Conversations on Love: Lovers, Strangers, Parents, Friends, Endings, Beginnings

by Natasha Lunn

A celebration of love in all its forms, featuring conversations with: Philippa Perry on falling in love slowly * Candice Carty-Williams on friendship * Alain de Botton on the psychology of being alone * Dolly Alderton on vulnerability * Emily Nagoski on the science of sex * Diana Evans on parenthood * Lisa Taddeo on the loneliness of loss * Esther Perel on unrealistic expectations * Stephen Grosz on accepting change * Roxane Gay on redefining romance * and many more

Genres: Nonfiction, Self Help, Essays, Love, Psychology, Romance, Relationships

320 pages, Paperback

First published July 8, 2021

Reviews

[emma · Rating 5 out of 5]

i highly recommend reading this five hours into a six hour wait at an airport for an increasingly delayed plane, slowly feeling that overpriced-salad identical-not-very-bookish-bookstores busiest-starbucks-in-world-history layover rage give way to an incredibly irritating fondness for everyone you see.

if you've been here a bit you may have seen me say my absolute favorite books remind me that life is magical, that even its mundane moments are filled with love and beauty.

this is that on every page.

this read couldn't have come at a better time for me, as i both marked the time between five star reads in months and navigate the growing seriousness of being super crazy stupid cheesy boring capital I capital L In Love for the first time—the scariest thing i've ever done.

this soothed me on both and made my heart feel full.

bottom line: i'm so happy i read it.

-------------------
pre-review

i'm going to say it...

the jinxiest thing you can say...

i feel like this could be a five star.

update: i love to be right.

review to come / 5 STARS!!!!!!!!!!!

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tbr review

i want to be an instagram girl

[daniella ❀ · Rating 5 out of 5]

if i could only recommend one book in my life, this is that one book

[elle · Rating 4 out of 5]

if you like everything you know about love, you will love this book. it manages to describe moments in life in the electrifying and beautiful way it’s meant to be described.

this is an ode to love and its many variants and manifestations in our daily lives: from falling in love to friendships to grief. just like the definition of love, i think this book will mean different things to everyone who reads it. at one point, i found that the words of this book intertwined with my life and my personal experiences. i so so so loved that natasha lunn pieced together the book in a way that allowed me to have the opportunity and space to reflect on our own lives and the people around us that we love so dearly.

just such a delightful read that made my heart so so full.

[Paromjit · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a unmissable, fascinating, and absolutely riveting read from Natasha Lunn, profoundly moving, thoughtful, sensitive and empathetic in its exploration of a subject that lies at the heart of what it is to be human, our capacity to be happy, fulfilled, and being able to live a life worth living. Given the importance of love, it is surprising that we know and understand it so little, this wise tome goes a long way towards addressing this. Lunn provides us with intimate details of her personal life, whilst interviewing and discussing the subject of love from a widely disparate range of people and their differing perspectives.

This includes the likes of Alain de Botton, Philippa Perry, Dolly Alderton, Lisa Taddeo, Candice Carty-Williams, Stephen Grosz and Roxane Gay, and their thoughts on becoming comfortable with the possibility of being alone, taking your time when it comes to falling in love, being vulnerable, the critical importance of friendships, loneliness, loss, being a parent, and coming to terms with change. It begins with what most often occupies our minds when it comes to love, romantic love, the idea of love, not the truth of it, it seeks a definition of love, the need to move beyond the limits and rigidities in the minds of so many. It focuses on learning to recalibrate our minds and expanding our definition of love, moving beyond the romantic idealisation, fantasies and expectations that cause us not to see each other. To start seeing ourselves and others with more honesty, more accepting of flaws that make us all too human, and becoming comfortable in being who we are, so that we can live our lives more truthfully and authentically.

The focus is on increasing our number of connections with others and the different forms of love they bring into our lives, grounding us with our friends, family, paying attention to our spiritual sides and increasing our links to the wider community. This contributes to our mental health, resilience and happiness, making us more able to cope with the challenges that are going to come our way. The book is organised in 3 parts, how do we find love, how do we sustain love and how do we survive losing love?, followed by a conclusion with its overview. I was impressed with the range of people Lunn drew on, the heartbreaks, the grief, providing wider perspectives on love, such as parents who have faced the unbearable loss of a child, others who have lost their partners, and someone who is no longer able to walk.

