The book of all loves is a deep and poetic blend of fiction and mini-essays, exploring love from every angle and analysing humanity and emotions closely. I found this beautiful at times, though it lacked much pace and I found my attention waning at times. Though not necessarily for me, this beautiful and intense style of writing certainly makes an impression and leaves a reader with a lot to think about.

Sprawling, interdisciplinary and voraciously engaging, this book blew me away. As much as it is an experiment in pushing the limits of what we consider a novel, it remains endlessly readable and lovable.

This polyphonic novella is unlike anything I’ve ever read. Divided into four parts, each contains three sections that alternate like in a canon. The first one is a catalogue of different forms of love that stretch the very meaning of love itself. Each meditation is given a name within brackets, an interesting choice given that some are enlightening, others confusing.  

Here’s an example to give you a better idea:
“The lowest manifestation of realism is the extrapolation of statistics about the future. The most naïve manifestation of nostalgia, meanwhile, is the use of those same statistics to make extrapolations about the past. When couples split up, unbeknownst to them, each takes one of these completely opposed approaches. (Statistical love)”

I’m not sure about statistics, but something about this slightly convoluted reflection definitely rang true - me being part of the nostalgia team.

Overall these sections vary quite considerably. A few didn’t really convince me, others were informative, many thought-provoking, some just beautiful.

Each meditation is followed by a snippet of conversation between two unnamed lovers known only as “she” and “he”. They live in a beautiful part of the world after a calamity, the Great Blackout, has seemingly wiped out humanity. Rather than dystopian, however, the reality experienced by the couple is idyllic, secluded, intimate and full of loving. 

Finally, there are four longer sections that capture the life of an Uruguayan writer and her husband, a Latin professor, holidaying in Venice. If this seems disjointed, don’t worry, by the end of the novel, all the dots are connected, and, one detail I always like, the ending brings us full circle back at the beginning, in a very satisfying manner. 

I am very grateful I got to read this ahead of publication. I found it a very exciting blend of genres unique in my reading experience. If you crave to discover unexpected visions of love I highly recommend this one!

This was a really strange book and I did enjoy the writing and poetic parts of it but it was super confusing and a bit too experimental for me to fully engage.

The premise of this book is that there has been a catastrophic event called The Great Blackout which has led there to be only one man and woman on Earth who are in love with each other. Part of the novel is filled with conversations they have with each other interjected with a bit list of different types of love (not the usual types we have heard of but really poetic and off-the-wall sort of types of love). The other half the book follows the couple before the blackout in Venice on a trip, in a stream of consciousness style of narration in speaks about who they meet and the sorts of things they do on the trip.

I preferred the sections after the blackout a lot more than the Venice sections. However I don't think it's a super accessible novel just because of how weirdly it's written. It has a premise but no plot and is quite challenging in that you need to actively keep going with reading the book and getting through each section. Despite this I found myself really enjoying the writing style and thought many parts of it were really poetic and beautiful, especially the sections of some of the descriptions of love which had such intense and creative imagery.

Not sure who I would recommend this to or what this book is setting out to achieve, or even how I feel after finishing it, but it was definitely a unique experience and a book I will remember for it's ingenuity.

Full disclosure - I couldn't finish the book, and had to stop in the middle.

The book is a series of musings (short paragraphs), interspersed with brief exchanges between a couple, while the world seems to be falling apart around them. The main theme is love - with the paragraphs and dialogue exploring various aspects of love, and its role in human evolution, day to day life, and future.

The concept is indeed interesting, and it's actually well written. I found the form of the book to be quite accessible - the brevity of the fragments was quite refreshing in its pace. It could easily have come across as self absorbed but it didn't - it was punchy and well conveyed.

That being said, I disliked the book. The musings contained in the book, while understandable and comprehensible, are quite banal, and read more like woke self-help statements you see on social media against a blurred background than something more profound that makes you think. What I found most frustrating is the fact that on the surface it looks great, but the closer you look the more disappointed you become.

My thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for providing me with an early copy of this book in return for an honest review.

