Other People's Love Letters: 150 Letters You Were Never Meant to See [Hardcover]

Bill Shapiro (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 30, 2007

Fevered notes scribbled on napkins after first dates. Titillating text messages. It's-not-you-it's-me relationship-enders. In Other People’s Love Letters, Bill Shapiro has searched America’s attics, closets, and cigar boxes and found actual letters–unflinchingly honest missives full of lust, provocation, guilt, and vulnerability–written only for a lover’s eyes. Modern love, of course, is not all bliss, and in these pages you’ll find the full range of a relationship, with its whispered promises as well as its heartache. But what at first appears to be a deliciously voyeuristic peek into other people’s most passionate moments, will ultimately reawaken your own desires and tenderness…because when you read these letters, you’ll find the heart you’re looking into is actually your own.

• "i think UR great. wanna have wine & Tequila again sometime?"

• "I can't believe you're real, and I think about you constantly in some way or the other all day. I haven't given the finger to anyone driving since I met you."

• "With you I learned how to fight cleaner, how to talk things out better, and how to make a strong loving family out of nothing. These are priceless gifts that I will carry with me the rest of my life. One more thing you did for me: you left, and I had to get through it."

• "P.S. I look forward to your letters too much to call. Also, where do you stand on chains?"

Editorial Reviews

Review

“If I have learned only one thing from a) personal experience and b) Vivian Cash's fascinating memoir, I Walked the Line, it is this: No human can compose a love letter without seeming slightly insane. Love letters are like suicide notes -- if someone is in the emotional position to consider writing one, they're generally in the worst psychological position to make any cogent sense. That disconnect is what makes Other People's Love Letters: 150 Letters You Were Never Meant to See  a painfully entertaining twelve-minute read. Edited by former Life magazine editor Bill Shapiro (and presented like Davy Rothbart's Found series), the book delivers exactly what it purports: random personal letters from people who are either wildly ecstatic or profoundly depressed over the condition of their romantic existence. (One of my favorite entries is from a person who just printed the word liar 183 consecutive times.) Judging from the contents of these notes, we appear to live in a society that is sex crazed and optimistic yet consumed with deep regret. This is probably true. Making matters all the more interesting is Shapiro's epilogue -- he contacts several of the contributors and finds out how the relationship worked out, postletter.”
—Esquire, Chuck Klosterman
 
“Bill Shapiro (Time Inc.'s development editor) collects extremely private correspondence, which he has amassed in Other People's Love Letters. The notes, e-mails, telegrams, and letters appear as copies of the originals, in all their faded, tearstained glory. The earliest examples come off as gorgeous and romantic, whether they're pages of elegant script or a few words scrawled on a cocktail napkin. E-mail seems to have had a decidedly negative effect on the art, if ''Am having terribly naughty thoughts again today, and I was wondering if you might want to hear about them'' is any indication. After compulsively flipping through to the last page, I have just one question: How did Shapiro get people to part with these?”
—Entertainment Weekly
 
“From the moment Bill Shapiro stumbled upon an old love letter that wasn’t his (it was an ode to his then girlfriend from some earlier man), he was hooked. His new book, Other People’s Love Letters, reprints 150 of the many hundreds he’s collected over the years. Strictly speaking, they’re not all declarations of love. Some are Dear Johns; others are postmortems of failed relationships. And not all of them are letters, in the stationary-and-envelope sense. They’re scrawled across postcards, crammed onto Post-its, scribbled on cocktail napkins and matchbooks. Some are old (Peter J. Dougherty, chief of police, to ‘dearest Lizzie,’ dated December 22, 1911); some are new (e-mails, text messages, more e-mails). Should going through them strike you as voyeuristic, beware. They’re addictive.”
—O Magazine

About the Author

Bill Shapiro is the former editor of LIFE magazine. He lives in Brooklyn, New York.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 192 pages
• Publisher: Clarkson Potter; First Edition edition (October 30, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0307382648
• ISBN-13: 978-0307382641
• Product Dimensions: 7 x 1 x 8.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (36 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #10,696 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #3 in Books > Literature & Fiction > Letters & Correspondence
  • #67 in Books > Humor & Entertainment > Pop Culture

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

54 of 57 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Powerful Collection ... Would Make a Great Gift, November 27, 2007

By 

Fan of Tick Tock (New York, NY USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Other People's Love Letters: 150 Letters You Were Never Meant to See (Hardcover)

Finally, a way to read other people's love letters without betraying someone you know or risking getting caught, hurt, or overcome by guilt. But the pleasure isn't simply voyeuristic. These letters pull you into the world of the writer/recipient/lover/loved (It's the experience of reading novel, but with nicer graphics and way fewer words!), but also make you reflect on your own relationships, the things you do and don't express, the complex range of feelings you have all at once, the way feelings change over time ... They run the gamut from tear-jerking to shocking to laugh-out-loud funny and represent a range of relationships at all the different stages--which makes reading them not only illuminating but also reassuring: All these people, old and young, effusive and reticent, articulate and, um, less so have experienced the intense highs and lows of new love, unrequited love, lustful love, lost love, etc. and survived (at least enough to have contributed a letter to this book). Bottom line: great read, excellent gift.

16 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Sweet reminder about love, January 13, 2008

By 

Christina Lockstein "Christy's Book Blog" (Oconto Falls, WI USA) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Other People's Love Letters: 150 Letters You Were Never Meant to See (Hardcover)

Other People's Love Letters by Bill Shapiro is a fascinating peek into love: its beginnings and endings, and the twisted path between. Shapiro, whose website has many more of these letters, asked his friends and exs for old love letters. They, in turn, asked others giving Shapiro a huge range of letters to choose from in making this book. From sweet text messages, to post divorce rants, these letters are enjoyable and insightful. It's amazing how similar letters written in the first throes of love are: you're amazing; I can't live without you. But Shapiro tried to pick letters that said something deeper and love and the human condition. It's not a book you want to read in one sitting; reading too many back to back makes them lose their potency. But taken in small doses, it's a great way to remember how good love feels in the beginning and how sweet it can be after many years. Some of my favorite letters were the ones written by married couples several years in. Shapiro includes a short epilogue with brief stories about some of the couples who wrote the letters. Reading these made the letters even more powerful, especially the one from a husband serving in Vietnam in 1969. A great read, perfect as a Valentine's Day gift; give it with your own love letter!

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars trust me, you'll/she'll/he'll love it!, February 8, 2008

By 

Haim (Los Angeles, CA, United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Other People's Love Letters: 150 Letters You Were Never Meant to See (Hardcover)

I really enjoy this book. There is something both sweet and scandalous about the idea of reading snippets of other peoples' love letters. Each time I pick it up I find something new that I hadn't noticed the last time I read it. The imagination whirls wondering about the writers and the recipients. It's the perfect Valentines Day!