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.

Good love relationship isn't really that important. In fact, it uses up a lot of time you could spend thinking about yourself . . . and doing things all alone or with your drunken, loser friends. That's why Ben Stein has written How to Ruin Your Love Life. Following up on the wild success of his pioneering ''do-the-opposite-of-what-I-say''self-help book, How to Ruin Your Life, he now brings you, in 35 easy to follow steps, ways to definitively and absolutely . . . ruin your love life. Learn from this book and for heaven's sake, do the opposite right now.

Having studied how boys and girls develop differently, Michael Gurian turns his attention to adult men in this entertaining, informative, and groundbreaking book on the male brain. Following two decades of neurobiological research, "What Could He Be Thinking? answers the questions women and the world are asking about husbands, fathers, boyfriends, and coworkers. Mixing neurobiology with Gurian's very readable writing style, anecdotes from everyday life, and a new vision of the male psyche, the book will satisfy the tremendous curiosity women and our culture have about the roots of male behavior. Women know intuitively that men are different from them. What women are now just coming to realize is that the men they are married to, having sex with, working with, parenting with, and trying to fathom, act and think in very male ways, not only because they are socialized to do so, but because they are built to - neurobiologically. The new field of brain science has revealed wonderful secrets about a man's mind. In this book, women who are eager to understand the men in their lives can discover the new brain science in an entertaining way, as they get answers to the prime question every woman asks at some time in her life: What could he be thinking? The book provides fascinating information about the male brain, male habits, male tendencies and the nuances of men's' actions and thoughts. It is a provocative, exciting vision into the minds of men.

Set in the early 1900s, Viennese Romance tells the story of Michael Rost, an eighteen-year-old Jewish youth who travels to Vienna, hungry for experience. There, he forms passing relationships with everyone who crosses his path - prostitutes, revolutionaries, paupers, army officers, and rich men alike. With a foreword that explains how this lost novel came to light, Viennese Romance is a seminal work that explores the conflicts faced by many Jewish intellectuals in early-twentieth-century Europe. A compelling portrait of a decadent society, it also lays bare the obsessive-destructive nature of love.

A provocative book that explains why men are so afraid of commitment -- and what women can do about it. Why is it so hard for a man to say "I love you"? Why is it so hard for a man to ask a woman to marry him, even if this is exactly what he wants? Women work hard at relationships but all too often, just when things seem to be going well, men tend to pull away, cheating themselves out of the happiness they really want...and leaving women feeling hurt and confused. It doesn't have to be that way. In Why Men Won't Commit, celebrated psychologist Dr. George Weinberg explains the secret fears that make men run away from relationships and the simple things that women can do to overcome them. Men want lasting relationships just as much as women do, but they fear that commitment means loss -- most of all, the loss of masculinity. Men are far more fearful and insecure than most women imagine, with the same basic needs dictating their behavior: • The need to be special. • The need to travel light -- to minimize obligations and maximize independence. • The need for loyalty. • The need to be close emotionally, whether or not they can ask for it. Once women understand these needs, they can help men see that commitment is a strength, and not a weakness. Why Men Won't Commit will show women how to enter places where her man has not allowed any other woman to go...and stay there in a loving, committed relationship.

The author of the now-classic Permanent Partners presents a helpful, compassionate, and wise guide for lesbian and gay couples as their relationships mature.When Permanent Partners appeared in 1988, it was widely hailed as the first significant book aimed at helping lesbian and gay couples build fulfilling partnerships. Now, drawing on additional insights she has gained in the intervening years, Betty Berzon provides specific advice for those in long-term relationships (three years and longer) who are coping with the inevitable surprises, complications, and concerns about identities merging, sex waning, or the inability to resolve conflicts. Since gay and lesbian partners have few models to guide them, couples too often opt for ending the relationship rather than learning to work through their problems.Weaving in the story of her own twenty-two year relationship, Dr. Berzon addresses these issues along with failures of communication, competing career demands, illnesses, substance-abuse problems, and mid-life crises. She also deals with the issue of monogamy, and though she discourages non-monogamy, she provides strategies for how best to deal with an open relationship when that is what a couple decides to do.As the leading authority on strengthening gay and lesbian partnerships, Dr. Berzon provides the soundest and most realistic advice for any couple interested in a stable and rewarding life together.