Love Illuminated: Exploring Life's Most Mystifying Subject (With the Help of 50,000 Strangers) Paperback – February 3, 2015

"A man who has read letters about love from 50,000 people must have some brilliant insights on the topic," was my thought as I ordered this book without knowing anything about it other than the NY Times `Modern Love' column my friend had forwarded to me. Luckily, it was a decent gamble: I enjoyed "Love Illuminated" and learned much from it.Jones covers the full spectrum of relationships via 9 chapters: pursuit, destiny, vulnerability, connection, trust, practicality, monotony, infidelity, loyalty, and wisdom. His treatment of the topics is consistently lighthearted and even funny, never soap-box preachy. I broke out into FVG (full-volume guffaw) at least 3 times (LOL ain't what it used to be).He approaches the topics descriptively rather than prescriptively, befitting his role as reporter rather than licensed therapist (for relevant books by professionals, I would recommend Dr Gordon Livingston's  How to Love  and Dr John Gottman's indispensable  The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work ). Jones presents the full taxonomy of possibilities for a given challenge and then presents you with the pluses and minuses for each, allowing you to decide what works. For example, to preserve individuality in your marriage, you can get separate houses, get an office spouse, or have an open marriage. (There are similar lists for handling monotony, and deciding upon your married last name.) He then illustrates each outcome with case histories from readers' letters, which are the most fun part of the book.His observations on online dating and its perils are particularly dead-on. About lying in online profiles: "Many online daters view this kind of low-grade lying as being like doping in professional sports: i.e., the practice is so pervasive that you can't possibly expect to compete if you don't do it." Particularly insightful is his suggestion that isolating yourself with just a few like-minded folks - e.g. a monthlong kayak trip or a Peace Corps jaunt - might work a lot better for meeting a match than the usual advice to go out and meet tons of people.Jones is exceptionally clear-eyed on two other controversial topics besides: the inevitable monotony that settles into long-term relationships, and infidelity. It's easy to lapse into ideology or tired quasi-scientific tropes on these topics; instead he reports on what happens in real life to real people.All of that, plus the destiny effect, arranged marriages, guru matchmakers and booty grazing: these are some of the new and amusing things I read about in this lighthearted, compassionate and insightful book. If you're a human who's interested love and its inner workings (that would be all of us), something in this book is bound to speak to your directly while making you giggle in the process.-- Ali Binazir, MD, author of  The Tao of Dating , the #1-rated dating book on Amazon for 157 weeks

I, like most other girls, grew up on Disney fairy tales. Naturally, I presumed, up until I was 15, that a magical prince was going to fly in through my window one day and tell me I am the most beautiful girl he has ever seen before whisking me away into the sunset. Obviously that didn't happen, and over the years, I have adopted a more realistic approach to love.Reading this book was extremely enlightening, in that it points out the realism of love and marriage very bluntly. The author doesn't try to sugarcoat things or make things sound better than they seem - he writes it as he sees it. The truth is, relationships are hard. Love is hard. Marriage is hard. But, like all things in life, a little effort every day goes a long way. Daniel Jones talks about each stage of a relationship, and illuminates certain truths with anecdotes and stories from his stint as the editor of a relationship column on the NY Times.I think it's important to go into this book with a positive mindset; there is a lot to be learnt about how to be a better partner (or a better person in general), as long as you don't let the depressing undertones of the book get to you.

A former classmate and friend was on T.V. With Katie Couric and the author of this book because she herself had an unusual love story to tell. I was intrigued, and bought his book. Love is an endlessly fascinating process. I love to know what makes people tick and why we do what we do. Daniel Jones wrote this book from thousands of stories told to him through a column in the New York Times, and his own - about love. The book is a very entertaining read, and love is still a fascinating and often enchanting mystery, different for each one of us. All ages can enjoy. Scientific? Definitely not. Thank goodness.

As a devoted Modern Love reader, I was excited to see how Jones would share all the things he has "learned" about love. Overall, a great read if you want to explore a bit me about the world of love and its place in your life. The sections on monogamy and passion and cheating were a little off for me, but that could just be my own life/love experience affecting my read. The conclusion was interesting, do we feel love our choose love? Still contemplating that one...

A devoted reader of Modern Love, I am always inspired by the unusual love stories Daniel Jones publishes in his column. Contemplating his own life experience and the thousands of strangers' stories he has read as an editor, Jones gives us "Love Illuminated," an examination of different aspects of love, from the chase to staying together to coming apart. Unlike so many books on the subject, "Love Illuminated" does not reduce love into a list of instructions on how to find your mate or stay married. Instead, the book elucidates wildly different experiences of love, all of which lead to revelations about the self, if not always the fairytale ending. Full of wisdom, this is a worthwhile read for anyone interested in the maddeningly complicated subject of relationships.

I cannot stop laughing at this book. GET IT. You will love it. Getting the opportunity to look at love from someone who's just about seen it all is really fun and special. It showed me there are up sides and downsides to just about every situation and choice we make when it comes to love, which is actually quite nice to know. Nobody has cracked the code for how to "do it just right" really. We are all just stumbling around in the dark doing our best to find and keep love. And I'm not sure humanity will ever do much better than that--although we're always trying to "learn about it" and somehow "improve". Really enjoyed.

Terrific. Nothing more to say. I wish several friends and relatives who either went into relationships or marriages or found themselves in them with regret could read this good book. But it is equally good for those wishing to avoid regret. For the price of this book you could save yourself a lot of heartache and expense too (and possibly do the same for your children). A particularly good part of this book is how he examines alternative options for preventing or treating relationship/marital dysharmony and shows in an even sided manner what the upsides and downsides might be. Buy this (and yes read it!) before even thinking of going into relationship or marriage counselling let alone divorce and I think you will thank yourself

Daniel Jones is amazing. An awesome read. Plus it was cheap and shipped quickly!!

I haven't read the whole book but it is okay I guess.

Libro de segunda mano como nuevo.