*A Book About Love*, by Jonah Lehrer

Here is my deliberately short review: It is a good book.

Here is David Brooks’s NYT review, he notes “The book is interesting on nearly every page.”

I am well aware of Lehrer’s previous failings, but today I am evaluating only this book.  Paul Celan went so far as to try to kill his wife, but still he is one of my favorite poets of the twentieth century.  I also can walk through a museum without much worrying about my knowledge of artistic biographies — for the living and the dead — and no one seems to think that is weird or an uncalled for way to look at the art.

I have read the Jennifer Senior NYT “take down” review, but I don’t think she scores many points.  While many criticisms of “pop psychology” books about love can be made, and with considerable validity, in those regards Lehrer’s book is well above average for the genre.

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