Queer as Folklore

One woman's road trip across America in search of her lost libido.

Arriving in New York with a failing relationship and a body she felt out of touch with, Stephanie Theobald set off on a 3,497 mile trip across America to re-build her orgasm from the ground up. What started as a quest for the ultimate auto-erotic experience became a fantastic voyage into her own body.

She takes us from ‘body sex’ classes with the legendary feminist Betty Dodson to an interview with the former US Surgeon General Joycelyn Elders, who was fired for suggesting that masturbation should be talked about in schools. Along the way, we are immersed in a weird, countercultural America of marijuana farms and ‘ecosexual sexologists’.

Sex Drive is a memoir about desire and pleasure, merging sexuality and spirituality, eighteenth-century porn and enlightenment philosophy. A new sexual revolution has begun – and this time round, it’s all about the women.

Over half a million copies sold

Six murders. One hundred pages. Millions of possible combinations… but only one is correct. Can you solve Torquemada’s murder mystery?

In 1934, the Observer’s cryptic crossword compiler, Edward Powys Mathers (aka Torquemada), released a novel that was simultaneously a murder mystery and the most fiendishly difficult literary puzzle ever written.

The pages have been printed in an entirely haphazard order, but it is possible – through logic and intelligent reading – to sort the pages into the only correct order, revealing six murder victims and their respective murderers.

Only three puzzlers have ever solved the mystery of Cain’s Jawbone: do you have what it takes to join their ranks?

Please note: this puzzle is extremely difficult and not for the faint-hearted.

A Passion for Passion is a love letter to romance fiction. It celebrates the joyful silliness of books that are written to follow the rules.

Alice Fraser has a special place in her heart for the sweeping silliness of romance novels. The journey to reach a believable Happily Ever After can go via an unbelievable rollercoaster of intensity, through wildly entertaining twists and unlikely turns. To celebrate the unparalleled joy this genre can bring to readers and defy its oft maligned status, Alice has created the author, D'Ancey LaGuarde, the ineffably mysterious, outrageously prolific, undisputed regent of the art of romance.

Collecting together excerpts, book cover designs, character sketches and synopses of ‘D'Ancey’s’ most absurdly frivolous and outlandishly whimsical works: from A Knight of Passion to The Dragon Lord's Lady and Luring the Laird to A Cowboy Called Home, this is an exclusive glimpse into the tropes and dreams that rise like perfumed bubbles through the fecund swamp of the romantic mind, and a fulsome challenge to anyone denying the importance of joy purely for its own sake.

This book will be a constant source of solace and encouragement for romance fans worldwide, and the perfect companion to smuggle into your next ball . . .

Twenty Gentle Protest craft projects to help you make a positive difference in our world.

If we want our world to be more beautiful, kind and fair, can we make our activism more beautiful, kind and fair? ‘Gentle Protest’ is a unique methodology of strategic, compassionate and visually intriguing activism using handicrafts as a tool. Since its creation in 2009, the award-winning global Craftivist Collective has helped change laws, policies, hearts and minds around the world as well as expand the view of what activism can be.

Dreams inspire positive action, so stitch a Dream Cloud to hang up at home or work and prompt you to think past a problem to the solution. Sew a Gentle Nudge Label to help keep your conscience sharp and your spirit strong. Craft your own Mini Protest Banner to turn heads and influence change, or fly solidarity’s flag for those suffering as a result of the world’s injustices. Stitch a Handmade Hedgerow to champion one of the solutions to the climate crisis or if you are nervous about protesting in public or if there’s a ban on public rallies where you live, let a doll speak your truth by creating a Toy Protest.

This handbook is for everyone, wherever you are in the world: whether you are a skilled crafter or a burnt-out activist, an introvert, highly sensitive person, or struggling with anxiety or overwhelm. These 20 projects and tools use the slow, soothing and thoughtful process of craft to help channel feelings of sadness, anger or powerlessness into proactive, encouraging effective actions to help make hope possible.

A gorgeous set of 100 postcards by acclaimed artist Jackie Morris

From the beloved artist and writer Jackie Morris—The Unwinding, in a beautiful set of cards Jackie Morris—the creative genius behind The Lost Words, The Lost Spells (both with Robert MacFarlane), and The Unwinding—has designed a special set of cards. The front of each card features on of Jackie’s paintings from The Unwinding; the back of each has a short quote, a spell, or a poem from the book, plus space for you to write your own message, or to draw or paint your own addition. In Jackie Morris’s own words, use them to “spread peace and beauty to the people you love and care about.” Inspired by dreams and wishes, these cards will ease the soul and offer respite wherever they land. Designed by Alison O’Toole, who helped Jackie create the original book and the award-winning phenomenon that is The Lost Words, this postcard box will be an elegant work of art in its own right, as useful as it is beautiful.

I Could Read the Sky is a collaboration, in the shape of a lyrical novel, between writer Timothy O'Grady and photographer Steve Pyke. 

It tells the story of a man coming of age in the middle of this century. Now at its end, he finds himself alone, struggling to make sense of a life of dislocation and loss. He remembers his childhood in the west of Ireland and his decades of bewildered exile in the factories, potato fields and on the building sites of England. He is haunted by the faces of the family he left behind and by the land that is still within him. He remembers the country and the seascapes, the bars and the boxing booths, the music he played, and the woman he loved. This elegiac narrative is accompanied by a succession of photographs taken by Pyke during his travels in Ireland – from starkly beautiful landscapes to unforgettable portraits and scenes from everyday life – which in their counterpoint with the text produce a powerful evocation of the Irish emigrant experience.