book review: Why Do I Love These People? By Po Bronson

August 9, 2006

I declare Po Bronson to be my favorite author. I’ve finished reading his latest nonfiction book, Why Do I Love These People? and enjoyed it immensely because of its honest to goodness approach on family life and its dynamics. The book as some reviews call it is a sociological approach to the evolution of families. It tackles stories of mothers and daughters, fathers and sons, traditional families and the not so traditional families, how some of them remained together despite all odds, and how some of them inevitably fell apart, all of them real stories from careful research and compassionate interviews of real, ordinary people, a signature style that is so truly Po’s.

Po’s work is overridden with compassion and understanding towards the people he interviewed in this project, and to the readers, he offers a fresh point of view that makes you understand your own family more and see it through different, more compassionate eyes. Love ‘em or hate ‘em, families are a part of you and the nuances and indiosyncrancies that they bring makes you the you that you know and have a love-hate relationship with.

This book is a must-read.   

 

 

from Po’s website: http://www.pobronson.com

WDILTP Wins Parenting Gold Award

From Po:

I learned last night that Why Do I Love These People? is a winner of the National Parenting Publications’ Gold Award for Best Books of the Year. This is a wonderful honor to receive, especially because I know darn well that the committee had to go out of their way to crown WDILTP - it’s not a traditional parenting book. They actually mentioned this in their commendation, which reads: “While not a typical parenting resource, this amazing book recounts the struggles and joys of real families who have shown incredible resilience. Every member of every family has experiences that they have never spoken about, or perhaps have never even allowed themselves to think about. This book can lift the weight of those secrets by offering a deep and caring look into the tensions that threaten to pull families apart and the bonds that hold them together, even in the face of terrible injustice, hardship or suffering. You may not agree with all of Bronson’s assumptions or conclusions, but chances are good that this moving and beautiful book will change how you think about yourself, your own family and all families.”

I hope this helps bring the book to more parents. I am working with Random House right now on the plan for the paperback edition of the book, which will land in bookstores January 2007. The book will have a new jacket image, looking like this:

 

We went with this jacket because as we, the audience, is walking in that door to that house, we understand who “these people” are - the people in the house, the family we’re going to visit, and whatever trepidation or anticipation we might be feeling.