Rowan Pelling

Rachel Johnson, James Heale, Paul Wood, Rowan Pelling and Graeme Thomson

From our UK edition

34 min listen

On this week’s Spectator Out Loud: Rachel Johnson reads her diary for the week (1:19); James Heale analyses the true value of Labour peer Lord Alli (6:58); Paul Wood questions if Israel is trying to drag America into a war with Iran (11:59); Rowan Pelling reviews Want: Sexual Fantasies, collated by Gillian Anderson (19:47); and Graeme

The mystery of female desire deepens

From our UK edition

Sexual fantasies, that dream you had last night, and ideas for novels have one thing in common: generally the best place for them is inside your head, never to be divulged. Until now, the major exception to the rule was Nancy Friday’s 1973 compilation of women’s fantasies, My Secret Garden, which sold more than two

A shaggy showgirl story

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One of the chief regrets of book-loving women of my age — and a surprising number of men — is that no one writes novels like Love in a Cold Climate and The Dud Avocado any more. I’m talking about the brand of romantic misadventure written with such wit, verve and emotional honesty that you

Toys for us

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It’s hard not to love a book that starts with its author fearing a police sting while flogging sex toys at a hen party in Texas. The year is 2004 and Hallie Lieberman is attending grad school in Austin and supporting her studies by working as a home party organiser for Forbidden Fruit, local purveyor