I think readers might well be surprised at just how much this book will resonate with their life experiences, at how we can so often be our own worst enemies when it comes to allowing a multitude of forms of love and happiness enter our lives. I cannot imagine anyone who would not be drawn into this sensitive, yet forensic, research into a subject that is so littered with misunderstandings, the paucity of knowledge in our understanding of it. A superb and eye opening book that I will be buying for others, and which I recommend highly to everyone. Many thanks to the publisher for an ARC.

[aitana ☾ · Rating 2 out of 5]

i’m VERY conflicted about this book, it has taken me months to read (which is very unusual for me) and it put me in a huge reading slump. i think the ideas in this book are very interesting and i enjoyed the different perspectives we got to see, at the beginning i was flying though it because i really did like it but it soon became very repetitive and i just wanted to be done with it.

[Rachel · Rating 5 out of 5]

sometimes a book we don’t expect to wholeheartedly fall in love with comes into our lives at just the right time to provide us with some much needed introspection on everything we’ve been struggling with. I’ve made no secret of the fact that this year I’ve felt more at a loss with my life than I have before. My career (or lack there of), being away from my partner and family for long periods of time and my anxiety around my aspirations or the direction my life is heading in, has made me sadly forget the little things in life that fill my heart with love and gratitude.

born from lunn’s newsletter interviews, conversations on love expands on the vital concept of love in all its forms; romantic, platonic, familial, loss, grief; accompanying her questions about each subject with interviews from pop culture and literary figures. candice carty-williams on why her friendships matter more than romantic relationships in her life. roxane gay on how romantic love changed her outlook on contemporary society and romance. poorna bell on how her bond with her sister transcends liminal space and will be truly unbreakable. lunn’s own reflections on precious relationship breakdowns, her miscarriage and the impact on her marriage also carry significant weight and questions.

she allows the reader space to consider our own relationships and what truly brings us happiness, all with a beautiful linguistic flourish that is so rarely depicted in didactic essay collections. I truly did not expect to think about love in all its forms so deeply and with power and intention behind those thoughts. conversations on love is a welcome breath of fresh air to the genre, carrying lessons that I know I will take with me into the future.

Thank you to Viking for my gifted copy!

[Joana da Silva · Rating 5 out of 5]

I AM IN LOVE WITH THIS BOOK and I will make no apologies for it. Will I start every conversation from now on with the prompts from this book? Yes.
Will I quote from it to write my best friend's wedding speech? Of course.
Will it be my number one reference for life? Is that even a question?
Natasha Lunn, you precious soul, the first chapters felt like an intense session of therapy and the other ones showered me with wisdom and clarity. Thank you.

[carolina · Rating 5 out of 5]

everyone’s mom should read this. not you. this book isnt for you, it’s for your mom.

[Noqas · Rating 3 out of 5]

Although it’s an interesting approach to all forms of love, the book itself became very repetitive and hard to finish from a certain point, because it was more of the same.

But I do think it’s an important book and I believe it could make an impact on someone who’s going through a hard time, while reading it.

[Georgia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Like a nice big magazine with advice from my spiritual mum and dad, Esther Perel and Alain de Botton

[abigail ❥ · Rating 5 out of 5]

if i could rate this 10 stars, it would be 10/5

"You can be seen by various people in different ways, and no one person, not even your parents, can really see the whole of who you are. So it's about finding all the different people you can love, and seeing the positivity each of them brings to your life."

This book was a heavy read for me. It brought to the surface many emotions and I entirely felt the depth of them. Eye opening and sometimes mind boggling—I went in reading this wanting to come out on the other side with the tools to be the best possible loving version of myself in every way and I believe that I have. But I've also gained the knowledge that love is very much multilayered—faceted. It is broad and ever flowing and that this life in finite; we have to possess the courage to be all in, risk it, but also willing to feel it's pain.

[CCB · Rating 2 out of 5]

Filled with clichés and "have heard all of this before" ideas, I found this redundant and over simplified. The premise is interesting but I found the development poor. The structure is messy and disorganised, it's unclear whether certain topics are related or not.

