All About Love: New Visions by bell hooks (Close Reading)

"When I was a child, it was clear to me that life was not worth living if we did not know love. I wish I could testify that I came to this awareness because of the love I felt in my life. But it was love’s absence that let me know how much love mattered... To this day I cannot remember when that feeling of being loved left me. I just know that one day I was no longer precious... I did not know what I had done wrong. And nothing I tried made it right... We can never go back. I know that now. We can go forward. We can find the love our hearts long for, but not until we let go grief about the love we lost long ago, when we were little and had no voice to speak the heart’s longing."- bell hooks, All About Love: New Visions preface.

Join us for a close reading on selected chapters from bell hooks' All About Love: New Visions, the first book in her Love Song to the Nation trilogy.

This close reading session will be focusing on four chapters from All About Love. Those chapters are chapter one - Clarity: Give Love Words, chapter two - Justice: Childhood Love Lessons, chapter four - Commitment: Let Love Be Love in Me, and chapter eight - Community: Loving Communion.

Note: Please read what you're able to. Some members have already read the book, and others may want to hone their focus in on a couple of the listed chapters.

Optional: check out an interview with bell hooks on All About Love: New Visions here.

A session on love during Valentine's Day weekend, because... Love!