Love Understood
The Science of Who, How and Why We Love
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5.0 • 1 Rating
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- $13.99
Publisher Description
For Love Understood, almost 200 strangers in over 40 countries have come together to share their most personal stories, feelings, and insights about love. These are incredibly frank, intimate, and illuminating conversations, and author Laura Mucha has used these rare and varied insights as a springboard from which to dive into the subject of love, scrutinizing it from all angles – scientific, psychological, emotional, and philosophical.
Romantic love is something that poets and artists have been trying to explain and define for centuries, but it's still one of the most complicated and intimidating terrains to navigate – specially when you're directly involved. Psychologists see it as a basic human drive, yet most people are afraid to be open and honest about it, until now.
Each chapter begins with a personal story from someone Laura has spoken with, and then goes on to explore the questions and themes that have arisen from the account, intertwining the opinions of other interviewees with the empirical findings and insights of academics. The interviews allow readers to connect with people of all backgrounds, cultures, and ages. Sometimes they'll empathize, sometimes they'll be challenged and at other times they'll find comfort.
Love Understood combines academic theory with everyday experience, and is for anyone who is curious about how we, as humans, work when it comes to romantic love.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
British poet Mucha offers a fascinating investigation of how and why people fall in (and out of) love. Curious about why some romantic relationships work and others dissolve, he began the project after her grandfather died (his marriage to her grandmother had been "the only committed romantic relationship I had been able to observe"). The book is arranged thematically, beginning with infidelity and moving on to such subjects as attachment, expectations, commitment, and monogamy. Each chapter includes interviews with people Mucha met on a trip that took her to China, Antarctica, and the Scottish Highlands, among other places. While strolling along a beach in Ireland, she met an 80-year-old man and his wife, who had dementia; the man explained, "Younger generations underestimate the amount of work that's involved in maintaining a long-term relationship." In time, the author finds, romantic love often turns into companionate love: "Passion, romance, they do go over time it's more about friendship in the end." Woven in are related studies: in "Looking for Love" Mucha discusses sexual attraction and how the menstrual cycles of 18 professional lap dancers affected their tips in a study conducted in Albuquerque, N.M.. Overall, she concludes that "love is a skill that requires knowledge, effort, and learning." Lively and entertaining, this book will inspire readers to look more deeply at the authenticity of their own relationships.
