Talk of love surrounds us, and romance is a constant concern of popular culture. Ann Swidler's “Talk of Love” is an attempt to discover how people find and sustain real love in the midst of that talk, and how that culture of love shapes their expectations and behavior in the process. To this end, Swidler conducted extensive interviews with Middle Americans and wound up offering us something more than an insightful exploration of love: “Talk of Love” is also a compelling study of how much culture affects even the most personal of our everyday experiences.

Talk of love surrounds us, and romance is a constant concern of popular culture. Ann Swidler's “Talk of Love” is an attempt to discover how people find and sustain real love in the midst of that talk, and how that culture of love shapes their expectations and behaviour in the process. To this end, Swidler conducted extensive interviews with middle Americans and wound up offering us something more than an insightful exploration of love: “Talk of Love” is also a compelling study of how much our culture affects even the most personal of our everyday experiences.

Ann Swidler is a professor of sociology at the University of California, Berkeley. She is the author of “Organization without Authority” and coauthor of “Habits of the Heart,” “The Good Society,” and “Inequality by Design,”