It was just as she suspected: love turned you into perfect mush.

GUIDO is not in the habit of falling in love with women he sees in museums. Until he meets HOLLY. Precise about everything, she knows what she likes: pressed sheets, oranges (but nothing orange-flavoured), tea on a tray - and now, Guido.

Meanwhile VINCENT, Guido's eternally cheerful best friend and cousin, falls for his misanthropic new colleague, MISTY. She seems as uninterested in love as she is in Vincent (at first).

Through courtship, arguments, wedding plans and other perils, the couples find a way to be happy (almost) all the time.

When Sam Bax, that charming daredevil of a Boston lawyer, sails his boat into a storm off the coast of Maine, Elizabeth "Olly" Bax, his wife and ardent sidekick, becomes a widow at the edge of seventy-seven.  With no pretense of "courage," Olly grieves, coping with the warmth and awkwardness of family ties and trying to rethink her own life.  Realizing that her risks are as daring as any of Sam's -- while he chanced life and limb, Olly risks her heart -- she finds that love can take some surprising turns.

Laurie Colwin depics Olly's recovery with humor, compassion, and a decided lack of sentimentally, creating a real heroine who remains true to her heart and still manages to keep her head.

Within these fourteen hilarious and insightful tales of urban life, you'll meet: Raiford Phelps, an ornithologist who discovers new patterns of animal behavior when he meets Mary Leibnitz.Benno Morna, a temporary bachelor, free to indulge in TV, junk food, and Greenie Frenzel when his wholesome wife is out of town.Vincent Cadworthy and Guido Morris, whose elegant friendship is suddenly disrupted by Misty Berkowitz. Elizabeth Bayard, whose passion for order and civility does constant battle with her unruly loves.They are buffeted by the pressures of their jobs, imposed upon by their families and their surroundings, and remain ever hopeful of making sense of their lives. With compassion and biting wit, Laurie Colwin has created a new sort of comedy of manners.

'Everything food writing should be: funny, profound, inspiring and unaffected' Nigella Lawson Weaving together memories, recipes, and wild tales of years spent in the kitchen, Home Cooking is Laurie Colwin's manifesto on the joys of sharing food and entertaining. From the humble hot-plate of her one-room apartment to the crowded kitchens of bustling parties, Colwin regales us with tales of meals gone both magnificently well and disastrously wrong. Never before published in the UK, this is hilarious, personal and full of Colwin's hard-won expertise. Home Cooking will speak to the heart (and stomach) of any amateur cook, professional chef, or food lover. 'A feast . . . witty, no-nonsense. Home Cooking is a culinary companion as comfortable beside your bed as your cooker. It has an essay for everyone who loves to eat and demonstrates that home is where the heart is - and the stomach happiest' Observer 'Laurie Colwin's food thoughts are like phone calls from a dear friend' New Yorker 'Shrewd, witty and consistently enjoyable' Mail on Sunday

Guido and Vincent are childhood best friends--third cousins, really--living in Cambridge and dreaming about their futures. Guido plans to write poetry while Vincent feels confident he will win a Nobel prize for physics. When Guido spots Holly while exiting a museum, he can immediately sense that she will difficult, quirky, and hard to live with. He loves her on sight. Vincent, open-minded and cheerful, meets Misty at work. Though she is a bored and misanthropic brunette, he finds himself desperate to know her. Through courtship, jealousy, estrangement, and other perils, "Happy All the Time "follows four sane, intelligent, and good-intentioned people who manage to find love in spite of themselves.