Love Signs is about freeing yourself - the you who you are - to the experience that is love. But despite the crunchy lingo and traditional categorizations, GoodmanвЂ™s not trying to put anyone in a box. The book is a bit dated and certainly heteronormative, with each pairing organized by gender: Aries man, Pisces woman, and so forth (a 2011 edition included editorial changes to address вЂњgender references and role models which were quite differently perceived in 1978 than todayвЂќ). Inside, Goodman peppers lengthy, prose-poetry musings with whimsical, often wackadoo flourishes, speaking of вЂњwindows of the soul,вЂќ вЂњfaeries,вЂќ and how вЂњlove alone has the power to bring peace at historyвЂ™s twilight hour to Earthlings of good will.вЂќ Rest assured: IвЂ™m not the sort of person who capitalizes Earthlings, much less the type to drone on about faeries. My personal copy comes complete with a New Agey maroon cover featuring hearts and stars and a lion cuddling with, I believe, a ram. I do, however, have one deep, dark secret about how I approach my love life: Every time I meet someone promising, I turn to Linda GoodmanвЂ™s Love Signs: A New Approach to the Human Heart, a 1,000-page astrology book published in 1978 that quickly became a best seller and set a record with $2.25 million paid for paperback rights. I donвЂ™t spend hours on the phone with my mom asking for romantic advice, and though I do talk to my friends about the men in our lives, I also talk to them just as much about work, traveling, our families, and whatever else we have going on.

I donвЂ™t go to therapy (though maybe I should). I do not, as a rule, read relationship self-help books.

Astrology books