THE COURSE OF LOVE

Alain de Botton, an author known for tackling the big philosophical questions in accessible nonfiction (HOW PROUST CAN CHANGE YOUR LIFE), has the perfect narrator for his second novel. Julian Rhind-Tutt’s voice is tender, seductive, secretive, or open, as needed. Whichever tone he uses, listening to him is always a joy. What at first seems like an academic discourse on marriage becomes a droll, enjoyable listen filled with sardonic wit, sex, postmodernist wisdom, and a fairly clinical dissection of one particular marriage, that of Kirsten and Rabih, a Scottish woman and a Lebanese man. Although de Botton lays out the inevitability of their ordinary lives early on—“they will suffer . . . worry about money . . . one of them will have an affair . . . ”—Rhind-Tutt keeps the listening worthwhile and far from routine. S.J.H. © AudioFile 2016, Portland, Maine [Published: JULY 2016]