Product Review

The perfect Valentine’s Day or anniversary gift: An illustrated collection of love and relationship advice from New Yorker writer Patricia Marx, with illustrations from New Yorker cartoonist Roz Chast.
Everyone’s heard the old advice for a healthy relationship: Never go to bed angry. Play hard to get. Sexual favors in exchange for cleaning up the cat vomit is a good and fair trade.

Okay, not that last one. It’s one of the tips in You Can Only Yell at Me for One Thing at a Time: Rules for Couples by the authors of Why Don’t You Write My Eulogy Now So I Can Correct It: A Mother’s Suggestions. This guide will make you laugh, remind you why your relationship is better than everyone else’s, and solve all your problems.

Nuggets of advice include:

If you must breathe, don’t breathe so loudly.

It is easier to stay inside and wait for the snow to melt than to fight about who should shovel.

Queen-sized beds, king-sized blankets.

Why not give this book to your significant or insignificant other, your anti-Valentine’s Day crusader pal, or anyone who can’t live with or without love?