. These quiet, complex rhythms appeal to Fausto, who has left the city of Milan behind, and with it his relationship. He takes a job as chef in a little restaurant and entrusts himself to new beginnings.

Silvia is also seeking change: her sights are on the glaciers where, she has read, climbing a thousand metres towards the sky is equivalent to travelling ten times the same distance to the north. She is in search of her personal North Pole.

When Fausto and Silvia meet one night, their story begins: a tender story of love and renewal; of the community that sustains them; and of lives humbled by the implacable strength and beauty of the mountains.

As intimate in focus as it is epic in scope, The Lovers is a luminous meditation on our quest to understand our place in one another’s lives, and in the magnificence of the world around us.

Praise for The Eight Mountains:
‘Exquisite… A rich, achingly painful story’ Annie Proulx
‘Enchanting’ Guardian
‘Brilliant’ New York Times

Publisher Review

A masterclass in high-altitude atmosphere, a sharp portrait of a community and a touching romance, all condensed into 200 pages… [and] elegantly translated by Stash Luczkiw * Financial Times * A beautiful meditation on nature, love, and renewal. * Publishers Weekly * A novel of pure love – love for nature, love for people, just simply love – that lifts the soul and the heart. * Les Echos * An enchanting ode to nature that explores the fissures and cracks of human relationships and second chances in life with an immense, luminous power. * La Repubblica * A charming love story * Choice Magazine *