[Paws with a Book · Rating 3 out of 5]

Through her own thoughts and a series of interview-like conversations, Natasha Lunn reflects on relationships in all their forms. It is split into three main sections, how we find love, how we sustain it, and how we survive when we lose it.

There is a lot to like about this book. It is written and flows together beautifully. There were a few sections however that began to meander and become a little too repetitive. Whilst I appreciated hearing from different voices and felt this added another layer to the book…I felt that a lot of the perspectives were quite similar. This added to the sense of repetition through the themes rather than unique or differing perspectives that give greater cause for pause and reflection.

I felt this book had an undertone of sadness to it, it tackles love in a lot of cases from the perspective of loss, or absence rather than of presence. I do feel the book is less about love than the title suggests but is more an exploration of loneliness, loss, and our human need for companionship.

Lunn tackles this from her own perspective, focussing on her experience with miscarriage and the impact this had on her and her relationships. For me, this was the real focal point of the book, and do think this should be made more apparent in the title or book summary, as it may be a trigger for a lot of people.

In addition to miscarriage, there are other difficult themes and conversations in this book, and whilst they are handled gently and sensitively, through Lunn’s writing and interview style, I will include trigger warnings for bereavement, miscarriage and difficulty to conceive.

I would like to thank Viking for a proof copy of this book. There is a lot to take from this book, and I would be surprised if there is not at least one section that each reader can find relatable or intriguing. For me, I enjoyed the exploration of how our fear of change, and fear of loss can impact on our relationships. I also enjoyed the exploration of love through different relationships and particularly found the conversations with Poorna Bell and Dolly Alderton insightful and relatable.

[aleksandra · Rating 4 out of 5]

4/5

If you love love, just do yourself a favor and read it please.

[Inês · Rating 3 out of 5]

I thought this book was going to be a series of essays by authors I was interested in reading. But it’s actually more revolving around the life of Natasha Lunn, and she interviews people to try and get “answers” to her life problems. I really wished it had been essays, because while following her life provided a sort of continuity to the story, in the end her life just wasn’t that interesting.

There was so much focus on having babies and miscarriage…like it was interesting to read and I do empathise with her, but at some point it felt repetitive and I just did not care enough. It all felt a bit heteronormative and privileged - which is fine because she’s just talking about her life, the problem is that I felt the book gave an impression of trying to show a universal experience of love.

The interviews were the most interesting part but many of them were too short. And the structure of the book:
Introduction by Natasha relating to her life —> “that’s why I asked author xyz to talk about…” —> interview —> summary of the interview by Natasha telling us what she learned. It got tiring.

Overall I liked reading it, and I do think that there is value in the message of the book, about living life in the present moment and noticing the positive in our lives, the small moments etc. And that we need to make an effort to not take relationships, whatever form they have, for granted. But as a book, overall I wished it was told in a different format.

[cossette · Rating 5 out of 5]

god i loved this so much. i think i annotated almost every page.

[Spadge Nunn · Rating 5 out of 5]

“For anyone who feels lost in longing”

I knew I’d struck gold the second I read that dedication.

In this book, Natasha Lunn shares very intimate and brave conversations that she conducts with a wide range of writers, romantics, doctors and experts. Many names you will recognise; some of them are in their 35th year of marriage, others are on their 2nd marriages, and others are committed to friendships alone.

These conversations explore a lot more than romantic love. In fact, ‘loss’ is a huge topic that highlights love in a very powerful way. Lunn talks to people who have lost partners, who have lost the ability to walk, who have lost parents at a young age, and devastatingly - people who have lost children too.

Lunn is an incredible writer and an incredible interviewer. Her metaphors are beautiful (see my quote choice below) and the questions she asks always unlocks incredible wisdom - all around topics that people are usually too afraid to delve into. I felt privileged reading such personal details.

I resonated so strongly with certain interviews, but I also gained valuable insight into other kinds of love and loss I won’t ever experience myself. It gave me a new appreciation for my life and the love within it.

I highlighted so many paragraphs in this book! But I’ll do my best to choose a favourite:

“The simple fact of the unknown was one I could not resist wrestling with. Like hauling a heavy suitcase up the stairs at a station, I imagined it would be easier if there were an end point in sight, because when you can see the top of the station stairs or the finish line of a run, it’s easy to dig deep for an extra bit of strength to get there.”

