Dating and relationships Books

Book SynopsisA psychiatrist and psychedelic researcher explores the science of connection—why we need it, how we’ve lost it, and how we might find it again.We are suffering from an epidemic of disconnection that antidepressants and social media can’t fix. This state of isolation puts us in “fight or flight mode,” deranging sleep, metabolism and libido. What’s worse, we’re paranoid of others. This kill-or-be-killed framework is not a way to live. But, when we feel safe and loved, we can rest, digest, and repair. We can heal. And it is only in this state of belonging that we can open up to connection with others.In this powerful book, Holland helps us to understand the science of connection as revealed in human experiences from the spiritual to the psychedelic. The key is oxytocin—a neurotransmitter and hormone produced in our bodies that allows us to trust and bond. It fosters attachment between mothers and infants, romantic partners, friends, and even with our pets. There are many ways to reach this state of mental and physical wellbeing that modern medicine has overlooked. The implications for our happiness and health are profound. We can find oneness in meditation, in community, or in awe at the beauty around us. Another option: psychedelic medicines that can catalyze a connection with the self, with nature, or the cosmos. Good Chemistry points us on the right path to forging true and deeper attachments with our own souls, to one another, and even to our planet, helping us heal ourselves and our world. 

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Book Synopsis“Tell Me A Story is breathtakingly tender, heartbreakingly true...The best memoir I’ve read.”   — Mary Alice Monroe, New York Times bestselling author of The Beach House Reunion Bestselling author Cassandra King Conroy considers her life and the man she shared it with, paying tribute to her husband, Pat Conroy, the legendary figure of modern Southern literature.Cassandra King was leading a quiet life as a professor, divorced “Sunday wife” of a preacher, and debut novelist when she met Pat Conroy. Their friendship bloomed into a tentative, long-distance relationship. Pat and Cassandra ultimately married, ending Pat''s long commutes from coastal South Carolina to her native Alabama. It was a union that would last eighteen years, until the beloved literary icon’s death from pancreatic cancer in 2016.I

