Rating: 
Summary: very positive
Review: "Love" has been a tremendously successful book - indeed, Buscaglia had 5 books on the New York Times best seller list at once - people (even those who found him "odd") craved what he taught. Those lessons come through loud and clear in this relatively compact treatise which was inspired from the lectures and student contact from the course he taught at a California (naturally, perhaps some of you are thinking) University.
I also enjoyed a lot the book Sex and the perfect lover by Mabel Iam.
Rating:
Summary: A fresh and integrated examination of what loving entails
Review: "Love" is a simple but profound and original little book that examines the role of personal responsibility in loving relationships and promotes offering unconditional love from a combined position of strength, humility and self-confidence. His beautifully inquisitive and spiritual perspective views loving as something intimately intertwined with living and learning, a theme he develops more fully in "Living, Loving, and Learning." Believing that love is a "learned phenomenon" (which led to his class on love at UCLA in the 1970s and ultimately, this book), Buscaglia's curiosity about the nature of love leads him to explore the writings of Erich Fromm, Abraham Maslow, Albert Schweitzer, Dag Hammarskjold, Mahatma Gandhi, Victor Frankl, Herbert Otto, the Old and New Biblical Testaments, the Koran, the Talmud, Buddhist and Hindu writings and to share his discoveries with us.Buscaglia examines the many aspects of living the loving life. He views love as having a twofold purpose: its main function is to help unfold our true selves, while at the same time helping others to become strong and perfect themselves as unique individuals (a theme similarly examined by Milton Mayeroff in his work "On Caring"). Buscaglia encourages his readers not to take rejection personally, but rather, to view rejection compassionately. He encourages focusing on self-development and growth rather than attempting to change or conform to another person's point of view. Rejecting the Hollywood Doris Day/Rock Hudson game of so-called love, he views love as an experimental process that requires risk and forgiveness. Buscaglia's "Living, Loving, and Learning" is a thoughtful and original follow-up to "Love." The rest of his writings merely rehash the themes presented in these two works.
Rating: 
Summary: The Power of Learning to Love
Review: A main, reoccurring theme throughout this wonderuful book is what I refer to as the education of love dilemma. Leo quickly points out that as a whole society has placed no importance on learning how to love properly. This book and the class that established this book were a response to this problem. The problem isn't that we are incapable of loving, but that we haven't learned to love properly. This book is the real life guidebook on love. Leo explains that love and life are inseperable and that to love is to live and to live is to love. Leo also goes in depth about how even as children we haven't been introduced to love appropriately. We aren't hugged enough, we aren't talked to enough, and we generally are taught that intimacy is wrong. This book is a classic on my bookshelves and I feel that many other people can agree with my claim. The only drawback is that many people may find this book to be corny or to outlandish at times. But I think that this only adds to the humor and enjoyability of the book.
Rating:
Summary: I don't agree with everything he says, but do recommend this
Review: Here's a call to everyone to put aside their fears and prejudices and give themselves over to love. Our scientifically oriented society, says Buscaglia, is prejudiced against love as a power to affect the human condition. Society sees love as "supercilious, unscientific bosh." The individual must develop him- or herself to the fullest to discover and celebrate her own uniqueness. Society wrongly teaches us to value a person for what she has rather than who she is or what she does. Buscaglia sounds the battle cry for freedom -- refuse to be molded into a likeness deemed "proper" by societal codes. Rather, be free to become your own person, loving yourself and your fellowman. Everyone should have someone in his or her life who says, "I will love you no matter what...if you fall on your face, if you do the wrong thing, if you make mistakes, if you behave like a human being -- I will love you no matter." He's pretty hard on the educational system, saying it has stifled individuality and creativity in children. "The true fuction of the child's education should be the process of helping him to discover his uniqueness, aiding him toward its development and teaching him how to share it with others." This is where I take issue with him, having pretty well agreed up to this point. Our schools have excelled in doing that very thing to the detriment of the three R's and as a result we have college freshmen who are arrogant and disrespectful, who have never read a book and who can't spell. (I speak from personal experience in teaching college level creative writing.) I do agree with his emphasis on honesty and truth, however, believing as I do that it is the very foundation of our society and has not been emphasized to children for much too long. Do read this one. It's a book that will confront you and make you think. You may or may not agree with him -- or with me -- but you will enjoy analyzing his points and developing your own views on the subjects.
Rating:
Summary: An amazing book! You'll laugh. You'll cry. You'll love it
Review: I am so grateful this book is back in print! This short, funny, easy to read book will profoundly change your life and how you view the people close to you. Although you can easily finish it in a weekend, you'll want to read it again every 18 months or so as your life changes to bring you "back" to your center. Everyone I've ever lent it to adored it so much, I've given away over a dozen copies. It is unfortunate that his lectures based on this book are not available on Video, as Leo's personal mannerisms and speaking style are so warm and funny, they really enhance the subject.
