Staff Pick
I am in love with Tim Kreider. Which — given the romantic anecdotes scattered abundantly throughout these beautifully composed and hilarious essays — suggests I have questionable taste in men... but excellent taste in literature. Recommended By Rhianna W., Powells.com
Synopses & Reviews
The New York Times essayist and author of We Learn Nothing, Tim Kreider trains his singular power of observation on his (often befuddling) relationships with women.
*A People Top 10 Book of 2018*
Psychologists have told him he’s a psychologist. Philosophers have told him he’s a philosopher. Religious groups have invited him to speak. He had a cult following as a cartoonist. But, above all else, Tim Kreider is an essayist — one whose deft prose, uncanny observations, dark humor, and emotional vulnerability have earned him deserved comparisons to David Sedaris, Sarah Vowell, and the late David Foster Wallace (who was himself a fan of Kreider’s humor).
“Beautifully written, with just enough humor to balance his spikiness” (Booklist), I Wrote This Book Because I Love You focuses Tim’s unique perception and wit on his relationships with women — romantic, platonic, and the murky in-between. He talks about his difficulty finding lasting love and seeks to understand his commitment issues by tracking down the John Hopkins psychologist who tested him for a groundbreaking study on attachment when he was a toddler. He talks about his valued female friendships, one of which landed him on a circus train bound for Mexico. He talks about his time teaching young women at an upstate New York college, and the profound lessons they wound up teaching him. And in a hugely popular essay that originally appeared in The New York Times, he talks about his nineteen-year-old cat, wondering if it’s the most enduring relationship he’ll ever have.
“In a style reminiscent of Orwell, E.B. White and David Sedaris” (The New York Times Book Review), each of these pieces is “heartbreaking, brutal, and hilarious” (Judd Apatow), and collectively they cement Kreider’s place among the best essayists working today.
Review
"Come for the arresting cover, stay for the author's trenchant ruminations on his relationships with women...Like all the best essayists, Kreider finds words for the ineffable...he'll open your eyes to the many varieties of love." People
Review
"In a style reminiscent of Orwell, E.B. White and David Sedaris, an affable hero gamely bumbles through adventures rich with moments of fleeting profundity and moral reckoning...his depictions of the arc from ignorance to wisdom are reliably deft...Kreider is a curious and compassionate observer and a fantastic wit — I laughed to tears more than once. Though he excels at romantic comedy, the the essays that stray from that convention resound longer...pleasurable, well-wrought essays." New York Times Book Review
Review
"Tim Kreider's writing is heartbreaking, brutal and hilarious — usually at the same time. He can do in a few pages what I need several hours of screen time and tens of millions to accomplish. And he does it better. Come to think of it, I'd rather not do a blurb. I am beginning to feel bad about myself." Judd Apatow
Review
"Tim Kreider's wonderfully frank, consistently funny essays reminded me at a time of spectacular doubt that there might still be a few men in America who are both weird and wise, equally friendly to cats and ex-girlfriends, and refreshingly willing to admit to flaws that come entirely free of vindictiveness and cruelty. In an age of widespread buffoonery, it's a pleasure and a relief to have Kreider restore a little faith." Joshua Ferris, author of The Dinner Party and Other Stories
Review
"Tim Kreider is one of my favorite living writers, no exaggeration...His wisdom is counterintuitive and therefore all the wiser; his humor is dark in ways that let light in where it's needed most. This isn't a book about one man's relationship to women as much as it's a chart of the collision course of human need in all its wrenching, perverse, gorgeous, hilarious forms. It's his best stuff yet." Meghan Daum, author of The Unspeakable: And Other Subjects of Discussion
Review
"Tim Kreider's voice is never anything less than honest, smart, and hilarious; in I Wrote This Book Because I Love You he is even more mordant and empathetic than ever before. What a sad and beautiful book." Lauren Groff, author of Fates and Furies
About the Author
Tim Kreider has written for The New York Times, The New Yorker, The Week, The Men’s Journal, and Nerve.com. His popular comic strip, The Pain—When Will It End?, ran in alternative weeklies for twelve years and has been collected in three books by Fantagraphics. He is the author of two collections of essays, We Learn Nothing and I Wrote This Book Because I Love You. He divides his time between New York City and an undisclosed location on the Chesapeake Bay.