Drawing on an impressive array of cultural resources, from Freud and Malinowski to Mad Men and Elvis Presley, Lisa Appignanesi limns love in all its infuriating complexity. ‘In our imagining of the good life’, she concludes, ‘it is not only the fundamental rights of security and freedom the state is able to enshrine that are essential. We also need love. We need to give as well as take it. We need solidarity with our fellow beings. Happiness is not the question here. Love can bring that, but often does not. We need love because it confronts us with the heights and depths of our being, shows us what we can and cannot endure and reconciles us to what we discover in ourselves and others. We need love so as to be the human creatures that we are at our best, at once great and greatly fragile.’

Virago Press Ltd | Paperback 416 pp. |ISBN: 9781844085910