The Forty Rules of Love

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What to expect

Brought to you by Penguin.

The international bestseller from the Booker-shortlisted author of The Island of Missing Trees and 10 Minutes 38 Seconds in this Strange World


* One of the BBC's '100 Novels that Shaped the World'*

"Every true love and friendship is a story of unexpected transformation. If we are the same person before and after we loved, that means we haven't loved enough..."
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 his mentor Shams of Tabriz, and his forty rules of life and love, she is ready to look at her life anew. Compelled to embrace change, she embarks on a journey to meet the mysterious author. It is a quest infused with Sufi mysticism and verse, taking Ella and us into a faraway world where faith and doubt are heartbreakingly explored. The Forty Rules of Love is a mesmerising tale of discovery, language, truth and, of course, love itself.

'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

© Elif Shafak 2010 (P) Penguin Audio 2019

Critics 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

User Reviews

Book 3.8
Narration 4.2
5.0
5.0
JoO 14/01/2026
5.0
4.0
Locd78 05/10/2025
1.0
4.0
jfrawley 30/06/2025
4.0
4.0
Elif Shafak is so masterly in her narration that what ever she describes is vividly conjured. I loved being transported to the time of Rumi and seeing it through the eyes of many different people of that time. I was less invested in the modern love story that frames the novel but it did serve a purpose.
sarahnewbold 02/03/2024

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