The Intimate Adventures Of A London Call Girl

The bestselling and infamous diary of a high-class call girl, as seen on the show starring Billie Piper. Belle de Jour is the nom de plume of a high-class call girl working in London. This is her story. From the summer of 2003 to the autumn of 2004 Belle charted her day-to-day adventures on and off the field in a frank, funny and award-winning web diary. Now, in her Intimate Adventures, Belle elaborates on those diary entries, revealing (among other things) how she became a working girl, what it feels like to do it for money, and where to buy the best knickers for the job. From debating the literary merits of Martin Amis with naked clients to smuggling whips into luxury hotels, this is a no-holds barred account of the high-class sex-trade, and an insight into the secret life of an extraordinary woman.

''She lists like Hornby. She talks dirty like Amis. She has the misanthropy of Larkin and examines the finer points of sexual technique as she is adjusting the torque on a beloved but temperamental old E-type...It's hard to believe that this clever and candid new voice has no more to say. Whoever the author is, she should give up the day job. Only then will we find out what the real Belle de Jour is made of.' Independent This follow-up to the hugely successful 'Intimate Adventures' will be just as bold, funny and brilliant. Peppered with agony-aunt letters and advice, and stories from her 'working' life, it's also the story of a young woman making her way in the world - told in Belle's inimitable voice.

Literary ombudsman John Crace never met an important book he didn't like to deconstruct. From Salman Rushdie to John Grisham, Crace retells the big books in just 500 bitingly satirical words, pointing his pen at the clunky plots, stylistic tics and pretensions of Big Ideas, as he turns publishers' golden dream books into dross.

The startling and groundbreaking novel that inspired Luis Buñuel's film by the same name, Belle de Jour remains as vital and controversial today as it was in its 1960 debut.

From the summer of 2003 Belle charted her day-to-day adventures on and off the field in a frank, funny and award-winning diaries. She was the first to reveal (among other things) how she became a working girl, what it feels like to do it for money, and where to buy the best knickers for the job. She also discusses her efforts to change from 'working girl' to working girl, whilst sneaking off to visit clients in her lunch hour. From debating the literary merits of Martin Amis with naked clients to smuggling whips into luxury hotels, this is a no-holds barred account of the high-class sex-trade, and an insight into the secret life of an extraordinary woman.

What does sexiness mean today? Has sexiness become something that is bought and sold? What identity effects does a sexiness informed by consumer culture have? This book addresses these questions, off the back of a heightened visibility of 'sex', 'sexiness', and 'sexualization' in everyday life.

This book analyses the impact of postfeminist discourse and the mainstreaming of pornography on our understanding of intimacy and female sexuality. It is a broad critical survey of a recent publishing phenomenon – the female-authored erotic memoir – and positions the texts under analysis as complex and contradictory expressions of popular feminism.

This collection of essays on selected texts in literature, film and the media is driven by a shared theme of contesting the binary thinking in respect of gender and sexuality. The three parts of this book – “contesting norms”, “performing selves” and “blurring the lines” – delineate the queer celebration of difference and deviance. They pinpoint the limitation of assumed norms and subverting them, revel in the fluid and ambiguous self that springs from the contestation of those norms, and then repeatedly transgress and, as a result, obscure the limits that separate the normal from the abnormal. The variety of texts included in the collection ranges from a discussion of queer subjects represented in film, television and literature to that of the representations of other non-normative figures (including a madwoman, a freak or a prostitute) and to gender-role contestation and gender-bending practicing evidenced in the press, theatre, film, literature and popular culture.