Laura Mucha - 24 Jan

Also available in the Bloomsbury Sigma series:

P53: The Gene that Cracked the Cancer Code by Sue Armstrong

Spirals in Time by Helen Scales

A is for Arsenic by Kathryn Harkup

Breaking the Chains of Gravity by Amy Shira Teitel

Herding Hemingways Cats by Kat Arney

Death on Earth by Jules Howard

The Tyrannosaur Chronicles by David Hone

Soccermatics by David Sumpter

Big Data by Timandra Harkness

Goldilocks and the Water Bears by Louisa Preston

Science and the City by Laurie Winkless

Bring Back the King by Helen Pilcher

Furry Logic by Matin Durrani and Liz Kalaugher

Built on Bones by Brenna Hassett

My European Family by Karin Bojs

4th Rock from the Sun by Nicky Jenner

Patient H69 by Vanessa Potter

Catching Breath by Kathryn Lougheed

PIG/PORK by Pa Spry-Marqus

The Planet Factory by Elizabeth Tasker

Wonders Beyond Numbers by Johnny Ball

Immune by Catherine Carver

I, Mammal by Liam Drew

Reinventing the Wheel by Bronwen and Francis Percival

Making the Monster by Kathryn Harkup

Best Before by Nicola Temple

Catching Stardust by Natalie Starkey

Seeds of Science by Mark Lynas

Outnumbered by David Sumpter

Eye of the Shoal by Helen Scales

Nodding Off by Alice Gregory

The Science of Sin by Jack Lewis

The Edge of Memory by Patrick Nunn

Turned On by Kate Devlin

Borrowed Time by Sue Armstrong

For Mum and Ed

And Stefan and Halina Greiner loved and remembered

Contents

This book wouldnt exist without the hundreds of strangers who gave their time, honesty and support to this project. Despite the mild fear of rejection I felt in approaching them, the moment we began speaking really speaking all our unknownness melted away and we were simply two human beings working together on a book that we both believed needed to exist. It was a privilege to be able to have so many genuine conversations with people around the world. Thank you.

Thank you also to the academics whose work I relied on in writing this, and in particular those who agreed to be interviewed and/or helped me verify my research: Simon Blackburn, Richard Kraut, Eli Finkel, Peter Backus, Adam Moore, Kidder Smith, Jack Zipes, Miriam Koktvedgaard Zeitzen, Michael Rosen, Julia Hope, Bennett Helm, Simon May, Elaine Hatfield, Kristin Hadfield and Karen Goodall.

Clinical psychologists John Donohue and Damian White the book is infinitely better for having your insight, gained from years of clinical work and academic study. Damian, thanks especially for your excellent existential brains, and John, thank you for the protracted phone calls about cheery topics, including death, divorce and abuse. You were both fundamental in helping me clarify my thoughts.

Jim Martin thank you for single-handedly bringing Hawaiian shirts back into fashion and for taking a punt on an unknown author obsessed with relationships. Anna MacDiarmid, thank you for your exceptional edits and your endless support and enthusiasm. Imogen Pelham, thank you for being so effortlessly badass, for seeing the potential in the project and helping me with countless permutations of the proposal. Emily Kearns, your copy-edits were the bomb. Thanks to everyone at Bloomsbury around the world who worked behind the scenes on the project.

Marie Horner you recorded interviews, listened to countless recordings with me to create the audio sample on my website, and read through the entire book, providing me with invaluable comments. This project is immeasurably better for your wisdom and compassion. Thank you.

Tina Dodds thank you for transcribing so many interviews over the years and for your long-distance companionship and support. Lana Dettke thank you for transcribing excerpts from endless journals and books.

Jem Brownlee if I listed everything youve done to help with this project Id need another six pages. Im so appreciative of your brilliant brains. Now write your own book so I can repay the favour.

Kevin Dawson our conversations about turning the project into an audio series were game-changing and led to me completely rewriting the book. Thank you for your outstanding audio and story-telling skills. Thanks also to everyone at Whistledown Productions, including David Prest and Deborah Dudgeon, for your belief in the project. Andy Staples, Alisdair Hogarth, Verity Wingate, Graham Ross and Cheryl Frances-Hoad thank you for bringing my thoughts on love to life with music.

Michael Gazzaniga, Morton Liebermann, Michael Rosenfeld, Cindy Hazan, Marjorie Smith, Christine Gross-Loh, Petra at the International Social Science Project, the staff at Japans Institute of Population and Social Security, and Charlotte and Greg at the Office for National Statistics thank you for taking the time to respond to my numerous queries.

Deirdre Walker, Jane Park-Weir, John Ball, Joanna Conway and the other brilliant people I worked with at Norton Rose Fulbright thank you for a phenomenal legal training, which has been instrumental in the process of interviewing, researching, and organising this project.

Thanks to all my friends who took the time to read all or part of the book over the years SJ Boulos, Pete Farnham, Bea Longmore, Sam OLeary, Janina Joffe, Peter Smith, Maggie Smith, Alex Faludy, Yoshi Funaki, Jess Moore, Marilyn Boulos, Miranda France, Marina Castledine, Sally Hogbin, Connor Burrowes and Barbara Plaxton and Jenny Delaney for thinking of the US title of the book. Above and beyond. And a mega thanks to Sapana Agrawal, Tara Button, Pete Farnham, Marie Horner and SJ Boulos for providing 24-hour emotional support.

Jeremy Nagle for years, you have helped me try endless permutations of search terms and hunt down obscure journals and conference papers that I would not have been able to find myself. Your help was fundamental in keeping the book as inclusive and global as possible thank you for your extraordinary mind, exceptional attention to detail and generous listening, patience and support. Thanks also to everyone else at the British Library, the research desk (particularly Paul Allchin), librarians, security and cloakroom staff, Roly Keating and all those behind the scenes who keep this invaluable resource working. I love the British Library!

Mum, mum, mum thank you for always supporting me in whatever I wanted to do, for always letting me know that I was loved, and for being there whenever I needed you. And in terms of this book, thank you for spending so much time looking after B, for helping with late night word-searching and sentence-tinkering, and for always, always having faith in the project and in me.

B - theres nothing better than a cuddle from you at the end of a long day at my desk. Thank you for (almost) always indulging me.

Ed Smith youve waited patiently on countless trips around the world while I scuttled off to do interviews, youve listened to me waffle endlessly about love and relationships, youve edited chapters, told more people about the book than I have, and youve cooked, cleaned and looked after B so that I could finish the book in the first year of his life. Thank you. Thank you. THANK YOU. This book wouldnt exist without you. Oh, and given this is a book about relationships, I should probably also thank you for being a fantastic husband