The Book of Love

With The Book of Love: Guidance in Affairs of the Heart, Ottawa-based novelist Barbara Sibbald melds literary fiction with self-help in an intelligent look at romantic love. The story follows three thirty-something friends through the sordid singles scene, cheating spouses and lackluster marriages — spun with a refreshing optimism. Embedded within the fictional narrative is a self-help treatise that cites the likes of Plato, Voltaire and William Carlos Williams. It’s a sort of fourth character who acts like a wise auntie dispensing philosophical advice.

Fiction and self-help, though seemingly disparate, are fuelled by the urge to make sense of the world around us. The Book of Love delves into this common territory on the subject of love, arguably, the most prevalent subject in both genres. The women don’t always agree with what they read, but it drives them to rethink their conventional notions and reveals truths about how they live their romantic lives. The book’s underlying premise concerns the fallacy of “expecting romantic love to meet all of our physical, social, intellectual, emotional and spiritual needs.”