The international bestseller from the author of the Booker-shortlisted novel, 10 Minutes 38 Seconds in this Strange World, The Forty Rules of Love is part of our Penguin Essentials series which spotlights the very best of our modern classics Ella Rubinstein has a husband, three teenage children, and a pleasant home. Everything that should make her confident and fulfilled. Yet there is an emptiness at the heart of Ella's life - an emptiness once filled by love. So when Ella reads a manuscript about the thirteenth-century Sufi poet Rumi and Shams of Tabriz, and his forty rules of life and love, her world is turned upside down. She embarks on a journey to meet the mysterious author of this work. It is a quest infused with Sufi mysticism and verse, taking Ella and us into an exotic world where faith and love are heartbreakingly explored. . . Review A gorgeous, jeweled, luxurious book - The Times With its timely, thought-provoking message . . . The Forty Rules of Love deserves to be a global publishing phenomenon - Independent Enlightening, enthralling. An affecting paean to faith and love - Metro Colourfully woven and beguilingly intelligent - Daily Telegraph The past and present fit together beautifully in a passionate defence of passion itself - The Times