The Little Book of Heartbreak
Love Gone Wrong Through the Ages
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4.7 • 3 Ratings
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- $5.99
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- $5.99
Publisher Description
The perfect anti-valentine: a whirlwind tour through love’s most crushing moments
What’s the best way to mend a broken heart? Forget ice cream, wine, and sappy movies. Journalist Meghan Laslocky advises: Read through the pain. From forbidden love in 12th century Paris to the art of crafting the perfect “I’m over you” mix, The Little Book of Heartbreak is a quirky exploration of all things lovelorn, including:
• How serial cheater Ernest Hemingway stole his wife’s job just as their marriage was collapsing
• Kinky spells cast by lovesick men in ancient Greece
• Painter Oscar Kokoschka’s attempt to get over an ex by creating (and having liaisons with!) her life-size replica
• Brooding crooner Morrissey’s personal creed about how romantic love is useless
• The surprising science behind heartbreak and love addiction
• The connection between World War II and what you talk about with your therapist
• Insights into the tricky chemistry of monogamy and infidelity, courtesy of tiny rodents
• And other lessons learned from ill-fated romances, lovers’ quarrels, and hell-hath-no-fury spats throughout the ages
Featuring anecdotes from history, literature, culture, art and music, The Little Book of Heartbreak shares the entertaining, empowering and occasionally absurd things that happen when love is on its last legs.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In this breezy book, Laslocky collects tales of history's greatest love affairs gone awry, and offers advice from music, science, and personal experience (according to her bio, she's "been dumped at least a dozen times, including on my birthday") on how to get over the end of an affair. After a quick gloss over the history of romantic love, Laslocky showcases just how tough some loves can be, from H lo se and Abelard's forbidden romance in 12th-century Paris, to relationships so dysfunctional like Lord Byron and Lady Caroline Lamb's that their dissolution is worthy of applause. Though practical advice on how to cope with heartbreak comprises little more than books, movies, and music suggestions, there's plenty of warmth and humor. If nothing else, the long list of folks who survived love lends credit to Laslocky's view of heartbreak as "transformative," and reminds readers that though they are lonely, they are certainly not alone.
