We all know the headiness and excitement of the early days of love. But what comes after? In Edinburgh, a couple, Rabih and Kirsten, fall in love. They get married, they have children—but no long-term relationship is as simple as “happily ever after.” The Course of Love is a novel that explores what happens after the birth of love, what it takes to maintain love, and what happens to our original ideals under the pressures of an average existence. You experience, along with Rabih and Kirsten, the first flush of infatuation, the effortlessness of falling into romantic love, and the course of life thereafter. Interwoven with their story and its challenges is an overlay of philosophy—an annotation and a guide to what we are reading.

This is a Romantic novel in the true sense, one interested in exploring how love can survive and thrive in the long term. The result is a sensory experience—fictional, philosophical, psychological—that urges us to identify deeply with these characters, and to reflect on his and her own experiences in love. Fresh, visceral, and utterly compelling, The Course of Love is a provocative and life-affirming novel for everyone who believes in love.

他不乏米兰·昆德拉的批评深度，深具罗兰·巴特尔的解构气质；但，他比昆德拉有更立体的爱情思维，比巴特尔更熨帖恋人的爱情神经。他激活我们全新的阅读体验。

阿兰·德波顿（Alain de Botton），英伦才子型作家，生于1969年，毕业于剑桥大学，现住伦敦。著有小说《爱情笔记》（1993）、《爱上浪漫》（1994）、《亲吻与述说》（1995）及散文作品《拥抱逝水年华》（1997）、《哲学的慰藉》（2000）、《旅行的艺术》（2002）、《身份的焦虑》（2004）、《无聊的魅力》（2005）、《幸福的建筑》（2007）、《工作颂歌》（2009）、《机场里的小旅行》（2009）、《写给无神论者》（2012）、《新闻的骚动》（2015）。他的作品已被译成二十几种文字。