John Bowe's six favorite books on love

John Bowe is the editor of the new book, Us: Americans Talk About Love.

For The Week magazine, he named his six favorite books on the subject. One classic on the list:

Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert

When it comes to love, we think we’re playing chess; really, we’re riding bumper cars. The way Flaubert explores the limits of cherished notions like “romance” and “freedom” couldn’t be more modern, touching, or scary. Emma Bovary’s plight forces us to ask, “Is there anything going on here greater than our own vanity?”

Read about the other books on Bowe's list.

Madame Bovary is also on Valerie Martin's list of six novels about doomed marriages, Louis Begley's list of favorite novels about cheating lovers, and John Mullan's list of ten of the best bad lawyers in literature. It tops Peter Carey's list of the top ten works of literature and was second on a top ten works of literature list selected by leading writers from Britain, America and Australia in 2007.

--Marshal Zeringue