Rating:
Summary: Actually being in Love is most a wonderful thing
Review: I was in love with someone I considered so special to my life, I never thought I could have loved someone so much ever, but she destroyed me by her ways that she lived by. Unfortuately this woman could not fully understand what love was all about. I will never forget the way she could speak of her past relationships, the way she treated them, and then of course it happend to me. Love.. This woman has no idea what the word means. Why I have kept asking myself, all my life I had wanted a love like a dream instead it turned into a nightmare. This book helped me to feel and know that love is still there in people. I may not ever find love like that again. I think this book helped me to understand that people do love each other differently, but I do wonder when you find someone who has loved many times before if they truely know the true depth of love or is it just surface love. This book showed me that love is such a wonderful thing to have in ones life. This book will be special to anyone who wants to feel the art of loving. Unfortunatly this woman hadn't a clue of how to be there for someone else other than herself. Thankfully I am now getting my life back together, falling in love and being in love the way I felt for this woman was such an incredible feeling I had. I hope she is at peace herself with what she did to me during our relationship, I know she always thinks she was so correct and right but for all of that her ways destroyed a wonderful love affair. I read she now has someone else in her life, I only hope she has learnt how to be there for him this time as part of LOVING someone and I really hope for her sake she can make this one work as I truley tried more than most to make it work.
Rating:
Summary: Whenever I read this or watch "Christmas Miracles"
Review: I'm reminded of how much we lost when Leo Buscaglia left our world. The luminous soul he was never afraid to display, his open, hearty laugh that encouraged you to laugh with him and at him lives on in books and videos, and "Love" is perhaps the best amongst them. A primer on living with an eye towards the fact that connectedness and kindness are all we leave behind at the end, Buscaglia's message is told with humor, insight, and the grand passion of a man who lived what he spoke. There's never been a better time to meet or revisit his message than right now, when we're force-fed fear and encouraged to disregard the importance of others whose subscribe to different beliefs and live in another land.
Rating:
Summary: One of the most profound books I've ever read.
Review: In the last year I've sort of been on a spiritual awakening of sorts. I've read over 200 (at least) books in religion, philosophy, spirituality, psychology, self-improvement, etc, including most of the "classics" by various famous authors and historic religious figures, etc. . . . Suddenly last week as I was once again browsing at my local Barnes and Noble I came across this little book. Not knowing anything about it, I began to skim it and every page jumped out with profound insight and truth. I bought it, read it twice in one sitting, and it immediately jumped onto my top ten list of most profound books ever. If you want any insight into life and living, love and loving, you can't pass this book by. He touches not just on "love" directly but how it impacts our relationships, family, children and education, and the world at large. And even if you think you've heard all these ideas before, Leo is able to phrase them in new ways, using new stories and metaphors, that makes the message new and fresh. For anyone who finds this book beneficial, I would also *extremely* recommend the great 20th Century Indian spiritual leader Jiddu Krishnamurti (begin with his book "Freedom from the Known"; you can read my review there for more information on my Krishnamurti recommendations.)
Rating:
Summary: One of the most profound books I've ever read.
Review: In the last year I've sort of been on a spiritual awakening of sorts. I've read over 200 (at least) books in religion, philosophy, spirituality, psychology, self-improvement, etc, including most of the "classics" by various famous authors and historic religious figures, etc. . . . Suddenly last week as I was once again browsing at my local Barnes and Noble I came across this little book. Not knowing anything about it, I began to skim it and every page jumped out with profound insight and truth. I bought it, read it twice in one sitting, and it immediately jumped onto my top ten list of most profound books ever. If you want any insight into life and living, love and loving, you can't pass this book by. He touches not just on "love" directly but how it impacts our relationships, family, children and education, and the world at large. And even if you think you've heard all these ideas before, Leo is able to phrase them in new ways, using new stories and metaphors, that makes the message new and fresh. For anyone who finds this book beneficial, I would also *extremely* recommend the great 20th Century Indian spiritual leader Jiddu Krishnamurti (begin with his book "Freedom from the Known"; you can read my review there for more information on my Krishnamurti recommendations.)
Rating:
Summary: Buscaglia's Living Bridge to His Readers....
Review: In writing this review, I have been sometimes challenged to harken back to the pure strengths of this book in specifics. I have scribbled notes to myself in the margins, noted great quotes within, and yet I think the best way to really grasp the gloriousness of this book is to simply get your hands on it and read it yourself. I know I will be re-reading it, re-reading it and re-reading it.
It is the sort of book you can pick up and open in any section and find something valuable whether it is a story or an example or a simple application.
"Love" has been a tremendously successful book - indeed, Buscaglia had 5 books on the New York Times best seller list at once - people (even those who found him "odd") craved what he taught. Those lessons come through loud and clear in this relatively compact treatise which was inspired from the lectures and student contact from the course he taught at a California (naturally, perhaps some of you are thinking) University.
Each chapter offers the reader the opportunity to plunge headlong into the topic of love: we come to know that love is a learned phenomenon, that there are strong forces which keep us from experiencing - and giving and receiving love. We discover the importance of loving ourselves and how to begin to activate that process.
I found the most effective chapter to be "Love Recognizes Needs" because it shares examples of the ways in which we can simply, easily and (dare I say it?) even methodically become more aware and give love more readily to others AND receive love more readily for ourselves.
I wish I had known of Leo Buscaglia when he was still living. His message is simple and profound, it is grace-filled and warm - and in his writing and life he seems to have been capable of living without concern about what "mainstream thinkers" thought of him.
On page 89, Buscaglia quotes Thornton Wilder - and this quote really says all that needs to be said about reading and applying the lessons from this book:
"There is a land of the living and a land of the dead. The bridge is love."
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