In March, The Unread Book Club turns to All About Love: New Visions by Bell Hooks, a work that confronts one of the most overused and least examined words in our language: love.

Part cultural critique, part ethical call, part spiritual reflection, this text insists that love is not sentiment, not romance, not possession, but practice. Hooks writes against the confusion of love with domination, attachment, control, or emotional intensity. She argues that most of us were never taught what love actually is, and therefore do not know how to give or receive it.

The book resists passive reading. It names the distortions we normalize, in family, friendship, partnership, and public life, and asks whether we are willing to unlearn them. It asks whether love can be chosen as a discipline rather than desired as a feeling.

For that reason, it feels especially resonant now. As we move through a time of inward reflection and relational recalibration, this text calls us to examine not only how we are loved,  but how we love.

We will put particular attention on Hooks’ definition of love as “the will to extend one’s self for the purpose of nurturing one’s own or another’s spiritual growth,” and her insistence that love requires care, commitment, trust, knowledge, responsibility, and respect.

No reading required. You do not need to have finished the book to attend. Reading a chapter, a single passage, or simply arriving with curiosity is enough.

Event Details:

📅 Date: Wednesday, Mar. 25th
📍 Location: Zoom
⏰ Time: 8:00 PM EST / 7 PM CST / 6 PM MST / 5 PM PST

RSVP to receive the Zoom link.