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Tony Parsons


We explore the eclectic bedtime reading recommendations of author Tony Parsons

Nick Hornby: Juliet, Naked
Annie and Duncan are a mid-thirties couple who have reached a fork in the road, realising their shared interest in the reclusive musician Tucker Crowe (in Duncan's case, an obsession rather than an interest) is not enough to hold them together any more. When Annie hates Tucker's 'new release', a terrible demo of his most famous album, it's the last straw - Duncan cheats on her and she promptly throws him out.

Via an internet discussion forum, Annie's harsh opinion reaches Tucker himself, who couldn't agree more. He and Annie start an unlikely correspondence which teaches them both something about moving on from years of wasted time. Nick Hornby's compelling new novel, four years after A Long Way Down, is about the nature of creativity and obsession, and how two lonely people can gradually find each other.

J.M. Barrie: Peter Pan
The night that Peter Pan flies into the Darling children's nursery is the night that magic flies into their lives. It's the night that Wendy and her brothers follow Peter out of the window and soar through the sky to Neverland. It's the night that they discover a world of mermaids, fairies, and pirates, of lost boys, and of the terrible Captain Hook. It's the night the adventure begins...

Cindy M Meston & David Buss: Why Women Have Sex

Do women have sex simply to reproduce or display their affection? When clinical psychologist Cindy Meston and evolutionary psychologist David Buss joined forces to investigate the underlying sexual motivations of women, what they found astonished them.

Through the voices of real women, Meston and Buss reveal the motivations that guide women's sexual decisions and explain the deep-seated psychology and biology that often unwittingly drive women's desires sometimes in pursuit of health or pleasure, or sometimes for darker, disturbing reasons that a woman may not fully recognize.

Drawing on more than a thousand intensive interviews conducted solely for the book, as well as their pioneering research on physiological response and evolutionary emotions, Why Women Have Sex uncovers an amazingly complex and nuanced portrait of female sexuality. They delve into the use of sex as a defensive tactic against a mate's infidelity (protection), as a ploy to boost self-confidence (status), as a barter for gifts or household chores (resource acquisition), or as a cure for a migraine headache (medication). Why Women Have Sex stands as the richest and deepest psychological understanding of female sexuality yet achieved and promises to inform every woman's (and her partner's) awareness of her relationship to sex and her sexuality.

 

Tony Parsons on The Book Show
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