The Forty Rules of Love
by Elif Şafak
★ Top 25 book of 2009 · #13 on Best Books of 2009
Elif Shafak weaves two parallel stories: a modern one about forty-year-old Ella, unhappily married, and a thirteenth-century one about Rumi and his mentor Shams of Tabriz. As Ella reads a novel about them, she sees Rumi's story mirror her own.
Best for: Readers drawn to Rumi, spiritual love, and dual-timeline storytelling
The Forty Rules of Love is #13 on BookWard's Best Books of 2009, out of 42 2009 books that cleared our data bar.
What The Forty Rules of Love is about
Ella Rubenstein is forty, unhappily married, and ready for a change. She takes a job reading manuscripts for a literary agent, and her first report is on a novel called Sweet Blasphemy by Aziz Zahara. That manuscript tells of Shams Tabrizi, a teacher in the thirteenth century, and his bond with Rumi, a respected cleric who is successful but not at peace.
The book moves between Ella's life now and the story she reads, so two eras and two cultures sit side by side across seven centuries. Shams reshapes Rumi into a devoted mystic and a poet who speaks for love, and his forty rules appear at intervals along the way. They point toward a view of the world in which all people and all faiths are joined, and love lives in everyone. The novel is built on five elements of nature, and each chapter opens with the same letter, a nod to Sufi tradition. Readers who enjoy reflective, spiritual fiction will find a lyrical, quietly searching story. It sold more than 750,000 copies in Turkey and France.
The Forty Rules of Love on the Best Books of 2009
The Forty Rules of Love came out in 2009. Of the 42 books first published in 2009 that met BookWard's data bar, it ranks #13 on our Best Books of 2009 list.
Why it made the list: 680 readers have shelved it on Open Library; readers rate it 3.6 out of 5 (14 ratings); 61 are reading it right now. The list ranks each year’s books on how many readers have picked them up, how highly readers rate them, and how many are reading them right now.
It earns Being read right now.
Nearby on the 2009 list
- Under the Dome Stephen King, #11
- Emotional Intelligence 2.0 Travis Bradberry, #12
- Wolf Hall Hilary Mantel, #14
- The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind William Kamkwamba, #15
See all Best Books of 2009 Best books by year
More years: Best Books of 2008 Best Books of 2010.
The numbers behind it
- Readers: 595 want to read it, 61 are reading it now and 24 have read it, according to Open Library.
- Ratings: 3.6 out of 5 from 14 Open Library ratings.
| Signal | This book (0 to 100) | Weight |
|---|---|---|
| Reach | 79 | 55% |
| Reader love | 21 | 25% |
| Being read right now | 90 | 20% |
Questions about The Forty Rules of Love
When was The Forty Rules of Love published?
The Forty Rules of Love by Elif Şafak was first published in 2009.
Was The Forty Rules of Love one of the best books of 2009?
The Forty Rules of Love is #13 on BookWard's Best Books of 2009, out of 42 2009 books that cleared our data bar. 680 readers have shelved it on Open Library; readers rate it 3.6 out of 5 (14 ratings); 61 are reading it right now.
Why is The Forty Rules of Love on the Best Books of 2009 list?
680 readers have shelved it on Open Library; readers rate it 3.6 out of 5 (14 ratings); 61 are reading it right now.
More of the best books of 2009
- The Last Olympian Rick Riordan, #1
- Catching Fire Suzanne Collins, #2
- The Maze Runner James Dashner, #3
- The Help Kathryn Stockett, #4
- Dork Diaries Rachel Renée Russell, #5
- I Will Teach You to Be Rich Ramit Sethi, #6
See the full Best Books of 2009, the Top 100, or new books on Rising.
How we know
This page uses public data: Open Library reader counts and ratings, and Wikipedia page views for recent years. The description is paraphrased from real source text. Rankings reflect reading interest, not quality or sales, and can be affected by data gaps. Lists update monthly.
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