It’s another PUBDAY FUNDAY, friends!  Today I’m wishing a very happy birthday to my wonderful client Mari Ruti and her book THE CASE FOR FALLING IN LOVE! Just in time for Valentine’s Day, this is one relationship/self-help book that gives a warm cup of comfort to singles and couples alike.

As a nonfiction agent, I see my share of self-help proposals, many of them in the relationship advice category.  They come in with flashy titles like Five Easy Steps to the Man of Your Dreams or Man Whisperer: the Key to Understanding the Male Species. I’ve always found these books mildly annoying, because they seem to offer a fast and easy fix to something extremely complex, mysterious and subjective: the act of falling in love.  They also bother me because they subtly imply that women (and let’s admit that 99 out of 100 of these books are targeted at women) shoulder the responsibility for why relationships succeed or fail.  They suggest that if a woman who wants to be in a relationship is still single, she must be doing something wrong.  Or, that if a woman goes through a tough breakup that wasn’t her choice, she must have done something (or not done something – lingerie and high heels?)  to have made her man lose interest.  Rarely do they concede that the problem could be his (or possibly his mother), or that most of the time it takes two.

The danger in this message is that it can undermine a woman’s self-esteem.  With so many books telling a woman how to think/act/be to be most lovable and desired, she can begin to doubt herself, or contort her personality trying to embody something unrealistic.  Can you imagine a world in which the bestselling relationships book might be titled He’s Just Not Good Enough For You, rather than He’s Just Not That Into You?

But I digress.  All of my griping about this genre is really just to illustrate how completely refreshing I found Mari Ruti’s book THE CASE FOR FALLING IN LOVE: Why We Can’t Master the Madness of Love – and Why That’s the Best Part.  The title speaks for itself.  Ruti’s book doesn’t offer an easy answer to understanding love.  Instead it’s a no-holds-barred manifesto for why we all benefit when we let go and take the plunge, even if it results in heartbreak.  Here’s a brief excerpt from the book jacket:

Our culture’s insistence that women need to learn how to catch and keep a man is actually doing much more harm than good. The more we try to manipulate our relationships, the less we are truly able to experience love’s benefits and wonders.

Love is a slippery, unruly thing, and trying to control and manage it robs us of its delicious unpredictability. Sure, letting go of the reins a bit might mean a broken heart, but heartbreak, in fact, offers a wealth of possibilities—creativity, wisdom, and growth— that we need in order to make the most of our lives.

Ah, sweet common sense!  This is a book about adjusting your perspective so that you can actually learn to love better.

Author Mari Ruti

Educated at Brown, Harvard and the University of Paris, and currently professor of critical theory at the University of Toronto, Mari Ruti is one smart woman!  But what is so wonderful about Ruti and her book is that she fuses her intelligence and academic rigor with a candid, friendly and engaging voice.

Here is some recent praise for the book:

“At last, a relationship advice book that will actually work. If you’re intelligent, interested in love, and like a book you can’t put down, this is it. John Gray, move over. The brilliant Mari Ruti has arrived.”—Juliet Schor, Professor of Sociology, Boston College, and author of Born to Buy and Plenitude: The New Economics of True Wealth

“Why play ‘hard to get’ when you can just get what you want? Mari Ruti’s lively research, from Plato to Freud to Gossip Girl to her own bedroom, finally puts an end to playing games, and provides a resource for lovers and the love-scorned alike. A must-read for anyone who has ever fallen in love, wants to, or wants to know what went wrong.”—Arianne Cohen, creator of TheSexDiariesProject.com

“Groundbreaking…Ruti opens the eyes of her readers so that they can love better…A must-read.” —Nancy Redd, New York Times bestselling author of Body Drama

“Finally, a book that takes love seriously. Written with passion and verve… I wish I had read this book years ago!”—Sean Carroll, author of From Eternity to Here: The Quest for the Ultimate Theory of Time

For more information, please check out the following websites.  I hope you enjoy the read!

http://mariruti.com/index.html

http://www.sourcebooks.com/store/case-for-falling-in-love.html