Jonathan Coe

a-touch-of-love

About us

About Us (Header 4)

Kate-Atkinson

James-Baldwin

Marian-Keyes

haruki-murakami-320×320-1

Richard-Osman

Malorie Blackman

Lisa-Jewell

Charlie-Mackesy

Authors (Header 3)

Children&#039;s

Company

Discover

Fiction

Non-fiction

Penguin Classics

Penguin Shop (Header 5)

Useful links

Work with us

Bournville

The Rain Before it Falls

Mr Wilder and Me

Winner of the Costa Novel Award 2019

Middle England

The Rotters' Club

‘Everything a novel ought to be: courageous, challenging, funny, sad’ The Times

What a Carve Up!

Number 11

The Dwarves of Death

The House of Sleep

The Accidental Woman

The Terrible Privacy Of Maxwell Sim

Expo 58

Loggerheads and Other Stories

Non-fiction, 1990-2013

Marginal Notes, Doubtful Statements

A Story of Music

Pentatonic

What A Carve Up!

A Touch of Love

Penguin Shop: 3 Clothbound Classics for £33

Robin, a postgrad student in Coventry, has spent four and a half years not writing his thesis. Now it languishes in a drawer, and Robin hides in his room, increasingly frightened by a world he doesn't understand. His friends have failed him and romance eludes him. His only outlet is his short stories, scribbled in notebooks and expressing his secret obsessions and frustrations. 
 
Then, when an unfortunate and embarassing incident in a public park lands him in serious trouble, Robin's life finally spirals out of control . . .

A Touch of Love is Jonathan Coe's delightfully comic and moving novel about not fitting in 
 
Robin, a postgraduate student in Coventry, has spent four and a half years not writing his thesis. He and his academic colleagues, united by pallor, social ineptitude and sexual inexperience, once spent hours discussing their theories, but they somehow never made it into print. 
 
Now his unfinished thesis languishes in a drawer, and Robin hides in his room, increasingly frightened by a world he doesn't understand. His friends have failed him and romance eludes him. His only outlet is his short stories, scribbled in notebooks and expressing his secret obsessions and frustrations. 
 
Then, when an unfortunate and embarrassing incident in a public park lands him in serious trouble, Robin's life finally spirals out of control. . . 
 
A Touch of Love is a brilliant, bittersweet book that will be enjoyed by readers of David Nicholls, Nick Hornby and lovers of comic fiction. 
 
'A magnetic, moving tale' Observer 
 
'Very funny' The Times Literary Supplement 
 
'Witty and astringently intelligent' Guardian 
 
Jonathan Coe's novels are filled with moving, astute observations of life and love, and are written with a revealing honesty that has captivated a generation of readers. His other titles, The Accidental Woman, The Rotters' Club (winner of the Everyman Wodehouse prize), The Closed Circle, The Dwarves of Death, The Terrible Privacy of Maxwell Sim, The House of Sleep (winner of the 1998 Prix Médicis Étranger), A Touch of Love, What a Carve Up! (winner of the 1995 John Llewellyn Rhys Prize), Middle England (Costa Novel Award), Mr Wilder and Me and Bournville are all available in Penguin paperback. 
 
Written with his signature wit, Jonathan Coe's unmissable new novel, The Proof of My Innocence, is available to order now!

Jonathan Coe was born in Birmingham in 1961. He is the award-winning, bestselling author of fifteen novels, including What a Carve Up!, The Rotters’ Club, Middle England and, most recently, The Proof of My Innocence. He has won the Costa Novel Award, the Prix du Livre Européen, the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize, the Prix Médicis Étranger and the Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize, among many others. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and an Officier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres. His work has been translated into twenty-two languages. Jonathan Coe lives in London.

A Touch of Love

Format:

Buy the book from:

About Jonathan Coe

Follow penguin

Follow ladybird

Follow puffin

Sign up to the Penguin newsletter