The History of Love by Nicole Krauss

This is an extraordinary book...not an easy book to read--there are so many complications, so many mysteries, and a number of quite different narrative voices. One does tend to get a bit lost. But the writing is highly talented, and the different voices demonstrate Nicole Krauss's range and ability.

I am gong to cheat and quote from a review that gives some insight into the story set out in the novel. 

"Fourteen-year-old Alma Singer is trying to care for her mother's loneliness. Believing she might discover it in an old book her mother is lovingly translating, she sets out in search the author. Across New York an old man, named Leo Gursky, is trying to survive a little longer. He spends his days dreaming of his lost love who, sixty years ago in Poland, inspired him to write a book before she set out for the United States, leaving him to survive the coming of the Nazis and the slaughter of his family. And, although he doesn't know it yet, that book also survived, crossing oceans and generations and changing lives." (I have added a little to this description)

The novel was short-listed for the Orange Prize. It was first published in 2005. Once you start you, will certainly get hooked, although as you approach the end you may feel that Ms. Krauss keeps you hanging on the fishing line a bit too long...