Book : 40 rules of love by Elif Shafak

Before he became a world-famous poet and Sufi mystic, a religious scholar named Jalal ad-Din Rumi struggled with a feeling of inexplicable emptiness.

Despite his thousands of admirers and disciples, Rumi felt something was missing in his life. A wandering dervish called Shams of Tabriz came as the answer to Rumi’s prayers. The pair were kindred spirits and intellectual equals who reveled in discussing and debating matters of God, man and divine love. Their friendship, in 13th-century Anatolia, transformed Rumi. The tale of their fated meeting, spiritual companionship and tragic parting is beautifully recounted in the new novel “The Forty Rules of Love,” by Turkish writer Elif Shafak. Their saga unfolds in a manuscript being read by Ella, an unhappy American housewife who recently started working for a literary agency. Shafak goes back and forth -- from present-day Northampton, Mass., to Konya, Turkey, in the mid-1200s -- and tells the parallel stories from the perspective of various characters. just finished reading it . Very inspiring , worth reading.