Love in all its guises is the subject of Nick Murray’s wise and witty A Short Book About Love. Woven into a comic re-telling of the classic legend of Tristan and Iseult - one of the world’s greatest love stories - is the story of Felix, growing up in post-war Liverpool and, in the wake of a father’s death, trying to come to terms with the meaning of what Philip Larkin, called ’that much-mentioned brilliance, love’.

In between are narratives, playful and serious, on the irresistible topic. This sparkling pocket-epic spans the globe, from Greece to Italy, from China to Russia, offering walk-on parts to Nelson Mandela, Clinton and Lewinsky, Oscar Wilde, Lewis Carroll and countless other poets, philosophers, and legendary lovers, who have learned that ’a world without love is no world at all’.