Love’s Labour

‘This man could save your marriage’ Sunday Times
‘A work of genius’ India Knight
‘Left me feeling wiser and more open to life’ Oliver Burkeman

Why do we find love so difficult? Sunday Times bestselling author and psychoanalyst Stephen Grosz explores desire, heartbreak and learning how to love.

Drawing on over forty years of candid and surprising conversations with his patients, Stephen Grosz asks, what gets in the way of our falling in love? And what must we do to stay there?

In the intimate space of the consulting room, we meet the woman who can’t post her wedding invitations but then, decades later, can’t decide whether to get divorced; the friendship group that explodes when an adulterous affair begins; and the man whose partner’s death is almost too much to bear.

As an analyst, Grosz’s unerring ability is to locate what ails the heartsick. As a writer, he elegantly shows how we can deploy the agonies of love as tools for understanding.

The labour of love is the work of a lifetime but in finally learning to see ourselves and our world clearly, we find we are truly ready to love one another.

*** A TIMES AND IRISH TIMES 'BEST BOOK OF 2025' ***

‘The poet laureate of human emotion’ Elizabeth Day
'Powerful and compelling' Guardian
'This is a beautiful book' Nigella Lawson