Frank Baum published The Wonderful Wizard of Oz so there was at least half a century being the book. when, suddenly, I spotted a black and white book cover featuring a snarky gal with a cigarette dangling from her mouth. Notable works also include August Is a Wicked Month (1965), A Pagan Place (1970), Lantern Slides (1990), and The Light of Evening (2006). With classics such as Ted Hughes's The Iron Man and award-winners including Emma Carroll's Letters from the Lighthouse, Faber Children's Books brings you the best in picture books, young reads and classics.

I’m going to have to hunt through my London TBR (now safely arrived) to see what other O’Brien gems I squirrelled away. Hey, I thought, it would be way cheaper to read a story of wanton lasciviousness than to get an infected belly button (and a lot less painful, too).There, she meets all sorts of people including lesbians and gay men but she realizes that she is not really looking for sex because she does not get interested even on a good-looking actor. I picked this up thinking, ooh a nice summery read, something on the 1001 books list and possible some guilt-free, liberated and escapist, pseudo-feminist sex frolics (somewhere in a middle ground that is neither the weird dirty old man kinkiness of Michel Houllebecq and isn't Jilly Cooper either) . The novel trundles in this direction long enough to lull you into a false sense of security but is swiftly overtaken by the harsher realities of life.

More of a novella, O'Brien does a tremendous job of bringing us inside the mind of a woman, Ellen, who is hurting and insecure after a divorce. A brilliant and prescient 1965 exploration of the darker aspects of the 1960s sexual revolution and how it introduced new oppressions for women, in particular: seemingly mandatory promiscuity and a stress on slimness that causes neurotic calorie-counting. There she hopes for some true sexual excitement, but winds up having encounters with two of the hotel employees, who are pushy, clumsy, and ultimately disgusting. She has sex on the brain and flirts with almost every male she sees, including the man sitting beside her on the plane.Often times I would find myself losing focus on what I was reading and having to read some passages again.