How Much the Heart Can Hold: the perfect alternative Valentine’s gift
- Author Carys Bray, Rowan Hisayo Buchanan, Bernardine Evaristo, Grace McCleen, Donal Ryan, Nikesh Shukla, D.W. Wilson
- Narrator various
- Publisher Hodder & Stoughton
- Run Time 5 hours and 22 minutes
- Format Audio
- Genre Modern and contemporary fiction, Short stories.
Listen to a sample
What to expect
‘No one has measured, not even poets, how much the heart can hold.’
Zelda Fitzgerald
Love is not a singular concept.
In this collection, seven award-winning authors explore seven concepts of love: from Philautia, self-love, to Agape, love for humanity; and from Storge, a natural affection for family, to Mania, a frenzied, obsessive love:
La Douleur Exquise (the pain of unrequited love)
Before It Disappears by Rowan Hisayo Buchanan (c) 2016
Pragma (enduring love)
One More Thing Coming Undone by D.W. Wilson (c) 2016
Philautia (love for oneself)
White Wine by Nikesh Shukla (c) 2016
Mania (obsessive love)
Magdala, Who Slips Sometimes by Donal Ryan (c) 2016
Storge (familial love)
Codas by Carys Bray (c) 2016
Eros (erotic love)
The Love Story by Grace McCleen (c) 2016
Agape (love for humanity)
The Human World by Bernardine Evaristo (c) 2016
Seven authors; seven short stories; seven flashes of love.
The publication of How Much the Heart Can Hold is heralded by a Sceptre short story competition. The winning story, based on a concept of love, will be published in the paperback edition.
(P) 2016 Hodder & Stoughton
Critics Review
All seven [stories] score an outright win in the battle to make the ethereal real.
Country LifeTogether they assert that love is more heart-breaking and transforming than the word necessarily conveys.
ObserverStartlingly original stories
Sunday Express S MagazineWith prose that is occasionally astonishing, these stories muddy the waters of the literature on love in the best possible way.
Financial Times
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