Agustín Fernández Mallo "The Book of All Loves" is a gorgeous and lush examination of love. It's a collection of questions, discussions, and narrative pieces that seek to explore various types of love, and how the man and woman (as well as the ambassador) interact with the world around them. The book is certainly hard to describe, but I was fascinated by the beautiful prose, and the empathy Mallo has for the couple, The book reminded me of "Hiroshima Mon Amour" by Marguerite Duras; like Duras's work, "The Book of All Loves" has an enigmatic quality to its story and dialogue. The book may not work for everyone, but I was entranced by it. There's a real humanity at its core that we don't see in too many novels these days, and I appreciated that.

The title of the book says it all , it is a narrative about all aspects of love. It’s difficult to describe because we have poetic conversations between two lovers that are the only survivors of the Great Blackout. We then have great chunks of what seem like text book descriptions , all different kinds of love . As well we have a narrative of two people who are in Venice before the Great Blackout , where strange events are happening.. I found it in parts difficult to read and understand , however it does make you think and it was a unique narrative. I did like the ending , it gave hope that all may be ok. Certainly different from what I normally read .

Found it hard to rate this one with the starry system. I suppose I'll round it off to 4 stars? Read this one all at once, and mostly enjoyed it. I think it could do with a better title but that's sort of irrelevant. I really love how organised yet somewhat scattered and all over the place the writing is. Mallo is breaking into something quite extraordinary and refreshing here especially dealing with such an overly-done theme and subject that is love. Can imagine that this will be a book that gets better with every next reading. Would love to offer more thoughts, but this is not an easy book to talk or write about. Perhaps this is an awful phrase to use but reading 'The Book of All Loves' was like an aesthetic experience. In a simpler, more general term, I suppose it was something akin to the experience of the sublime. This is going to sound awfully pretentious, but = it's as if like love itself, one is not suppose to scrutinise and try to understand it fully - at least not at first glance, meeting, reading. And if it resonates, it resonate. Otherwise, try again another time? I reckon this is probably the sort of book that one will either really like or simply can't stand at all. Luckily for me, I like.

Two lovers speak of their love against a background of global annihilation.

Thought-provoking, but not straightforward. The ongoing 'He said/She said" is grating: Do real people have these conversations?

With thanks to NetGalley and Fitzcaralodo for the ARC.

I am a Fitzcarraldo annual subscriber & have absolutely loved all the published books I have read to date. However, this one was sadly not for me.
It felt like brief poetic insights into a couple experiencing a blackout, split by a dictionary of highly complex analysis of deeply educationally set out forms of love, wgich felt like an academic emotional dictionary.
Seems a personal preference issue, as I enjoy fitzcarraldo dense full paragraph paragraphs, usually letting them flow over & into my mind like waves lapping on a shore. But the stop start, interspersed with short clips of the couples beautiful reflections just didn't do it for me.

Published 14 February 2024. This is a difficult book to categorize - poetry? Narrative? Essay? It was also difficult to get into as there seems to be no plot. But, there are some beautiful ideas. We have sections which are like a poetic dialogue between an unnamed couple - he says, she says and the language, the ideas are gorgeous ]

in every square inch of your skin I find you completely.

I know my love for you is unlike any love I've felt before because in every centimetre of your body I encounter you wholly.

Then there are sections which are almost like encyclopaedia entries describing all the different types of love - prime mover love, limit love, noise love. These sections I found hard going sometimes. And then there are sections with a narrative about a couple, she is a writer and he is a Latin teacher and they arrive in Venice for a rest. But something is happening in Venice - there seems to be more and more blind people around, St Marks Square is closed because it has become a sort of dead zone where there is no sound or smell. There is also the enigmatic ambassador that the writer encounters. By the end you see all the sections coming together and you understand the references to the statue with no eyes, the nameless bird that flies around, and the Great Blackout that is at the heart of the narrative, and the dialogue between the he says, she says couple. A difficult read, but I'm glad I read it because it was only by coming to the end that I could see where the journey had taken me.