Tuesday, February 14, 2023

Five great books about making & keeping friends

Lindsay Powers is a book lover, writer (bylines include The New York Times and The Washington Post), and author of You Can’t F*ck Up Your Kids: A Judgment-Free Guide to Stress-Free Parenting. She and fellow Amazon Book Review editor Al Woodworth tagged five "newer books about incredible friendships ... books that will inspire you to text your best buddies—or connect with somebody new—today," including:
Platonic: How the Science of Attachment Can Help You Make—and Keep—Friends by Marisa G. Franco

After reading incredible novels about friendship like Tomorrow, Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin and Now Is Not the Time to Panic by Kevin Wilson, I wondered: Why do many of us prioritize romantic love over the powerful bond between friends? Franco probes this question, arguing that because friendship is not valued in our culture, we’ve never truly learned how to build and sustain platonic adult relationships—at great cost to us personally and to society. Her breezy, instructive writing acknowledges that it takes a lot of courage to put yourself out there. Still, she gently emboldens us to forge ahead anyway, and gives us the tools to do it successfully.
Read about the other entries on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue