Why Him, Why Her
I found this book Why Him,Why Her By Helen Fisher on the library shelves. While perusing it I found parts of it intersting and parts not. The idea of someone using biochemisty and MRI studies to examine the changes we got through in all stages of love fascinated me. She uses this info and associates it with personality types gleaned from an impartial questionairre to break people down into four types and specifies their defining characterstics…..Explorerers, Builders, Directors, and Negotiatior are the terms she uses. I can’t do them justice here nor can they be easily summarized so I won’t try here.The book then turns into a find your best match in dating and relationships sort of book. I cannot nor will not vouch for any of the info concerning that part of the book.
But her basic research made me want to go back and read her previous books…Why We Love (2004) and the even more interesting Anatomy of Love, the natural history of monogamy, adultery, and divorce (1992). Both books were infinitely fascinating and good reads. They or may not be out of print but your library or World Cat can point you towards them. Her basic research and application of it is fascinating to anyone who wonders how our brains help us decide why we do love who we love.
Why Him, Why Her isn’t a bad book,but what I need to explain is that I have a bias towards that sort of “find your perfect mate” sort of book. This one is better than most. And her slant of using one’s brain biochemistry and personality makes it much more interesting than the average book of it’s type.
In essence, Why Him, Why Her by Helen Fisher gets a Mixed Recommendation. IF you like or need the sort of find your perfect mate sort of book, then you could do much worse than this one.
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1Alan
wrote on 30 August 2009 at 11:38
Yeah, both Ron and I enjoy doing this, when we get to do it without life interrupting us so much and when we can find books that we think our readers will enough reading about and maybe reading themselves.
As far as printing the column out or using it as a reference as long as you quote us properly and credit us as the source we’re fine with it.
Glad you all have enjoyed the site and we’ll be back soon with some other great books. I’ve got a review of the latest just out Pat Conroy novel just ready to go, which is one of his best. And I consider him the best living American novelist today. So look for that one to be up in a day or so