The Logbook of Love

Elina Hirvonen

Original title: Rakkauksien lokikirja

Author: Elina Hirvonen

Published: 2023

Publisher: WSOY

Genre: Literary Fiction

Pages: 250

Reading material:

English sample and overview

What’s love all about? In Elina Hirvonen´s new novel, The Logbook of Love, conversations about love form a sea of connections among people from wildly different backgrounds and places.

What’s love all about?

”That fall, I fear that depression will take away my ability to search for meanings and I can no longer write. If I lose the written words, what am I left with? I try to find something that feels important. The word love is drawn to my mind. I wonder: could I ward off my dark thoughts by writing about love? What could love be in this world?”

The narrator tries to fight the darkness from taking over her mind by writing down people's stories of love. In Helsinki, a city silenced by a global emergency, she walks through the empty streets as her thoughts journey through time and space. She meets with friends and strangers, moves between the past and the present, shifts from country to country. Everywhere she goes, she talks with others about love: romantic love, the love for justice and human rights, marital love, the love of parents for children, the love that can bind friends from different cultures and backgrounds – and the love that, no matter how powerful it is, sometimes fails to bridge the gaps between people. The individuals she encounters, and the love stories they tell, leave their mark on the narrator. Her reflections on what she has heard and experienced portray a world that’s heating up too quickly as it slips into conflict and violence, but where everyone still continues to search for meaning, hope and joy.

In her unique Finnish voice, Elina Hirvonen has written a heartfelt and unforgettable novel about everything we love. The Logbook of Love is the first part of a trilogy of novels that create their world through conversations.

“From one of Finland’s most talented writers comes a beautiful, compelling and evocative novel about the universal power of love in its many diverse forms and voices, taking readers from Finland to Iraq, Malawi, Morocco, Spain, Zambia and points further afield.”

—Katja Pantzar, author of The Finnish Way, TarcherPerigee, Penguin Random House

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Rights sold:
FINLAND: WSOY (orig.)

About author

Elina Hirvonen

Elina Hirvonen is an award-winning author and documentary filmmaker whose novels have been translated into many languages. Liesl Schillinger praised Hirvonen´s debut novel, When I Forgot, on the front page of The New York Times Book Review, and the novel also received positive reviews from The Independent, The Guardian, The Financial Times and The Globe and Mail.

Hirvonen has received the Kalevi Jäntti Prize and the Nuori Aleksis Prize, and has been nominated for Finlandia Prize and Debut Prize.

Her new novel, The Logbook of Love, is published in Finland in August 2023. The Logbook of Love is the first part of a trilogy of novels that create their world through conversations.


Bibliography


2023, Literary Fiction

Elina Hirvonen

The Logbook of Love


2023, Chapter Books (3-6 Years)

Elina Hirvonen

The Rescuers Julia and Charlie


2021, Middle Grade (8-12 Years)

Elina Hirvonen

Charlie and the Wombat Warriors


2021, Chapter Books (3-6 Years)

Elina Hirvonen

Princess Rascal and the Quarrel Spell


2020, Middle Grade (8-12 Years)

Elina Hirvonen

Julia & P.A.L


2019, Chapter Books (3-6 Years)

Elina Hirvonen

Princess Rascal and The Potty Words


2019, Literary Fiction

Elina Hirvonen

Red Storm


2017, Chapter Books (3-6 Years)

Elina Hirvonen

Princess Rascal


2015, Literary Fiction

Elina Hirvonen

When Time Runs Out


2005, Literary Fiction

Elina Hirvonen

When I Forgot