Sign up for our newsletters to receive our Best of 2024 ezine!

Book Summary and Reviews of Touch by Courtney Maum

Touch by Courtney Maum

Touch

by Courtney Maum

  • Critics' Consensus (0):
  • Published:
  • May 2017, 320 pages
  • Rate this book

About this book

Book Summary

From the author of the acclaimed I Am Having So Much Fun Here Without You, a satirical and moving novel in the spirit of Maria Semple and Jess Walter about a New York City trend forecaster who finds herself wanting to overturn her own predictions, move away from technology, and reclaim her heart.

Sloane Jacobsen is one of the world's most powerful trend forecasters (she was the foreseer of "the swipe"), and global fashion, lifestyle, and tech companies pay to hear her opinions about the future. Her recent forecasts on the family are unwavering: the world is over-populated, and with unemployment, college costs, and food prices all on the rise, having children is an extravagant indulgence.

So it's no surprise when the tech giant Mammoth hires Sloane to lead their groundbreaking annual conference, celebrating the voluntarily childless. But not far into her contract, Sloane begins to sense the undeniable signs of a movement against electronics that will see people embracing compassion, empathy, and "in-personism" again. She's struggling with the fact that her predictions are hopelessly out of sync with her employer's mission and that her closest personal relationship is with her self-driving car when her partner, the French "neo-sensualist" Roman Bellard, reveals that he is about to publish an op-ed on the death of penetrative sex - a post-sexual treatise that instantly goes viral. Despite the risks to her professional reputation, Sloane is nevertheless convinced that her instincts are the right ones, and goes on a quest to defend real life human interaction, while finally allowing in the love and connectedness she's long been denying herself.

A poignant and amusing call to arms that showcases her signature biting wit and keen eye, celebrated novelist Courtney Maum's new book is a moving investigation into what it means to be an individual in a globalized world.

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Reviews

Media Reviews

"Starred Review. [A] trenchant satirical novel ... Maum has such an incisive grasp of where tech and culture meet that she could add sociologist to her resume. ... A perceptive, thought-provoking read." - Publishers Weekly

"Starred Review. In a work of zealous social critique laced with sexy romantic comedy ... Maum's incisive, charming, and funny novel ebulliently champions the healing powers of touch, the living world, and love in all its crazy risks, surprises, and sustaining radiance." - Booklist

"An uncomplicated novel about the complicated relationship between humans and the tech-heavy world." - Kirkus

"Maum (I Am Having So Much Fun Here Without You) perfectly captures the zeitgeist of our era as technology battles with humanity. Her thought-provoking, humorous book will inspire readers to forgo the electronics and get back to basics as simple as human touch." - Library Journal

"Courtney Maum's latest novel offers us a balm, a solution, a call to action, or, at the very least, time away from our smartphones to read a compelling, perceptive, and moving story about the state of human intimacy and love in our contemporary era. Touch is at once wry and sincere, funny and serious, and you won't be able to put it down." - Edan Lepucki, author of California

"What begins as a satirical romp through the fields of trend forecasting and technology in Courtney Maum's Touch deepens into a trenchant and wise portrait of what it means to be fully human at a time when the culture is trying its hardest to make us only partially so." - Teddy Wayne, author of Loner and The Love Song of Jonny Valentine

"Maum's writing is sharp and complex - prepare to be touched by this novel is ways you might not expect." - Elizabeth McKenzie, National Book Award Finalist and author of The Portable Veblen

"Courtney Maum has somehow written a provocative meditation on human interaction in the technological age and a fun, touching beach read. I can't wait for it to spark all kinds of unexpected vacation discussions!" - Jade Chang, author of The Wangs vs. the World

This information about Touch was first featured in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.

Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Author Information

Courtney Maum Author Biography

Courtney Maum is the author of the novels Costalegre (a GOOP book club pick and one of Glamour Magazine's top books of the decade), I Am Having So Much Fun Here Without You and Touch (a New York Times Editor's Choice and NPR Best Book of the Year selection), the Zibby Award-winning guidebook Before and After the Book Deal: A Writer's Guide to Finishing, Publishing, Promoting, and Surviving Your First Book, and the memoir, The Year of the Horses. A nominee for the Joyce Carol Oates prize, Courtney's short fiction and essays about creativity have been widely published in outlets such as the New York Times and Interview Magazine, her short story "This is Not Your Fault" was turned into an Audible original, and with her filmmaker husband, she has co-written films that have debuted at Sundance ...

... Full Biography
Link to Courtney Maum's Website

Other books by Courtney Maum at BookBrowse
  • Costalegre jacket
Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

More Recommendations

Readers Also Browsed . . .

more literary fiction...

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Top Picks

  • Book Jacket: Small Rain
    Small Rain
    by Garth Greenwell
    At the beginning of Garth Greenwell's novel Small Rain, the protagonist, an unnamed poet in his ...
  • Book Jacket: Daughters of Shandong
    Daughters of Shandong
    by Eve J. Chung
    Daughters of Shandong is the debut novel of Eve J. Chung, a human rights lawyer living in New York. ...
  • Book Jacket: The Women
    The Women
    by Kristin Hannah
    Kristin Hannah's latest historical epic, The Women, is a story of how a war shaped a generation ...
  • Book Jacket: The Wide Wide Sea
    The Wide Wide Sea
    by Hampton Sides
    By 1775, 48-year-old Captain James Cook had completed two highly successful voyages of discovery and...

BookBrowse Book Club

Book Jacket
In Our Midst
by Nancy Jensen
In Our Midst follows a German immigrant family’s fight for freedom after their internment post–Pearl Harbor.
Who Said...

Beliefs are what divide people. Doubt unites them

Click Here to find out who said this, as well as discovering other famous literary quotes!

Wordplay

Big Holiday Wordplay 2024

Enter Now

Your guide toexceptional          books

BookBrowse seeks out and recommends the best in contemporary fiction and nonfiction—books that not only engage and entertain but also deepen our understanding of ourselves and the world around us.