Customer Reviews

Loving Each Other: The Challenge of Human Relationships

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I guess love looks different from the perspective of a successful 47-year marriage -- you feel like you know a little (although not a lot) about what it is to form a relationship and to keep it growing in love. That's what this book is all about, and it's full of really superb advice.

"If you love, you're considered naive," Buscaglia writes. "If happy, you're considered frivolous (or, in this reviewer's experience, no one believes you) and simple. If trusting, you're considered a fool. If you try to be all those things, people think you're a phony." Boy, that's calling it as it is!

Emphasizing the importance of good communications in relationships, Buscaglia stresses the need for honesty and truth. "Only truth," he writes, " can bring us the necessary trust needed for long-lasting relationships. Only truth, painful though it may sometimes be, can create a safe environment of unity and growth."

Understanding the dynamics of forgiveness is crucial to those who care about lasting relationships. He discusses loving each other in joy, in intimacy and the challenge of developing trusting relationships. Friendship is an expression of deep regard for another.

In a friendship, each affirms the other and reinforces his or her dignity with respect and affection. "As the friendship becomes deeper," he writes, "it becomes a sharing of vulnerabilities in a safe environment. We let each other know that our becoming is of the utmost interest and concern. We show in action that we respect and admire one another, that we enjoy the opportunity to be together and share experiences."

There's little in life that is as comfortable, rewarding and fulfilling as a long-term, totally trusting relationship based on respect and love. Following the concepts presented in this book makes developing that kind of relationship a little easier than trying to "reinvent the wheel" by doing it on your own.

I recently read this book for an independent reading project for school. I really enjoyed it, as it contained tons of great information. I would seriously recommend it to anyone who is interested in improving the quality of all of their loving relationships, which should be everyone. Relating is really the only thing that poses such a great challenge and so high a risk of getting hurt that people continually enter in upon with no education or training whatsoever, other than past experience, however limited that may be. This book definitely offers a basic understanding of the dynamics of relationships, and I'm sure that almost everyone can benefit from it.

After reading this book I have decided that I am going to give this book away as a gift to nearly everyone I possibly can. I started learning about Leo in my psychology class when we started studying love. Leo is one of the greatest people ever to learn about love from. You can tell through his writing that if you were to ever meet him, he'd love you. What an incredible gift. Leo is no longer alive and the world should shed a tear for loosing such a great man. Thankfully, he left us everything he knew about love.

Loving Each Other is one of those simple yet life changing books. A lot of the things he said it was as if I should have known but I didn't until he said it. Incredibly encouraging this book gives a person in any loving relationship something to think about. If you love someone, anyone, you should read this book and learn how to love better and love more.

I couldn't say enough about this book. I do encourage you to buy and read it, then pass it on. This book could change the world.

I don't think anyone ever knew more about love than Leo Buscaglia. I saw him speak several times on televsion, and found myself captivated by his gentle spirit and wisdom. I've heard some people say that Buscaglia goes TOO far with the hugging and the loving and the shaing. But sometimes it's good to go TOO far.

This book is also very accessable; easy to digest. I read it all in one day...much less intellectual than "The Art of Loving" by Erich Fromm.

More books need to be written about love. It can be very inspirational to read this book, especially during particularly stressful times in my life. Thank you Leo.

Jeffrey McAndrew
author of "Our Brown-Eyed Boy"

this is a great book about relationships.it can help you with all the aspects of life and how a good relationship can work.i would recomend this book to anyone wanting to improve the relationship.

I remember watching on PBS segments this stout professor with caring eyes and a bigger heart, Dr. Leo Buscaglia, speaking about love and life. I regret I never had a chance to meet him or give him a hug.
One of my favorite books is Loving Each Other: The Challenge of Human Relationships by Leo Buscaglia. The book is partly based on a questionnaire that he conducted on love.
Even though the book was written in the 80s, its words still hold true today. How in a busy world not one has time to stop and hug or recognize the people around us. Our most essential human need is touch. He shares a story of how a young man went to a book store and bought a book: How to Hug, only to realize it was volume nine of the encyclopedia.
Buscaglia delves back to his immigrant parents, Mama and Papa, and how they were not perfect but always had a loving relationship. His quest had been to understand love. Good relationships encourage optimal intellectual, emotional, and spiritual growth. Bad relationships can be destructive and endanger our human dignity, depresses, and can demoralize us.
In the end, we must learn how to co-exist in a world of six billion people, as Abraham Lincoln states, "Most folks are able as happy as they make up their minds to be." The same can be said about to how much in love they will be.
I always read Loving Each Other: The Challenge of Human Relationships when I am a bit sad and cynical about love, it tends to brighten my focus and reawakens my belief in love. Buscaglia lessons are timeless and his humor adds a common touch.

If you feel that life is not worth living put this tape in and listen to it 7 times, not 6 not 8 but 7 times. The human mind will absorb all of it after 7 times. Live your life in love and forgiveness, smile toward those who persecute you. This transformed my life and it will yours. Here's to a new life full of love and happiness.

Read this book in hard cover a long time ago. Finding it still in print is a gift. No better tool out there for learning how to make a relationship work. Every word is a priceless gem of wisdom.

This book will pry open even the coldest heart. I've purchased over a hundred copies and have given them as wedding gifts, as well as to people having relationship problems with a friend or family member. I've never heard a negative comment. The chapter on Forgiveness is my favorite.