Whatever my views on human relationships as a book lover I am definitely polygamous. I was asked for one book, but I love too many books to list just one.

Fortunately, unlike human relationships, there is no good reason to settle down with just one book for the summer! My temptation, following the wedding theme, was to pick twenty-two summer books . . . one for each year of my marriage, but the Fairest Flower in All of Christendom (my spouse) pointed out that this was a big excessive even for me.

Moderation, even in book-love, is a virtue.

So let me share some of my favorite books on love and marriage, the ones I read and reread, ones that have shaped my faith and what I believe . . . one old, one new, one borrowed, and a great book that makes me blue.

The old book on love is "Symposium."

Read the whole thing before forming opinions about what it "means." (Try the Nehamas and Woodruff translation.) Plato wrote in dialog form for a reason, so treat this the way you would a play on your first read. Read failed attempts to praise love and then try the project yourself! Can we hear the message of the wise woman in the text and learn to love the Good? What will it cost us?

If Symposium seems too difficult, for your beach reading, then my new book (relative to my reading list!) is "A Severe Mercy" by Sheldon Vanauken.

It is a true story of the growth and maturation of love. Like any profound and true tale, it will make you think (after all it contains a good bit of C.S. Lewis!), but it is also very passionate.

If passion is what you want, read "Jane Eyre".

It is my "borrowed" book, since my wife had to force me to read it. Because she loved it, I opened it out of love's obligation and haven't stopped reading it since.

Jane is an antidote to at least two diseases. The book helps those for whom love is a fever justifying wickedness and those who are too cold to know love's importance. Against both excess and defect, Jane posits a romantic vision which hasn't stopped teaching me yet.

You don't have to agree with a book to love it. One book whose ideas make me blue, but whose prose fills me with joy is "Anna Karenina".

It is a nice, thick book in which a reader can get lost for an entire week of vacation. Tolstoy does not say what we wish to hear about love, but tells some hard truths about our institutions and affections. It is not a jolly book, but it is deeply hopeful one.

Of course, any good list contains one bonus idea so let me recommend I Corinthians from the Bible. (Try the English Standard Version. It is available for free on line!) It is short, contains some of the most beautiful prose ever written about love (see the thirteenth chapter), and places our little loves in a much bigger context! As Saint Paul says love never fails, but I often do and this little book suggests me what to do about it.