Essential Ideas: Love

by The School of Life

The School of Life’s approach to love - in a pocket format 

In the first of a series of pocket books, The School of Life has distilled its most essential ideas on love in order to produce a bitesize manual that is both useful and entertaining. 

We learn – among other things – how to pick partners more reliably, how to avoid conflict and how to know whether a relationship is really for us. By exploring key themes within the topic of relationships, such as Anxious Attachment, Attachment theory, Long-term love, Romantic disappointment, Secrets in love and Crushes, this book shows us how satisfied love life is not a chance event but something that we can all plot for and achieve. 

Love is a skill, not an emotion; this is a guide to how we might master it.

Pair with the Connect Cards and The Compatibility Game, to help foster connection and closeness.

82 pages, Kindle Edition

Published November 7, 2024

About the author

The School of Life is a global organisation helping people lead more fulfilled lives.

We believe that the journey to finding fulfilment begins with self-knowledge. It is only when we have a sense of who we really are that we can make reliable decisions, particularly around love and work.

Sadly, tools and techniques for developing self-knowledge and finding fulfilment are hard to find – they’re not taught in schools, in universities, or in workplaces. Too many of us go through life without ever really understanding what’s going on in the recesses of our minds.

That’s why we created The School of Life; a resource for helping us understand ourselves, for improving our relationships, our careers and our social lives - as well as for helping us find calm and get more out of our leisure hours. We do this through films, workshops, books and gifts - as well as through a warm and supportive community.

Reviews

[Emily Talbot · Rating 2 out of 5]

150 words encouraging you to settle. Flop

[Sien Van Hoorebeeck · Rating 4 out of 5]

kort & bondig ☺️

[Ioana · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 stars

This is a short book, like a dictionary, taking themes related to love and expanding upon them. All in a "classical" view as the authors say. What it certainly is - is a mature view on love, departing and trying to fix the "romanticism" view that gets us in messy beliefs and situations. This I can agree with.

But, for someone who thinks a lot about love, this book left me with a lot of questions, a lot of half agreements: some things I agree with only to a half point where it all goes in a direction I, at least, need to explore, if not meet it with a disagreement.

What saddened me the most is the fact that, overall, I didn't get the end game: how does a relationship look like based on all these ideas, other than the meeting of 2 imperfect people?! Maybe it was a view too "classical" for me to appreciate, with a sort of stoic vibe about it. Or maybe these are just someone's ideas and that is that.

I'm grateful to have received a copy of this, for me it's a valuable book for it's a conversation starter and an invitation to think about one's position on love. That may or may not be the one written here.

[Adam Chamberlain · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Relationships are perhaps our single greatest source of both happiness and suffering. Unlike people in previous ages, we don't merely seek a partner we can tolerate; we seek someone we can love, usually over many decades, at an intense pitch of desire, commitment, and interest. We dream of someone who will understand us, with whom we can share our longings and our secrets, and with whom we can properly be ourselves. Then the horror begins. We need to understand why... We need to chart our own psyches and offer maps of our madness to partners early on, before we have had the chance to hurt them too much with our behaviour."

I have loved and appreciated so much of the School of Life's content for a long time. I don't always agree with its perspectives, but even when I don't it is valuable to question myself as to why. The Essential Ideas series presents some key ideas in a readily digestible format, but with each brief chapter offering much on which to reflect. As someone who values an integrative approach to psychology and philosophy, at times I found the rejection of Romanticism and embrace of Classicism herein to be a little too complete for me, although it just as often often rings true. The School of Life is a valuable, carefully-curated body of work, and this is a great place to start.

[Hestia Istiviani · Rating 3 out of 5]

The School of Life Essential Ideas series: Love contains terminologies that we know as “love” like, “kissing”, “monogamy,” “single” etc.

It is like a dictionary, but in TSOL style: beautifully written and try to tackle the romantic idea of love, instead giving the readers realistic approach of what love is.

This book actually is a quick read. It’s only 90s pages. But unfortunately I found this kinda boring. Perhaps because I already read TSOL’s Relationship before and there are same ideas on several terms from this book.

For those of you who never read TSOL’s Relationship, Essential Ideas: Love is also can be read as your “introduction” to know about realistic love without being shocked that TSOL “deny” romantic idea of love.

This book will be officially published on November 2024. I read ARC version from NetGalley.

[Eviana · Rating 5 out of 5]

Love is a wide concept and there is a lot to explore with love. The attachment theory was the foundation of love and even the ongoing trends in dating apps. It's divided into short explanations but packed and well-written.
The best part that I like is, that we cannot talk about love excluding self-love. Love is not always about others, but also inward. There are a lot of things unexplained about love, we don't have a class about love at school. This book can be a good introduction to know more about love.

Thank you, The School of Life!

[Katie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Essential Ideas: Love is a brief run-down of love in life. It discusses things like conflict, infidelity, monogamy and attachment styles. It was entertaining enough to read for a short book and offered exactly what it advertises, but it did just feel like a lot of common sense and common knowledge put together.

ARC was provided by the publisher via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. 

[Malak Souama · Rating 3 out of 5]

Thank you NetGalley for giving me the chance to enjoy the literature yet to be released.
This was an interesting read that sums up love in modern times. Direct and genuine, a must keep on the coffee table for guests to enjoy a quick but enlightening text.

[Gianluca Rinaldi · Rating 4 out of 5]

A small vocabulary of Love that leaves you with plenty of stuff to think about. The kind of small book is essential to have to take it once in a while when you need to have a wider view on specific matters. Super nice!

[Ryan · Rating 4 out of 5]

A quirky, little book about love and relationships. Easy to read in one setting, but going deeper than some with relatable sentiment and humor .

Thanks to NetGalley and The School of Life for an ARC of this book.

[Bakhodir Ashirmatov · Rating 4 out of 5]

I would call the book „Love in minutes“ since it covers most aspects of Romantic and Classical views on love in a very compressed way.