From Roger Rosenblatt, author of the acclaimed memoirs Making Toast, Kayak Morning, and The Boy Detective, comes another lyrical meditation on-and celebration of-a universal and elusive subject.

In The Book of Love, Roger Rosenblatt looks at love in all its themes and variations-romantic love, courtship, marriage, battle, heartbreak, fury, confusion, melancholy, beauty, delirium, ecstasy; love of lovers, family, friends, of country, of work, writing, solitude, of art; love of nature; love of life itself.

Using lines from love songs to create a kind of verbal jazz riff, as infectious as it is engaging, Rosenblatt intersperses thoughts about love with fictional vignettes that capture a variety of lovers in different situations with notes addressed to you, his wife of fifty years. Pieces follow upon one another in a continuous progression, as if composing one long song that flows through the entire mystery and magic of what it means to love and be in love.