Conversations on Love is out on the 15th of July, thank you NetGalley for the arc.

[Hestia Istiviani · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ada nggak buku yang saking bagusnya, sampai bingung mau resensi kayak gimana?

Conversations on Love dari Natasha Lunn adalah salah satunya. Sejak bab pertama hingga aku menyelesaikannya dalam waktu 5 hari, magnetnya begitu kuat. Setiap paragraf ditulis dengan mengalir, dengan emosional tentang apa itu "Cinta."

Buku ini dibagi menjadi 3 bagian besar: How do we find love?; How do we sustain love?; How can we survive losing love?

Pembaca diajak berkelana bersama Lunn membahas apa itu "cinta" dengan 3 ide besar itu. Narasi Lunn mengantarkan kita pada percakapannya dengan filsuf, psikolog, penyair, penulis, & nama-nama yang nggak asing dalam skena menulis di barat sana.

Ambil contoh, ada nama Alaine de Botton, Philippa Perry, Emily Nagoski, Esther Perel, Roxane Gay dan masih banyak lagi. Percakapan itu melengkapi definisi "Cinta" yang Lunn coba ejawantahkan.

Sepanjang membaca Conversations on Love, ada perasaan hangat berkat "kasih sayang" yang nggak terbatas artinya kepada pasangan. Seperti yang tampak di bagian sampul, buku ini juga ingin menyentuh dimensi "cinta" kepada orangtua, teman, & manusia lain. Juga tentang mengawali dan mengakhiri cinta kasih itu sendiri.

Aku nggak bisa berkata banyak. Darip banyaknya bagian yang aku beri highlight, aku cuma sanggup menampilkan 2 favoritku. Buku ini sungguh pantas mendapatkan rating 5/5. Bahasannya tidak berat pun diatur sedemikian rupa agar enak dinikmati oleh siapapun.

Senang sekali bisa membaca tulisan Natasha Lunn dalam buku ini. Sekaligus menjadi sebuah refleksi untukku agar menjadi manusia yang punya lebih banyak cinta daripada kebencian.

[am · Rating 5 out of 5]

Took me 8 months to finish it because I didn’t want it to end. This book changed me forever :,)

[Khansaa · Rating 5 out of 5]

I used to think that love supposed to be hard.

I thought love was a series of struggle, that there will be a lot of pain that I had to endure in order to think "this is the right kind of love". This book, in fact, taught me differently.

Lunn allows me to understand that love is supposed to be easy. It's a process where you look in and look out. You take a risk in relationships, whether with your parent, spouse, or your friend. You need to show the real bits of who you are, and allow yourself to be vulnerable. You create it.

These are some of my favorite quotes from the book:

"Because being yourself in a relationship is a risk. It means showing someone the real bits of who you are--the spots beneath the make up; the self-doubt beneath the cynicism-and finding the courage to say 'This is me. Take it or leave it' and to really mean it."

"The best definition of happiness is the ability to approach your life as this gorgeous, unfolding work of art that's always changing that never quite you expected to be, and then seeing that it's more beautiful than anything that's supposedly perfect and pristine. So learning to love someone for all their faults and layers of weirdness is a way of learning to be alive, fulfilled, and satisfied with the life that you have."

and the last..

"To know someone is to love them. So you make someone the right person and they make you the right person. There isn't someone the right shape out there for every person--that has to happen in relationships. That's why relationships get better, because we allow mutual impact".

Reading Conversation on Love feels like a self-reflection, Lunn will guide you to see love in a different way with compassion. Every interview is more than getting famous names to talk (hello Philippay Perry, Roxane Gay, and Lisa Taddeo). They provide a great depth and an honest disclosure, that we all need to be loved.

Upon reading CoL, I never felt like Lunn telling me that "you have been wrong, and I am right." Instead, I felt like making a journey of self-discovery together with a best friend that has known me for a long time.

A beautiful read that I would call life-changing.

[Nada · Rating 5 out of 5]

محادثاتٌ عن الحبّ ..

عن الحبِّ بكلِّ أشكاله..

من أجملِ الكتبِ التي قرأتها ، سأعيدُ قرائته مراراً..

يُنصحُ به بشدّة..


