All About Love

New Visions

Creator(s)
bell hooks
Publisher
Harper
Year
1999

This is an excellent book. I loved reading it, even when it left me sobbing at my desk. It was an emotionally difficult read. Every word I needed to hear, and every reaction I needed to confront and examine. I recommend this book to anyone that wants to learn more about love.

A couple of takeaways that stood out to me.

The concept of “family of origin”. bell uses this phrase often when referring to her family, I don't know if she coined it, but it stuck right in my head, and it connected a dot in my mind that had long been bothering me.

Spiritual practice is very important to the pursuit of understanding of love. I like this idea a lot, this is not something explicitly stated in bell's own words, but it is something I inferred while reading. I think about my own relationship and traumas with religion and spirituality and how I've pulled away, but am still inexplicably drawn to the universe, and something bigger than myself.