Misery Bear's memoir is perfect for Valentine's Day — if you're alone

Face it, guys: Valentine’s Day is a holiday that exists for the glorification of women. Don’t get your Beloved a raunchy card and a Whitman sampler. Go all the way — nice dinner, wine, fine chocolates, declarations of love . . . perhaps even a book.

Whatever you do, don’t get her Misery Bear’s Guide to Love and Heartbreak (Hodder and Stoughton, $19.95). For those of you who are truly-madly-deeply, giving this book would be a Waterloo-sized tactical error.

But for those a little weary of Valentine’s Day or bruised in love, Misery Bear might prove to be good company.

For the last four years, Misery Bear has been starring in a series of short films on the BBC that have gone viral. The whole saga of his whole life to date is available on YouTube. Here's the Misery Bear Channel.

And now, just in time for the holiday for lovers, he brings us this book of his experiences in love.

Here, for example, is a Misery Bear love poem:

The winter cold
Makes me shiver
You look at me
And make me quiver

We go to yours
For some dinner
You serve me up
A plate of liver

I vomit for eight hours

If that won’t put you out of the mood for love, I don’t know what will.

So if you’re alone or limping along in a relationship, this might be the best way to comfort yourself on Valentine’s Day. A few laughs never hurt.

A former faculty member at the University of Florida, McKeen now chairs the journalism department at Boston University. He is the author most recently of Mile Marker Zero and Homegrown in Florida.