Tiny Love Stories

October 26, 2020
Jones and Lee, editor and submission reader, respectively, for the New York Times Modern Love column, assemble a charming assortment of brief tales of love from the popular column. Each of the 175 selections distill a story of love into fewer than 100 words. While romantic love predominates, there are stories of love between parents and children, siblings, and even for pets and places. Touching moments include a son discovering a drawer full of note cards his Alzheimer’s-afflicted father wrote to remember the son’s name, and a couple deciding they are “not done with the world” after their latest fertility treatment failure. There are also truly funny bits, such as a woman getting an email ad for a dating site two days after her husband died, or a gay former Mormon wondering if his polygamist ancestors could help him navigate his polyamory. Other authors process pain in beautiful snippets: a sister takes up knitting to wish her deployed brother safely home, and a woman gives money to a panhandler imagining her own homeless, estranged brother. This is a moving testament to the diversity and depths of love.