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Book Synopsis“One of the first honest, moving and funny portrayals of a solid marriage I have ever read.” —Jessica Grose, The New York TimesA Best Book of 2022 from The New Yorker and Chicago TribuneAn illuminating, poignant, and savagely funny examination of modern marriage from Ask Polly advice columnist Heather HavrileskyIf falling in love is the peak of human experience, then marriage is the slow descent down that mountain, on a trail built from conflict, compromise, and nagging doubts. Considering the limited economic advantages to marriage, the deluge of other mate options a swipe away, and the fact that almost half of all marriages in the United States end in divorce anyway, why do so many of us still chain ourselves to one human being for life?In Foreverland, Heather Havrilesky illustrates the delights, aggravations, and sublime calamities of her marriage over the span of fifteen years, charting an unpredictable course from meeting her one true love to slowly learning just how much energy is required to keep that love aflame. This refreshingly honest portrait of a marriage reveals that our relationships are not simply “happy” or “unhappy,” but something much murkier—at once unsavory, taxing, and deeply satisfying. With tales of fumbled proposals, harrowing suburban migrations, external temptations, and the bewildering insults of growing older, Foreverland is a work of rare candor and insight. Havrilesky traces a path from daydreaming about forever for the first time to understanding what a tedious, glorious drag forever can be.Trade Review"This book is a delight. Funny, honest and deeply romantic, Havrilesky does the world a favor by letting us peek inside her mind and her marriage." — Chicago Tribune "This reads like a confession from a friend who has examined their own life through an intellectual and emotional lense -- and comes out with some answers for us." — Good Morning America “In its own sardonic and skeptical fashion, “Foreverland” is a tender book, full of touching descriptions of falling and staying in love, even in the face of the profound frustrations.” — The New Yorker "She walks the tightrope here, unflinching in her appraisal, indulgent in her praise… The book is a delight; it is a magic trick. It is also terrifically funny.” — Southern Review of Books "Wise, witty, profane, even profound.... Her voice is so engaging, and her comic timing so impeccable, that she turns the “divine tedium” of her marriage into a rollicking adventure for her readers, too." — Associated Press “I instantly fell in love with Heather Havrilesky's new book Foreverland…. I deeply identified with her raw, real, and often hilarious take on motherhood, growing older, and the challenges of tethering yourself to another person.” — InStyle Magazine “Funny, forthright…. In Foreverland, Havrilesky considers the ups and downs of married life, writing with candor about its undeviating dullness and surprising upsides …. Whether single or spoken for, readers are sure to fall for Havrilesky’s charming memoir.” — BookPage “Havrilesky’s neurotic, self-deprecating sense of humor is always on display and adds a comedic twist on universal themes.” — San Francisco Chronicle “Equal parts curiosity, humor and disarming candor, rejecting the platitudes with which so many of us (especially women) have long been bombarded…. At once a tribute to the joy of finding the one and the woes of putting up with them.” — St. Louis Post-Dispatch “Filled with barbed humor and hilarious anecdotes drawn from her own marriage, it is a delightfully engaging love letter to matrimony that is both highly entertaining and profoundly insightful.” — Atlanta Journal-Constitution "A beautifully honest exploration of marriage in all its intricacies." — Shondaland “One of the first honest, moving and funny portrayals of a solid marriage I have ever read.” — Jessica Grose, The New York Times "Both married and unmarried audiences will find something to cherish in this book on what it means to have a good marriage, what a marriage is at all, and how to retain one’s identity, as well as desires, in the face of binding yourself to another." — Literary Hub “Havrilesky’s portrayal of the gritty underside of marriage is honest and searing.” — Jacobin "Newlyweds, nearlyweds, and golden-anniversary celebrants alike will find much that is familiar, inspiring, and comforting in Havrilesky’s clear-eyed paean to marital bliss and blunders." — Booklist (starred review) "Havrilesky’s candid reflections will delight those who’ve taken the plunge, for better or for worse." — Publishers Weekly "Havrilesky successfully provides ample opportunities for readers to laugh, commiserate, and critique, regardless of their phase in life or marital status." — Library Journal "Heather Havrilesky’s Foreverland is full of razor-sharp, big-hearted wisdom about conflict, lust, obsession, parenting, road trips, daily survival, and the saving, terrifying power of honesty. Her willingness to behold the frustrations of intimacy is what makes her—ultimately—such a keen and necessary scribe of its grace. I want to share this book with my exes, my mother, my partner, future versions of my daughter, future versions of myself, and every last reader I could shake by the shoulders and say: You might not know it, but you need this. It will help you survive your own life." — Leslie Jamison, New York Times bestselling author of The Recovering “The inner workings of other people’s relationships are usually cloaked in mystery and papered over with platitudes. By letting us closely observe her fifteen-year marriage—nose-hair trimmers, random crushes, warts, and all—Heather makes us all feel less alone in our own weird and wonderful partnerships. There’s something so refreshing about a book that doesn’t try to convince you to invest in your marriage, and instead describes how difficult it is to do exactly that. I laughed. I cried. I didn’t file for divorce.” — Ann Friedman, New York Times bestselling coauthor of Big Friendship “In a time of carefully managed, painstakingly cropped, plastic Instagram families, Heather Havrilesky’s incisive examination of marriage and family, Foreverland, reads, refreshingly, like a war diary—a generously candid, disarmingly heartfelt examination of those we love, what we value, and why. Occasionally meditative, brutally insightful, effortlessly witty, and always honest, Heather Havrilesky should be a household name, a guru for those of us whose hair itches at the thought of gurus.” — Lauren Hough, New York Times bestselling author of Leaving Isn’t the Hardest Thing

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Book SynopsisA thoughtful, down-to-earth, contemporary guide to help partners identify and address relationship-killing behavior patterns in their own lives.Good people can be bad at relationships. One night during his divorce, after one too many vodkas and a call with a phone-in-therapist who told him to “journal his feelings,” Matthew Fray started a blog. He needed to figure out how his ex-wife went from the eighteen-year-old college freshman who adored him to the angry woman who thought he was an asshole and left him. As he pieced together the story of his marriage and its end, Matthew began to realize a hard truth: even though he was a decent guy, he was a bad husband.  As he shared raw, uncomfortable, and darkly humorous first-person stories about the lessons he’d learned from his failed marriage, a peculiar thing happened. Matthew started to gain a following. In January 2016 a post he wrote—“She Divorced Me Because I left the Dishes by the Sink”—went viral and was read over four million times.Filtered through the lens of his own surprising, life-changing experience and his years counseling couples, This Is How Your Marriage Ends exposes the root problem of so many relationships that go wrong. We simply haven’t been taught any of the necessary skills, Matthew explains. In fact, it is sometimes the assumption that we are acting on good intentions that causes us to alienate our partners and foment mistrust.With the humorous, entertaining, and counterintuitive approach of The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck, and the practical insights of The 5 Love Languages, This is How Your Marriage Ends helps readers identify relationship-killing behavior patterns in their own lives, and offers solutions to break free from the cycles of dysfunction and destruction. It is must-read for every partner no matter what stage-beginning, middle, or even end—of your relationship.

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