by bell hooks

This is the 3rd or 4th time I’ve read this book. I first read it with Liz (at her suggestion), shortly after we started dating seriously. It gave me a lot of wisdom about how to think about love, and how to make an earnest attempt at loving well. Without fear of exaggeration I can say that this book changed my life the first time I read it. Each subsequent read gives me much strength & solace. It’s one of my favorite books.

The main revelation of the book is: Love is not some mysterious, unknowable, mystical idea that alternately alludes and surprises us, always outside of our will. It’s the sum of the set of actions which fulfill one of several emotional roles, as they are perceived by the beloved. When I first picked up this book, I thought expression about the topic of love belonged in poems and songs; this book taught me to think - and speak - about love in a serious, mature manner.

Different chapters cover different topics around love, each examining a different way in which Love shows up and is integral to our life. Romantic Love, Divine Love, love to & from children. Honestly: bell hooks could write a manual on auto repair and I would enjoy reading the book cover to cover… her style is so calm, so generous, so straightforward while being so soft. It’s a book I absolutely savor being in the middle of.

I give this book to people when they get married. Someone I love very much is getting married very soon, so I read this book again in preparation to give it to him. It was fun to read the book with the knowledge that my friend will be reading it soon - I got to think about what he’ll like, what I think will strike him as new or different, and even what I think will rub him the wrong way 🙂. I think reading it with someone else in mind helped me get more out of it!