OK, a fun little post to get you in the mood for Valentine’s Day at the end of this week. Mr Gums and I don’t make a big thing of the Day – it wasn’t a big thing in Australia when we were young – but that doesn’t mean I can’t use it to give some air to Australian books about love.
Australians will recognise my post’s title, but I don’t know how well known it is elsewhere, so, briefly, “Love is in the air” is the title of a 1977 disco song, written by George Young and Harry Vanda, and performed by John Paul Young. It featured in the 1992 film, Strictly Ballroom. According to Wikipedia (linked on the song title), it became a “worldwide hit” in 1978, though what is meant by the “world” is an interesting point, eh?
However, I’m not going to be political today. Instead I want to mainly throw it over to you, wherever you are, to share books about love that you love! To get us going, I will just share a handful of Aussie books that I have reviewed in which love is a significant theme or thread. I’m focusing on fiction, and on romantic love – in honour of the theme – but from various angles.
Carmel Bird’s Love letter to Lola (2023) (my review): a short story collection, which includes a story comprising a sad love letter written by a Spix’s Macaw to his lost mate. (I also mentioned this story, or a version of it, in my post on Bird’s The dead aviatrix.) This is eco-lit about species extinction, told with wit.
Nigel Featherstone’s My heart is a little wild thing (2022) (my review): affecting story about a 40s-something “semi-closeted” gay man who experiences real love for the first time, and just when his life is closing in.
Andrea Goldsmith’s The buried life (2025) (my review): describes a few romantic relationships, some healthy, some very not, but all exploring how hard love can be, and how precious it is when it is found. It also includes deep, supportive love between friends.
Marion Halligan’s Wishbone (1994) (my review): about, as I wrote in my post, “the tension between our wishes – particularly regarding love – and living with what you’ve got” (and more). This novel has it all – love, marriage, affairs – but told with warmth and compassion for people coping with life as it changes over time.
Anita Heiss’ Paris dreaming (2011) (my review): one of Heiss’s “choclit” books about young professional First Nations women making their way through work and love.
Toni Jordan’s Addition (2008) (my review): almost standard chicklit, but with a heroine who is definitely not standard. (This book has been adapted to a film that is showing in Australia now).
Alex Miller’s Lovesong (2009) (my review): a carefully structured novel featuring several love stories, some longstanding, some new in the making. I described it as, among other things, “a meditation on the mystery and power of love”.
Christina Stead’s For love alone (1945) (my review): autofiction about a young woman who follows a man to the other side of the world, only to find him not what she believed … but, this is Stead, so there’s so much more to our young protagonist’s life and hopes.
Tasma (Jessie Couvreur)’s Uncle Piper of Piper’s Hill (1888) (my review): a nineteenth century novel which I described in my review as “a romance, a marriage story, set against the social backdrop of a meeting between these well-to-do parvenu Pipers, and the impoverished but upper crust Cavendishes”. It’s of its day, but is nevertheless both a fun and interesting read.
And, I’ll end with a touch of reality from a writer who always makes me smile:
Beauty always falls in love with the Beast, who always turns out to be the Prince, but that’s only the end of the telling, not the end of the lives of Beauty and her Beast-Prince. Life goes on until it doesn’t. Cinderella died in the end, and so did Snow White. (Carmel Bird, Field of poppies)
This is a small selection of the books about love that I have written about over the last 16 or so years. I have tried to include a spread of time and themes – including classics, eco-fiction, chicklit, queer fiction, First Nations writing, serious writing, comic writing – but there are so many more. I most like – perhaps because of my age – those dealing with love in the long haul rather than early romantic love. The latter is easy, but, as Carmel Bird reflects above, it’s what happens next that is the stuff of life!
Now, over to you – the world is your oyster. I’d love to hear about any books about love (of any sort) that you have enjoyed.
Whispering Gums 
I thought Love is in the Air was also the name of an ABC TV series about a rural radio station, but I can’t bring it up in a search.
For a novel about love that I love (and you love) that you haven’t already mentioned, The Pea Pickers. (I’m away driving, but I remember Steve’s line on meeting Macca for the first time: Down I fell, in love.)
Oh yes, Bill, why didn’t I remember that, and her poetic language! Thankyou. (I always know when I do these sorts of posts that, while I can’t list them all there will be books that I will kick myself about.)
Hmmm, I found something about a music documentary series on the ABC with that title. But you probably found that too.
When I read the title of this post I sang it in my head to the tune of that 1977 disco song!
Oh I love that Jeanne.
How about I make a totally egocentric comment (for a change ? – not !) and say that I wrote for the sake of love …?
A perfect answer MR! You did didn’t you. It shines through.
I loved Alex Miller’s Love Song! What a stand out book… I don’t have much to add other than Love Stories by Trent Dalton… lol… The others I can think of are all by foreign authors!
