Everything I Know About Love: A Memoir

British journalist and former Sunday Times dating columnist Alderton (Man Repeller) chronicles her love life in this wryly humorous essay collection. She writes about flirting as an awkward teenager via instant messages (“It was a complex Edwardian dance of courtship and I was a giddy and willing participant”), college parties (“I scan the room for boys with working limbs and a detectable pulse”), being single in a world that seems comprised solely of couples, and escaping a Tinder-facilitated threesome. In other essays she creates lists—things she’s scared of (plane food, STDs), the most annoying things people say (“how do you find the time to do all those tweets?”), safe topics for dinner conversations (“celebrity deaths”)—and deals with her own weight issues. Alderton writes with self-deprecating humor throughout, though her most moving essay focuses on the funeral of her best friend’s sister, who died of leukemia. A hit in the U.K., this clever collection will likely speak to American audiences as well. (Feb.)