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Crazy Little Thing is a look at why we want to be in love and the burbling, boiling soup of endorphins, hormones, and neurotransmitters that spill from our brain to make us do things that would otherwise be viewed as insane. Investigative journalist Liz Langley traveled the country to research and interview singularly love-mad folks who maimed, murdered, and married. Langley reveals the science of love and lust, as well as very human stories: a spouse who can't stop loving her criminally psychotic husband, even after he threw acid in her face; the sweet romance between alligator-skinned sideshow performers; and a man whose neurons drive his necrophilia. Langley reveals the control our chemicals have over us in a hilarious, confounding -- and too strange to be anything but true -- look at love.
This book is a very skillful blend of hard science -- the latest studies on why love makes us a bit nutty -- combined with FABULOUS stories of strange and wonderful love stories you WILL be sharing with people for years at social gatherings. PLUS you get the wit and whimsy of Liz Langley, who tells these stories like she's talking to you on the next barstool and occasionally nudging you in the ribs. And trust me, you want to keep buying her drinks.What I liked about the book especially was the clear-eyed way Langley boils down the complicated stuff WITHOUT "dumbing" it down. It's an art that only she and Rachel Maddow (and that old guy in the Schoolhouse Rock films!) ever seem to possess anymore, and she pulls it off with great panache. The "educational" portion of the book takes up some of the early chapters (after a frankly HILARIOUS introduction to Liz and her own highs and lows in love that really personalizes things), but then -- with equal grace -- Langley puts herself in the background and tells us some incredible tales of how all this science and brain chemistry plays out in the real world. And occasionally in the surreal world.Apart from the introduction, and the brief mention I get (yes, I'm quoted in the book, but only briefly and it's not colouring my opinion of the work as a whole, I swear), my favourite part was the second half, which is just UN-PUT-DOWNABLE true tales of romance, sex and hi-jinks that bring the "crazy" to the title. The best part is that because you are armed with an instant four-year degree in psychology thanks to the first half of the book (which makes the science surprisingly entertaining and memorable), you understand the people so prominently featured in the second half SO MUCH BETTER and believe me, your new-found wisdom will also help you see both your own relationships and the crazy relationships of some of the people you know (we ALL have friends in "WTF?" relationships, people!) in a whole new light.Langley spends a lot of time on brain chemicals and how they can poke the pleasure centres of our brain for good or ill. I actually felt my brain EXPANDING as well as being delightfully tickled as I read through the first half of the book, and was rewarded with a great "documentary" with warmth and heart galore in the second half. If you have EVER wondered "is it me ... or them that's crazy?" in a relationship, you owe it to yourself to get the answer, and it is most definitely in CRAZY LITTLE THING.In short, I think this is one of the best books on the subject of love since Leo Buscaglia wrote his eponymous treatise on the subject. Only this one has more jokes.
