Books to curl up to on Valentine's Day


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Books to curl up to on Valentine's Day

By Ron Berthel
Associated Press Writer

If you don’t receive any of the estimated 1 billion valentine cards being sent this year, don’t despair. A book full of them can be yours in Greetings With Love: The Book of Valentines (Pelican, $19.95).

The book features color reproductions — plenty of red, of course — of more than 200 old-fashioned valentines decorated with hearts, flowers, cherubs and other romantic symbols. Michele Karl adds text about Valentine’s Day origins, history and trivia (including the tidbit about the 1 billion cards, attributed to the Greeting Card Association). There are recipes (candied rose petals, chocolate cheesecake), crafts (heart-shaped soap, dry-pasta art) and a guide to saying ‘‘I love you’’ in 34 languages, from American Sign to Vietnamese.

But it’s not the only new book in which love blooms this Valentine’s Day.

Bogie and Bacall, John and Yoko, Jackie and Jack, Liz and Richard: These and other ‘‘great romances of the 20th century’’ are celebrated in Portraits of Love (Filipacchi, $29.95). More than 200 photos, some in color, show 10 famous couples as they — well, pretty much just hang out with each other. Marilyn Monroe and Arthur Miller pose happily on the lawn; John F. Kennedy and his bride, Jacqueline, are seated at their wedding reception, ready to dig into the fruit salad; and Rita Hayworth and a relatively svelte Orson Welles stroll arm-in-arm along the beach.

Valentine’s Day is all about the heart — and so is The Book of the Heart (Doubleday, $30). Louisa Young offers a ‘‘biography’’ of the heart as an anatomical organ, in art, in religion and, of course, in romance. Accompanying the narrative are illustrations, poetry, offbeat facts and a recipe — not for the perfect romance, but for pigs’ hearts in orange sauce.

Who wrote The Book of Love (Forge, $25.95)? Alfred Lord Tennyson, Maya Angelou, Kahlil Gibran, Emily Dickinson, Confucius, Elizabeth Barrett Browning and the many others quoted in this collection of works inspired by ‘‘the greatest of virtues.’’ Among their words of wisdom: ‘‘Love comforteth, like sunshine after rain’’ (Shakespeare); ‘‘Choose in marriage only a woman who you would choose as a friend if she were a man’’ (Joseph Joubert); and ‘‘To cheat oneself out of love is the most terrible deception’’ (Soren Kierkegaard). Editors Andrew M. Greeley and Mary G. Durkin provide commentary on their selections, which are arranged into 12 sections, including young love, married love, friendship and, alas, lost love.

Lost love — as in ‘‘Get lost!’’ — is the subject of two new books with the same title: Dumped. One (Grove, $14 paperback) is an anthology of 23 tales of heartbreak, edited by B. Delores Max (who ‘‘has been dumped many times,’’ says her bio). Contributors include Jane Austen, Raymond Carver, Alice Munro and Roald Dahl. The other (Bloomsbury, $9.95), written and illustrated by Britton Payne, is designed to bring comfort to the ‘‘dumpee,’’ at last promising, ‘‘You’ll get your happy ending.’’

''Don't cry because it's over. Smile because it happened.'' Those words, from the prolific Anonymous, are among the inspirational writings about love and romance in Chicken Soup for the Romantic Soul (Health Communications, $12.95 paperback). Jack Canfield compiled this volume of stories, cartoons and one-liners: Dave Barry describes that ''Serious Talk'' with his son; in a cartoon by Bob Zahn, a customer asks that his pizza be gift-wrapped because ''today's our anniversary''; and Plato says, ''At the touch of love, everyone becomes a poet.''

Everyone is a poet in The 100 Best Love Poems of All Time (Warner, $9.95 paperback). Editor Leslie Pockell has chosen poems from centuries-old classics to contemporary works, by poets from Dante to Donne, Li Po to Tu Fu, all to celebrate matters of the heart and objects of affection. ‘‘O my luve’s like a red, red rose,’’ wrote Robert Burns, while Edgar Allan Poe tells Helen, ‘‘Thy beauty is to me like those Nicean barks of yore.’’ Leigh Hunt waxed poetic because ‘‘Jenny kiss’d me’’ while Margaret Walker admits her love for Alex, ‘‘my monkey-wrench man ... my sweet patootie.’’

Among the many books offering advice for finding love or improving a relationship are:

Truly Mars and Venus (HarperCollins, $19.95), illustrated and handbook-size, with advice and observations extracted from John Gray’s popular ‘‘Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus.’’ Topics include how to stop trying to change a man, things to do when he goes into his ‘‘cave’’ and how to ask for and get support.
The 100 Simple Secrets of Great Relationships (HarperSanFrancisco, $11.95 paperback) are secret no more! Author David Niven offers relationship advice supported by scientific findings. Secret No. 62, ‘‘Friendships Predict Relationships’’; No. 94, ‘‘Nice People Don’t Finish Last.’’
The Love Magic Book (Little, Brown, $14.95) by Gillian Kemp offers ‘‘potions for passion and recipes for romance.’’ For example, to make love grow, she suggests, ‘‘sprinkle a handful of rice, a handful of parsley seeds and a handful of sesame seeds’’ into a bowl, swirl them around and scatter them on the ground.

If it fails to make love grow, at least you have the beginnings of a nice casserole.

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