Marilyn Yalom: 7 books

“Absolutely marvelous…lively and learned….Marilyn Yalom’s book is a distinguished contribution to our experience of a great literature, as well as an endearing memoir.” —Diane Johnson, author of Lulu in Marrakech and Le Divorce “[An] enchanting tour of French literature—from...

A sweeping history of America as seen through its gravestones, graveyards, and burial practices, stunningly illustrated with eighty black-and-white photographs Cemeteries and burial grounds, as illuminated by an acclaimed cultural historian, are unique windows onto our religious, ethnic, and...

Everyone knows that the queen is the most dominant piece in chess, but few people know that the game existed for five hundred years without her. It wasn't until chess became a popular pastime for European royals during the Middle Ages that the queen was born and was gradually empowered to become the...

From historian and acclaimed feminist author of How the French Invented Love and A History of the Wife comes this rich, multifaceted history of the evolution of female friendship. In today’s culture, the bonds of female friendship are taken as a given. But only a few centuries ago, the idea...

How did marriage, considered a religious duty in medieval Europe, become a venue for personal fulfillment in contemporary America? How did the notion of romantic love, a novelty in the Middle Ages, become a prerequisite for marriage today? And, if the original purpose of marriage was procreation,...

An eminent scholar unearths the captivating history of the two-lobed heart symbol from scripture and tapestry to T-shirts and text messages, shedding light on how we have expressed love since antiquity The symmetrical, exuberant heart is everywhere: it gives shape to candy, pendants, the frothy...

...