cover image How the World Makes Love: What the World Taught a Jilted Groom About Love

How the World Makes Love: What the World Taught a Jilted Groom About Love

Franz Wisner, . . St. Martin's, $24.95 (308pp) ISBN 978-0-312-34083-4

Wisner's earlier book, Honeymoon with My Brother , was based on the two years he spent visiting 53 countries with his brother after being jilted by his fiancée. This sequel follows the Wisner brothers on a quixotic search for “how people in different countries meet, fall in love, have sex.” Chapters on visits to seven countries, including Egypt, Brazil and New Zealand, alternate with descriptions of Wisner's own on-again-off-again love lives back in Los Angeles. In the style of Dave Barry, the author relates his experiences with self-deprecating humor: “Only in America can a person get dumped at the altar and turn it into a career.” The peripatetic siblings look for the meaning of love in such places as a market in Nicaragua and a nightclub in Prague, turning up such stereotypes as people in India favor arranged marriages. The earlier book is being made into a movie, and the sequel has cinematic potential as well. Both would be of interest to readers searching for love without commitment and a relationship without obligations. Like a television sitcom, this book provides more laughs than wisdom. (Mar.)