I’m glad you loved that Rach. You are allowed to name foreign authors. I only restrict myself to the Aus Lit theme because so many commenters are not Aussie but I extend my generosity to all!
I confess the term “choclit” made me giggle because it can be read in at least two ways!
I like your final comment about wanting to read stories about relationships that have been going on for a long time. I do too! The only thing that makes me sad is most books like that focus on things that have gone wrong, hurts that have happened over the decades, etc. I don’t think all long-term relationships are downers just because they’ve been at it for a while.
That’s an interesting point but I guess that’s true of a lot of literature – the drama is in the tough things not the happy things! Still I guess there’s a lot of space between downer and happy clappy! If I remember correctly Wallace Stegner has written well about long relationships.
I have read of some British philosopher, probably Gilbert Ryle, who, seeming very matter-of-fact and perhaps unimaginative, was asked whether he had ever read a novel. He replied that he read all six, every year. The six, of course, were Jane Austen’s.
It is curious how few novels built around love I can think of. A scan of our book club’s list shows none I’d really classify that way. The two best examples I can think of on our shelves (one or two of the all six apart) are Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God’s and and Laurie Colwin’s Happy All the Time. Sir Walter Scott always throws in a love story, but is his heart really in it?
For long-term relationships, Wallace Stegner’s Crossing to Safety comes to mind, though the the relationships are very much in the context of careers and families.
Thanks George … of course I love Ryle’s response! Though I do think he could have tried a bit more fiction.
Crossing to safety is a good one, but perhaps Angle of repose is better?
Angle of Repose has the element of the other man–other men, if we count the easterner the wife left behind. It is curious that both novels have wives who seem to think, if not consciously, that they have married down: though as the world measures, this is really not so. I leave as an exercise for the reader to decide whether this is the case for The Big Rock Candy Mountain.
I am reminded that LBJ thought it important to know whether a man’s mother considered that she had married up or married down. If the latter, one could move him by saying that doing such-and-such would make his mother proud. Perhaps he folded in the even matches with the marriers-up.
Thanks George. It’s a long time since I’ve read Angle of repose, so maybe I have misremembered aspects of it, but I thought these was a strong thread about the marriage. I wish I’d read The Big Rock Candy Mountain so I could make a case or not! As for LBJ, all that up and down just does my head in!
I love everything I’ve ready by Alex Miller – most of them are about love. His most recent one, The Deal, is particularly good.
Oh thanks Kimbofo, that’s great to hear. Maybe a good one for the reading group.
When in Austria in about 1990 Love is in the Air was played in a club I was in and all the Brits had no idea as to what it was. The locals on the other hand got up and danced and sung along. I was told it was a huge hit in the German-speaking world at the time.
My book is a strange one to select I suppose but Richard Flanagan’s The Narrow Road to the Deep North I thought was all bout love ultimately.
That’s fascinating John. It’s really interesting how different sounds and bands have taken off in different parts of the world, like Abba really making their name here.
And that’s not strange at all, though I hadn’t thought about it. It is about love, I agree – all sorts of love.
The current movie Is ‘This Thing On?’ about a middle-aged married couple’s separation is an interesting journey of communication, finding meaning in life, and love…
Oh thanks Treble Clef… I hadn’t heard of that one. You can tell me about it today!
I recently read Chosen Family | Madeleine Gray which is a LGBTIQ love story and when I checked my blog it threw up a poem I posted about a number of years ago called How to Love Bronwyn…for a bit of fun 🙂
Haha, love it Brona!
And on the internationhal scene – Haruf Kent springs to mind, and a personal favourite, The Time-Traveller’s Wife ❤
Oh yes, good non-Aussie books. I love Haruf Kent. I enjoyed The time-traveller’s wife but it’s probably not quite a favourite. I remember though enjoying the read more than I expected!
Wouldn’t it be love-rly! I picked up my copy of Can Xue’s Love in the New Millenium with VDay in mind and almost immediately realised the error of my ways (during chapter one, I had to wonder whether the main characters were actually cicadas and I’d only assumed they were human, in what Bill has reminded me isn’t unlike something that could happen in a Murakami novel…I don’t thiiiiink they are cicadas, but I’m still reading). More relevantly, perhaps, I read and enjoyed Margaret Drabble’s The Waterfall which is about a marriage, about an affair, and perhaps most importantly about how the narrator finds out who she is in both contexts. (Also, I loved that Stead novel!) [HAH! WordPress, take that! I made a copy this time, hands off my comment!]
Haha Marcie, I have sometimes made copies of comments though it’s usually only when I forget that I lose them!
I look forward to finding out in your post whether they are cicadas. I have read The waterfall but in the 1980s, so don’t remember any details. Looks like she’s not written a novel for ten years, but is still alive.