"Modern Love"

“Modern Love: True Stories of Love, Loss, and Redemption” (Broadway Books, 2019) is a revised, updated version of a 2007 book also titled “Modern Love.” That book in turn is a collection of true stories from the New York Times column of the same name. These stories are written by readers, not New York Times writers, and are chosen from among thousands that are submitted. The definition of modern love includes many varieties of love: between lovers, between spouses, between parents and children, and more. Likewise, the stories cover many stages of love, including the search for love, failed love, successful love, unexpected love, thwarted love, interrupted love, late-in-life love, and others. The stories are short, powerful, evocative, poignant, funny, sad, sometimes whimsical…in other words, they are like life itself, which of course is what makes them so appealing to readers. There is now a television show based on this column, also called “Modern Love." I read both the 2007 and the 2019 versions of the book, watched the first season of the television show, and enjoyed all three very much.