The Love Book by Allie Esiri

Love is the most abused emotion in almost every language across the world. We throw it around, bathe one another in it til our fingers are pruny, spell it out on t-shirts, think on it endlessly. Yet to each of us it is something unique, and so we turn to the words of others to best express the song of our hearts.

This plushly bound book of love is a delight. Choc-full of the most fierce, profound, exotic, erotic and vivid musings on the universal theme of love, Allie Esiri has collected a monument of the most romantic works in the English language.

Here you will find heart-achingly beautiful poetry from the pens of the greatest writers of all ages, letters from long-dead lovers to one another, snatches of prose that highlight love in all its forms – this is a book that will make you weep tears on the tube, laugh in the bath, nod cynically along in your armchair. Classic and contemporary works are all given breathing space, and the breadth of selected pieces will satisfy any lover of poetry. Many are old favourites, some are entirely new to this reader, wonderful surprises nestling among pages that long to be thumbed over and over.

Esiri, co-creator of the iF Poems app and anthology, pays homage to fine literature, a melding of words that tell all our stories. Most everyone knows what it is to love and be loved, but not all of us can voice it with such enchantment or intrigue. If you’re stuck for a verse for a wedding or to scrawl in a friend’s birthday card, here is where you’ll find it. To celebrate the release of this book, some famous faces have recorded readings of selected works, including Tom Hiddleston, who reads a womb-achingly sensual Shakespare’s Sonnet XVIII.

This is not just another collection, this is an Esiri collection – a reverently considered and gracefully realised book that allows the greatest loves of all time to live on in its pages.

Georgia Mizen

The Love Book is published by Square Peg at the hardback price of £20.00. For further information visit here.