by bell hooks

NONFICTION. PHILOSOPHY. LOVE

From the first pages of this contemplative masterpiece, bell hooks asks deep, resonant questions plainly, as if you are a small child and she is your preschool teacher. In a culture obsessed with sex, she writes, why do we spend so little energy understanding love? As a thought-leader who spent her career (professor at USC, Yale & Oberlin) writing about the intersection of race, gender and class, hooks guides us into the murky waters of conversation around love and dives into our collective reluctance to clarify love’s definition.

Love is an action, hooks teaches, and love is as love does. Furthermore, “To truly love we must learn to mix various ingredients - care, affection, recognition, respect, commitment, and trust, as well as honest and open communication…” into the action of caring for your own and the other’s spiritual growth.

In thirteen eloquent chapters, hooks unravels the dimensions of love (from parental love to self-love to divine love) while investigating it through different lenses. hooks offers affirmation of her perspective by heartily citing a truly inspirational reading list from Thomas Merton to Toni Morrison. For those of us interested in death literacy, hook’s chapter, “Loss: Loving into Life and Death”, can stand alone as a short essay on the meaning of love in both death and grief.

At times hooks perched haughtily on her soap box, but overall her strength in this work is the ability to explore one concept, in both its minutiae and from a bird’s eye view. hooks scans the horizon of collective love, in a culture preoccupied with power, and hones in to the individual family systems that repetitively teach this unexamined value.

As I start the day today, I turn to the mirror where I’ve copied the affirmation shared in chapter four, her chapter on self-love titled, “Commitment: Let Love Be Love In Me”: “I’m breaking with old patterns and moving forward with my life.” I feel as if I have a miniature hologram of bell hooks in my pocket today, reminding me of this new vision of love she has gifted me with and my dedication to bring love into the world.

The Farewell Library is where Jade blends her love of literature with her passion for death literacy and grief awareness. Jade offers a monthly Death & Grief-focused virtual book club, book reviews of the latest Death and Grief centered books and tips and tricks for aspiring death workers and others standing at the sacred thresholds of death and grief. Please support this series by ordering from Bookshop.org