"لا شيء مألوف مثل الحبّ ، و لا شيء غيره يضعنا في تلك الحيرةِ المُطبقة"


"منذُ اللحظةِ التي يولدون فيها..
يصيرُ الاخوةُ و الاخوات معاونينا و حلفاؤنا وقدواتنا..
يصلُ ازواجنا في وقتٍ متأخر نسبياً من حياتنا..
و يغادرنا آباؤنا في نهايةِ المطاف..
ربّما إخوتنا و أخواتنا هم الأشخاص الوحيدون فيمن نعرفهم المؤهلون حقاً لأن يكونوا شركائنا مدى الحياة"


"يكمنُ جزءٌ من النموّ في إعتيادِ خيباتِ الأمل و التخلي عن الفوقيّة و الكفّ عن رؤيةِ نفسك محور العالم ، أنتَ محور عالمك ، لكنّكَ لستَ محورُ العالم"


"أعتقدُ أنّ الحُبّ العميق الذي نشعرُ به تجاه أطفالنا هو ما يجعل تحّمل عبأ الامومةِ مُمكناً"


"أعِرْ إنتباهك للأوقاتِ التي تشعر فيها بالغضب ، فداخل الغضب تتوارى مفاتيحُ قصةٍ أعمق"


"يبدو الحُكمُ على ألمِ الآخرين غريباً بالنسبةِ لي ..
ما الحكمُ إلّا قناعٌ يُخفي وراءَه خزياً او غيرة"


"أعتقدُ أنّ المرءَ عند تعرضه لحدثٍ سيء ، يسألُ نفسه : كيف أنقلُ ماتعلمته من المعاناةِ الى العالم بايجابية ، بدلاً من الجلوسِ في الظلام؟"


"إنطوى الامرُ على شيءٍ من الانانيةِ بالنسبةِ لي ، فقد شعرتُ بالارتياح لدى الجلوس مع احدهم و الاستماع له ، و الاختفاء داخل افكاره بحيث لا أُترك وحيدةً مع أفكاري ، من المفيد و الشافي أن يُحاولَ المرءُ مساعدة الآخرين"


"أعرفُ أنّ الوحدةَ في الحزنِ أسوأ الاماكنِ قاطبة"

[Mahmoud Masoud · Rating 5 out of 5]

في كتب بتنتهي منها، وكتب ثانية بتنتهي منك .. أهو الكتاب ده من الكتب اللي عشت معاها شهور ومكنتش عايز أخلصه .. مش من حلاوته بس .. لا من كثر ما كنت بتأمل جُمله وعباراته .. ده واحد من الكتب اللي ضروري هتلمسك طول ما إنت إنسان!

الكتاب مش زي ما بيوحي اسمه البسيط جداً "محادثات في الحب" .. لا هو بيلمس مواضع كثير جداً في حياتنا .. الحب، الفقد، الخسارة، الأبوة، الأمومة، الإجهاض، الموت، الاحتضار، خسارة الأصدقاء، خسارة الأهل، التضحية.. الكتاب ده خلاني أتأمل أجزاء كثير من حياتي ومواقف كثير مريت بيها .. وفاة والدي واللي ما زال مأثر فيا .. خسارتي لأصدقاء كانوا قريبين جداً مني في أوقاتٍ ما .. تجربة إنك تمنح شخص حبك بدون مقابل وبدون ما تكون متأكد من حبه .. إنك تنكسر في أوقات كثير .. مواقف وتجارب مريت بها .. لقيتها هنا في الكتاب ده .. وتقريباً كده اللي هيمسك نسختي هيلاقيني هاريها علامات من كثر الإقتباسات والجمل اللي كنت بقف عندها ..

أعتقد ده واحد من الكتب اللي ممكن تغير نظرتك وتفكيرك لكثير من الأمور الحياتية .. وكونه كتاب مترجم فخليني أقولك إن الترجمة ممتازة جداً .. باختلاف تجاربنا وباختلاف آلامنا .. فكلنا في النهاية بشر .. هنشعر بنفس الآلام .. يمكن كل واحد فينا هيعبر عنها بطريقته مش أكثر ..

نسيت أقولك إن الكتاب عبارة عن محادثات أجرتها الكاتبة مع أشخاص كثير منهم فلاسفة زي "آلان دو بوتون" وكتّاب ومفكرين ..

