A Book About Love

By: Jonah Lehrer

Narrated by: Jacques Roy

Number one bestselling science writer Jonah Lehrer explores the “only happiness that lasts”—love—in a book that “is interesting on nearly every page” (David Brooks, The New York Times Book Review).

Weaving together scientific studies from clinical psychologists, longitudinal studies of health and happiness, historical accounts and literary depictions, child-rearing manuals, and the language of online dating sites, Jonah Lehrer’s A Book About Love plumbs the most mysterious, most formative, most important impulse governing our lives.

Love confuses and compels us—and it can destroy and define us. It has inspired our greatest poetry, defined our societies and our beliefs, and governs our biology. From the way infants attach to their parents, to the way we fall in love with another person, to the way some find a love for God or their pets, to the way we remember and mourn love after it expires, this book focuses on research that attempts, even in glancing ways, to deal with the long-term and the everyday.

The most dangerous myth of love is that it’s easy, that we fall into the feeling and then the feeling takes care of itself. While we can easily measure the dopamine that causes the initial feelings of “falling” in love, the partnerships and devotions that last decades or longer remain a mystery. “Lehrer uses scores of detailed vignettes to traverse a complicated intellectual landscape, eventually arriving at modern theories of love…He is a talent” (USA TODAY), and A Book About Love decodes the set of skills necessary to cultivate a lifetime of love. Love, Lehrer argues, is not built solely on overwhelming passion, but, fascinatingly, on a set of skills to be cultivated over a lifetime.

Loved this book and GREAT narration

Informative, helpful and everyone reading this will be able to have actionable insight on how to have healthier relationships.

Panoramic View of the Impact of Love

A fantastic book that shows how love is the key to actions that mend marriages, raise healthy children, grow character after trauma, increase spirituality, develop success in life and the ability to withstand challenges. A panoramic view of love’s connection to everything in life. .

Loved the read

Recommended. Well written and articulate, with care, exuberance and good research. My wife and I listened together. We are grandparents now. It was reassuring to us that we have given our children the tools to become wonderful parents. They certainly have chosen wonderful mates and have the grit and great relationships we wished for them.

technical but enlightening

the book seems to have an odd flow between clinical and relational insights. Learned a lot. A lot of great references.