Romantic Failures of the World's Greatest Thinkers Exposed in Andrew Shaffer's New Book

Dec. 29, 2010 - PRLog -- Chances are, if you’ve been in love, you’ve also been out of love. Perhaps you’ve even turned to wiser minds to soothe the sting. However, be warned: some of the greatest philosophers of the Western world have also failed spectacularly at romance.

In the hilarious and compelling GREAT PHILOSOPHERS WHO FAILED AT LOVE (Harper Perennial Paperback Original; on sale in the US and Canada: 1/4/2011), Order of St. Nick founder and creative director Andrew Shaffer paints brief but entertaining portraits of nearly forty great thinkers whose words we repeat—but whose decisions we should avoid at all costs.

Within are the stories of...

...Jean Jacques-Rousseau, who routinely exposed himself to women in alleyways...
...Friedrich Engels, who delivered a deathbed confession in which he revealed that his son was actually fathered by his friend Karl Marx...
...Louis Althusser, who “accidentally” strangled his wife in her sleep...
...Ayn Rand, who dedicated “Atlas Shrugged” to both her husband Frank and her lover Nathaniel...
...Jean-Paul Sartre, who adopted his mistress as his daughter...

…and many more. The book was inspired by the author's popular line of "Friedrich Nietzsche Anti-Valentine's Day" greeting cards, available from greeting card company Order of St. Nick (www.orderofstnick.com).

After reading “Great Philosophers Who Failed at Love,” “almost everyone will feel better about his or her love life” (Publishers Weekly).

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ANDREW SHAFFER is a frequent Huffington Post contributor and creative director of Order of St. Nick, the greeting card company whose irreverent cards have been featured on “The Colbert Report,” NPR, and FOX News. He is a contributor to the forthcoming Wiley-Blackwell book, “Yoga: Philosophy for Everyone,” and regularly reviews Harlequin romance novels for “RT Book Reviews” magazine.