Love (Books) Are In The Air
By Anna-Katharina Priesterath, News Editor
My favorite holiday of the year is approaching: Valentine’s Day! And before you roll your eyes, yes I am that girl. I love everything pink, sparkly, and heart-shaped. But above all that I love love. I started properly celebrating Valentine’s Day when I was a teenager. Inspired by my sister who always taught me to celebrate and appreciate life and love, I started spreading the word. Now, I can confidently say that many of my close friends and former Valentine’s Day-haters started looking forward to it as well.
While I do think that love, and when I speak of love I do not only include the romantic kind, should be celebrated every day of the year, I do believe that having one set day at the beginning of the new year, surely helps to show your loved ones a little extra love. After all, love really is a big (if not the biggest) force in every person’s life. As someone who studies injustices and a lot of the hateful things happening around the world, I find it especially important to remind myself of the bright side of things. Hence, I collected my top five favorite reads on love for you to enjoy.
All About Love: New Vision (bell hooks, 1999)
Starting off very strong with my probably favorite author and feminist of all time: bell hooks. While I can recommend practically any book written by hooks, All About Love holds a special place in my heart. Not only was it one of the first books I read by her, but also one of the pieces that influenced me the most until this day. It was fairly difficult to settle on one quote but this one since I highlighted half of the book but here is one that I believe holds very true.
“To know love we have to tell the truth to ourselves and to others.”
Conversation on Love (Natasha Lunn, 2021)
Up next is Conversations on Love by Natasha Lunn. This book was sort of the starting point of many of my love-related readings. Through her writing, I came across Alain de Botton, Dolly Alderton, and other great voices that have since then become some of my favorite authors. Lunn dives into different aspects of and perspectives on love. Each chapter is unique. It was in this book that I read about the love of a first-time mother from a touching and inspiring perspective. Through her interviews, Lunn reflected not only on the interviewees' experiences and lives but also her own. This book is a must-read for anyone.
“How grateful I am, not only to have known love, but to have known just how important it was, to pay attention to it.”
Everything I Know About Love (Dolly Alderton, 2018)
Dolly Alderton’s Everything I Know About Love is arguably a staple on anybody's bookshelf in their twenties. While I did not enjoy the book as much initially, I have to say that it became one of my favorites now. Alderton is incredibly authentic and vulnerable in her writing, sharing many embarrassing, hurtful, and funny moments from her life. This is definitely a read I think anybody in their twenties would benefit from reading. No matter what you are going through, you are not alone and chances are actually quite high that Dolly has been through something similar. While the memoir is characterized by her unique humor, I have to say that the overall message is not to be missed and a realisation many can relate to.
“Nearly everything I know about love, I've learnt from my long-term friendships with women.”
Essays in Love (Alain de Botton, 1993)
As mentioned earlier, I became a fan of Alain de Botton’s writing through Lunn’s book. While I am currently reading several of his books that cover a variety of topics including love, the one that I want to include in this list is Essays on Love. At only twenty-three years old, de Button wrote this piece on his relationship with Chloe, a woman he met on a plane from France to England and immediately fell in love with. His writing is incredibly reflective and deep, offering insights into his own experiences as a young man dissecting love and everything surrounding it, while constantly referring to great philosophical thinkers and science as well.
“We would not love if there were no lack within us, but we are offended by the discovery of a similar lack in the other. Expecting to find the answer, we find only the duplicate of our own problem.”
Tell Me the Truth About Love: 13 Tales from Couples Therapy (Susanna Abse, 2022)
Lastly, I want to recommend Tell Me the Truth About Love: 13 Tales from Couple Therapy by Susanna Abse. As the title suggests, this is your unique chance to eardrop into the therapy room as Abse retells real clients she has worked with in London. While the short stories of couple’s therapy were not only unexpected but also captivating, what really made this book stand out to me was that I was reading it with my sister. It felt like reading reality TV, but on a much deeper level. Each case was intriguing and left us wondering where some of the characters ended up and if they did, after all, find their way to healthy, reciprocated love.
“In the end, love is simply a story we tell ourselves about the world.”
And that’s a wrap! There’s arguably no better way to escape the cold than to immerse yourself into one of these heart-warming reads.
And don’t forget: love is all around.
