Crash is a novel by English author J. G. Ballard, first published in 1973. It is a story about symphorophilia; specifically car-crash sexual fetishism: its protagonists become sexually aroused by staging and participating in real car-crashes.
The Virgin Suicides is a 1993 debut novel by the American author Jeffrey Eugenides. The fictional story, which is set in Grosse Pointe, Michigan during the 1970s, centers on the lives of five doomed sisters, the Lisbon girls. The novel is written in first person plural from the perspective of an anonymous group of teenage boys who struggle to find an explanation for the Lisbons' deaths. The novel's first chapter appeared in The Paris Review in 1990, and won the 1991 Aga Khan Prize for Fiction. The novel was adapted into a 1999 movie by director Sofia Coppola, and starring Kirsten Dunst.
Virginity is the state of a person who has never engaged in sexual intercourse. There are cultural and religious traditions that place special value and significance on this state, predominantly towards unmarried females, associated with notions of personal purity, honor, and worth.
Abstinence pledges are commitments made by people, often though not always teenagers and young adults, to practice abstinence, usually in the case of practicing teetotalism with respect to abstaining from alcohol and other drugs, or chastity, with respect to abstaining from sexual intercourse until marriage; in the case of sexual abstinence, they are sometimes also known as purity pledges or virginity pledges. They are most common in the United States among Catholic and Evangelical Christian denominations, while others are nonsectarian.
Them is a novel by Joyce Carol Oates, the third in the Wonderland Quartet she inaugurated with A Garden of Earthly Delights. It was first published by Vanguard in 1969 and it won the U.S. National Book Award for Fiction in 1970.
Middlesex is a Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by Jeffrey Eugenides published in 2002. The book is a bestseller, with more than four million copies sold since its publication. Its characters and events are loosely based on aspects of Eugenides' life and observations of his Greek heritage. It is not an autobiography; unlike the protagonist, Eugenides is not intersex. The author decided to write Middlesex after reading the 1980 memoir Herculine Barbin and was dissatisfied with its discussion of intersex anatomy and emotions.
The Water Method Man (1972) is the second published novel by American novelist John Irving.
First Love, Last Rites is a collection of short stories by Ian McEwan. It was first published in 1975 by Jonathan Cape and re-issued in 1997 by Vintage.
Harry Mathews was an American writer, the author of various novels, volumes of poetry and short fiction, and essays. Mathews was also a translator of the French language.
A rainbow party is a supposed group sex event featured in an urban legend spread since the early 2000s. A variant of other sex party urban myths, the stories claim that at these events, allegedly increasingly popular among adolescents, girls wearing various shades of lipstick take turns fellating boys in sequence, leaving multiple colors on their penises.
Palindromes is a 2004 American comedy-drama film written and directed by Todd Solondz. Referencing Solondz's previous Welcome to the Dollhouse, it was nominated for the Golden Lion award at the 61st Venice International Film Festival.
Pamela Isaacs is an American singer and actress.
The Virgin Suicides is a 1999 American psychological drama film written and directed by Sofia Coppola, co-produced by Francis Ford Coppola, and starring James Woods, Kathleen Turner, Kirsten Dunst, AJ Cook and Josh Hartnett. The film also features Scott Glenn, Michael Paré, and Danny DeVito in minor roles, with voice narration by Giovanni Ribisi.
A Sport and a Pastime (1967) is a novel by the American writer James Salter.
Northanger Abbey is a 2007 British television film adaptation of Jane Austen's 1817 novel of the same name. It was directed by British television director Jon Jones and the screenplay was written by Andrew Davies. Felicity Jones stars as the protagonist Catherine Morland and JJ Feild plays her love interest Henry Tilney. The story unfolds as the teenaged Catherine is invited to Bath to accompany some family friends. There she finds herself the object of Henry Tilney's and John Thorpe's affections. When she is asked to stay at Northanger Abbey, Catherine's youthful and naive imagination takes hold and she begins to confuse real life with the Gothic romance of her favourite novels.
Pamela Erens is an American writer who appeared on a list compiled by the Reader's Digest of "23 Contemporary Writers You Should Have Read by Now". She has written three critically acclaimed novels for adults as well as a highly praised novel for middle graders. Her debut novel, The Understory (2007), was a fiction finalist for the William Saroyan International Prize for Writing and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize,. Erens's second novel, The Virgins (2013), received accolades from many sources including The New York Times, The New Yorker and Vanity Fair. It was a finalist for the John Gardner Fiction Book Award. Her third novel, Eleven Hours, was published in May 2016. It was named a Best Book of 2016 by The New Yorker, NPR, and Kirkus. Erens's middle grade novel, Matasha, was published in June 2021. Erens has also written essays and critical articles for publications such as The New York Times, Vogue, Elle, Virginia Quarterly Review, and Los Angeles Review of Books.
The Understory is the debut novel by American author Pamela Erens published in 2007 by Ironweed Press, and republished in 2014 by Tin House Books following the success of her second novel, The Virgins. It was a finalist for both the William Saroyan International Prize for Writing fiction prize and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for First Fiction.
Swing Time is a novel by British writer Zadie Smith, released in November 2016. The story takes place in London, New York and West Africa, and focuses on two girls who can tap dance, alluding to Smith's childhood love of tap dancing.
Pamela Ryder is an American writer. Ryder is the author of Correction of Drift: A Novel in Stories, A Tendency to Be Gone: Stories, and Paradise Field: A Novel in Stories. Her fiction has also been published in many literary journals, including Black Warrior Review, Conjunctions, Prairie Schooner, The Quarterly, Shenandoah, and Unsaid.
