Chapman follows up his five million-copy bestseller The Five Love Languages
with this wise, heartfelt guide to cultivating seven traits that lead to loving relationships. Whereas his work on love languages explored the primary ways people give and receive love, this book explores the nitty-gritty of an entire “attitude of love,” with chapters on kindness, patience, forgiveness, humility, courtesy, generosity and honesty. Each chapter includes quizzes, questions for reflection and ideas for applying that chapter's teachings. All self-help books run the risk of cliché, but Chapman manages to make tried-and-true material feel fresh through carefully chosen examples from his pastoral counseling practice and his own life. The chapter on forgiveness is especially powerful, as Chapman advocates forgiveness as a daily habit, not an occasional bequest. Although Christian faith provides the scaffolding for his program and a concluding chapter makes the need for God's help explicit, Chapman's judicious counsel can be implemented by people of many religious traditions. This book is head and shoulders above the bulk of self-help literature precisely because it is not about “self” so much as helping others. (July 15)
