Nancy Mitford''s The Pursuit of Love is one of the funniest, sharpest novels about love and growing up ever written.

''He was the great love of her life you know.''

''Oh, dulling,'' said my mother, sadly, ''One always thinks that. Every, every time.''

Longing for love, obsessed with weddings and let''s not even mention the mysteries of sex, Linda and her sisters and cousin Fanny are on the hunt for the ideal lover. But finding the perfect match is much harder than any of the sisters had ever dreamed. Linda is first courted by a Tory MP and then becomes embroiled with a handsome but humourless communist, before she risks everything on a chance at real, head-over-heels love in war-torn Paris . . .

''Peerless'' Zoe Heller