LOVE LESSONS

Love stories for the ages—or at least for the weddings and engagements section of the Sunday paper. Brady is the writer of the popular New York Times Sunday feature “Vows,” where amid the usual formal announcements of engagements and marriages this thin slice of life appears, describing the wedding, the “meet,” and a few interviews with friends on why this couple is different from other couples. Love Lessons includes expanded versions of what Brady calls “goosebump love stories,” stories that are the “rare, real thing.” They help explain “what love is,” she says; if these reports hold up, what it is, is unpredictable. Couples are young and old, compatible and seemingly totally incompatible; love is instantaneous or develops over, in one case, 40 years. But, says the author, “true love has some universal qualities,” including a “giddy” feeling after meeting and a resemblance to “finding a pair of great old blue jeans that are exactly your size and seem as if you’ve worn them forever.” Among the couples presented are Susie and Randy, who met on the Internet and romanced like the couple in You’ve Got Mail; the author’s parents, whose roller coaster relationship led finally to a return of love and adventure (after the children were gone); Allison and Pete in Hailey, Idaho, who might have been “flower children” in the ’60s and who are surrounded by a close community of similar couples; affluent Susan with four children from Park Avenue and super-bachelor Rick; Linda and Andres, who began their love affair as teenagers in the ‘hood and resumed it again only when their daughter brought them together to greet the grandchildren. And don’t miss Paisley and Karl (post-teens), or Clarice and Victor, who met when they were both past 70 and fell in love when Clarice went parasailing. Sweet stories, destined to give hope to singles who despair that love will never come. (b&w photos, not seen)