The Romantic Movement is the story of its beguiling heroine Alice and her quest for love, cataloguing the progress of her affair with Eric in all its thrills and pitfalls. Delightfully funny as well as moving, the novel elaborates on the psychology of men and women in love, posing and answering a hot of questions from ‘How does one come to know one’s partner’ to ‘What is the link between love, sex and shopping?’

‘Alain de Botton is a marvellous writer, and his novels are bliss to read if, like me, you are fascinated by what couples are like when they are alone together, and what is really going on in their minds’ Ysenda Maxton Graham, Evening Standard

‘It takes a most accomplished novelist to take the prosaic, ordinary routines of an unexceptional love affair and transform them into an exquisitely written and learned study of love in the real world. But this is what Alain de Botton has done . . . This novel is nothing less than a guide to the lies, truths, and foibles of modern love’ Simon Sebag Montefiore, The Times

‘His books are original hybrids, part novel, part philosophical reverie. They are solemn, ridiculous, charming and funny’ Kate Kellaway, Observer