Book of the week: Love in small letters - Francesc Miralles

My pick for book of the week this week is a quirky book called love in small letters. This week it was altogether more of a challenge because my reading pile was packed with interesting literary fiction titles and once I get into a good book I can't stop going but my overall favourite was definitely this one.

The plot centres on Samuel, a teacher that lives a pretty secluded life until one day a cat turns up on his doorstep and by taking it in he finds his whole world changing. The cat coming into his life leads to him making new friends, reigniting his childhood love and having some unusual encounters that cause him to re-examine his perspective of the world. The book was translated from Spanish which gives it a sort of quirky feel and I feel (even though I don't have enough Spanish to read the original text) that it is a good translation and has done the story justice. Sometimes when a writer is translated, the story can have an odd clunky feel and there's almost something awkward about it as though the writer translating has not found the best match for the words. Love in small letters did not read like that all, it was a joy and pleasure to read. There is a vein of optimism throughout the story that I particularly liked.

I finished reading it the other morning in bed when I woke early. I kept falling asleep as I really should have been going back asleep but I kept forcing myself awake so I could read more. Another element of the story I enjoyed was how the neighbour Titus and the enigmatic Valdemar both have lessons to teach Samuel and I found myself learning about different philosophical theories as I followed the story and in this way it was to me reminiscent of Jostein Gaarder's 'Sophie's world' ( a Norwegian story about a young girl who starts to receive mysterious philosophy lessons from a stranger in the post).
I liked how it made me think and how Samuel used Love in small letters as an expression to describe the ripple effect that small acts of kindness can have. It was a love story unlike any I have ever read and I would say unlikely to appeal to the sort of reader who reads love stories exclusively but therein lay its appeal for me and that's what made it my book of the week.