Hi, it's NPR's Book of the Day. I'm Andrew Limbaugh.

When the writer Bell Hooks died a couple weeks ago, I went into NPR's archives and listened to an interview she did with NPR Cheryl Corley back in 2000.

Hooks had just written her seminal book, all about love, and she was talking about how important it was that we expanded our understanding of love beyond just romantic love and how real actual love changes people.

And I wanted to play it for you today because, well, who couldn't use a refresher on love?

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How do I love thee? Let me count the ways. Elizabeth Barrett Browning's poem about love is probably

one of the most popular and enduring. In it, love is an action, and that's exactly what it should be,

says cultural critic and feminist,

Belle Hooks, in her new book, All About Love, New Visions. Hook says love is a verb, a participatory

emotion, and one that's often misunderstood, despite much ado about love and popular culture.

This is Hook's 18th book, and while it's not the first time she has discussed

love, all about love is her most extensive take on love and on how our beliefs about love

fail us. One of the sparks for writing this book was my ex-boyfriend and I having endless

discussions about love where it was really clear, and he's from the 30-something generation,

and I'm a baby boom generation person. And, you know, we had such really incredibly different

understandings of love. And it made me start going around in the culture and talking to people

about how do we understand love? And I was surprised by the number of people who simply said,

...