Diotima was the teacher who led Socrates to an appreciation of the nature of love and its relation to philosophy and the world in general. The current author is not Diotima of Mantinea, but she does believe firmly that the dichotomy between thought and feeling, between "mind" and "heart," has crippled Western society for far too long; she works in whatever way she can to redress that. Diotima is, among other things, a mother, a lover, an inhabitant of bookshops, a teacher, a reader, a worker... (and much less energetic than this makes her sound!).