كتاب أنصح به ..

[Lotte]

yeah ….. I don’t get it

[b0yc0tt amaz0ñ · Rating 5 out of 5]

een boek dat je, hoe je je ook voelt, volgens mij enkel in een nog betere gemoedstoestand kan brengen, geen handleiding hoe lief te hebben maar een hulde aan leven, aan accepteren, aan liefde in al haar vormen, gedaanten en daden, want wat we zoeken in een romantische relatie is vaak al elders aanwezig. liefde is als een dorp, het zijn je buren, toevallige passanten, familie en vrienden, veeleer dan die ene persoon gaat het om het vinden van dat dorp, het liefhebben en inzien wat elk van hen bijdraagt en hoewel het een boek was over liefde, werd benadrukt dat liefde niet het enige is dat telt in het leven >>>>>>>>>>>>>!

[Catherine · Rating 5 out of 5]

The complacency of modern life is that a lot of us believe we are immortal, and that we deserve happiness. We think it'll come to us, when actually we need to stop and look around in order to see that it's already there.

Love. For such a small word, it sure does hold a lot of weight. We fantasize about it – obsessively wondering when it'll happen for us – and when we have it, we may not even know what to do with it: how to nurture it, balance it, be gentle with both it and ourselves as we navigate it.

Natasha Lunn explores all kinds of love in this book: self, familial, platonic. The book is divided into three parts: How do we find love? How do we sustain it? How do we survive losing it?

One day as I was reading this on the subway alone, there was a man making a scene who decided to sit right across from me on a pretty empty cart. My heart was in my stomach, especially because there have been a lot of unprovoked attacks on women on the subway here this year. Not even one full stop went by before some men down the line came up and pretended to know me to escort me off the train for my safety.

That same day, not even an hour later, I sat at a McDonald's with my friends when a lady came up to us and asked if the pandemic was over. She told us she had not left her house in 3 years and doesn't have anyone to talk to, so she was asking random people. My heart traveled from my stomach to my throat. The thought of having no one to talk to, of not knowing the state of the world because no one visits you? It's too sad to even think about.

What does any of this have to do with the book? Nothing and everything. The men on the subway cared for a stranger when they knew I was helpless. That is love personified. The woman at McDonald's made me realize the human connection I take for granted because I'm too busy focusing on everything I don't have. The love you're looking for is actually all around you, not just in romance, but in the everyday moments with family, friends, strangers. It's everywhere. Open your heart and your eyes to it and you'll see it.

This is a book you can come back to time and time again because you will learn something new about yourself and how you perceive, give and accept love in your life in all different forms. Romantic love is amazing and we all deserve it, but it is not everything, and it is definitely not the benchmark for an amazing and fulfilling life.

I know for certain that I'm a better version of myself because I read this and I'm so much more aware of and grateful for the people around me. If you pick up any book I recommend, let it be this one. It might just change your life.

[zilan · Rating 4 out of 5]

everything’s romantic <3

[Dunja · Rating 5 out of 5]

verovatno najbitnija knjiga koju sam pročitala u životu

[Léa · Rating 5 out of 5]

(cws - miscarriage & grief)
THIS BOOK... WOW! Following a series of interviews from a wide range of bestselling and incredible authors, Natasha Lunn explores romantic love, friendships, family, parenthood, sexuality and loss. Depicting the importance of different relationships in our lives, love is everywhere... but why does it sometimes feel like we lack it? Hearing stories of the various ways love can form, I particularly loved the excerpts where writing was described as the greatest love of these authors lives, which as a writer myself was incredibly heartwarming and touching. Exploring the simplicity of everyday life and the most complex of our experiences, this book was incredibly hard to read at times but extremely necessary.

This book also made me SOB!!!! I genuinely think everybody should read this and that absolutely anybody will leave this book having learnt something new about every form of love, its meaning, its tribulations and its grievances.

[Emma Neill · Rating 5 out of 5]

Such a beautiful book I can see myself going back to this a million times when in need of certain messages and quotes. I feel like I learnt so much not only about love, loss, grief, but also about myself :)

[Mariana Afonso | Books Of My Own · Rating 5 out of 5]

what a beautiful book.
an essential read in a life.
the perfect book to gift someone, no matter who they are in our lives.