All about love- New Visions bell hooks

The friend who gave me this book is  a fan of bell hooks and has been reading one after another of her books. He inscribed this with "here's hoping that you find all the love deserved and desired.."

I am not inclined to too much touchy feely books about love and so on, but I must admit that I loved this book, I might not agree with or believe everything. bell hooks is an American feminist writer and cultural critic.
bell hooks affirms that love is the will to nurture our and another's spiritual growth. So nothing like romanticism and valentine's day and so on, valentine's day being part of what bell hooks refers to as consumer greed which along with patriarchal masculinity - believing that men superior to women, denies love.

The thoughts are very buddhist, and bell hooks is influenced by Thich Nhat Hanh

My experiences with love have been varied, a lot of people have told me they love me - one or two them are in various stages of hating or pitying me now - and I have told a lot of people that I love them too, and of course including those who I have signed 'love' at the bottom of emails or my favourite 'much love'.
The book encourages a different way to think about love as practice, and not as a verb which we will inherently know what to do and as a noun. she says that "Falling in love" implies that we do not have an active choice in loving and that there will be awe, fascination, fear, suspicion.. that we have no capacity or will to choose. at the beginning we are asked to think of love as action which is intentional and which has reactions, rather than feelings over which we have no control. So, hence loving means "we openly  and honestly express care, affections, responsibility, respect, commitment and trust"
So.. no beating children because we love them, and crimes of passion then become crimes.. killing people because we love them dont work.

The first chapter on childhood ends with "When we love children we acknowledge by our every action that they are not property, that they rights and that we respect and uphold their rights"..  the chapter on honesty is about talking and listening to truths and cutting the crap and not being afraid of saying or hearing those truths. the chapter on self love is not about masturbation or narcissim, but about "not expecting to receive the love from someone else you do not give yourself"

Spirituality is important in loving well, and loving in community .. a lot of this is about engaging in community building. Facing fears and challenging power and domination, or the need to dominate is seen as necessary parts of the love ethic.  Loneliness is described as yearning for others, while solitude is described as being at peace with oneself in one's solitary moments.

Greed is seen as an obstacle to love. Rejecting sexist notions (women are more romantic than men, that men do not feel, etc) is also important to loving.

Many of us have heard some of this before, some of us are lucky if we are able to shift how we move from the kuch kuch hota hai type of love we have been taught to believe in and to look at our relationships a bit more.. and how we connect with those around us. bell hooks suggests it is possible to have soul connections with people, temporary, who are not going to form into long term or short term relationships and that other ethics could apply.
A lot of good stuff here, I like it, so I am thankful for those who i love and who love me and looking forward to loving more..