The History of Love

Krauss built a novel about loneliness and survival through love with a delicacy that recalls Paul Auster, with whom she shares a devotion to literary New York. Old Leo Gursky and young Alma have perfectly differentiated voices, and the lost book that links them functions as a narrative thread of surprising effectiveness. Slightly sentimental in the finale, but the journey is worth it. For contemporary fiction readers who value architecture over action.