Optioned for film and published in sixteen countries, this British sensation explodes the myth that all people need to be truly happy is love and marriage. Meet thirty-three-year-old Clara Hutt: irreverent, sometimes unkind, always self-deprecating. Clara is a part-time magazine writer with a perpetually mysterious husband and two small boys, and some days she wakes up with the feeling that her life isn't all it should be. Her extended stepfamily is forever making demands; her sons are constantly "murdering each other"; all the other mothers at the school gate are perfectly groomed, but Clara...

One day someone came back from half-term with Delta of Venus, by Anais Nin . . .
Well. Well. The book briskly did the rounds, getting tattier and tattier with each reading.
Mouths dropped open in shock.
Eyes popped with disbelief.
Did people really. . . Did men really want to . . . ?'
Edited and introduced by India Knight, THE DIRTY BITS - FOR GIRLS is an unmissable collection. From zipless action in Fear of Flying to jolly romps with Jilly Cooper; from transgressions with a priest in The Thorn Birds to mischief with Mellors; from a gentle first encounter with 'Ralph' in...