Fish Food

justforbooks:

Writer at work or child at play?

Being a full-time writer sounds like a dream job, doesn’t it? No schedule, only a deadline or two. You get to be your own boss, make your own plans. The ideas flow, one right after the other. If they don’t come, you can take a hike, or read all day. What could be better?

It’s a dream job if you’re as self-disciplined as Nora Roberts, who writes a bestselling book in 45 days, or Joyce Carol Oates, who has written over 100 books, and is still going strong. Writers, J.T. Ellison, and Carolyn Haines each write 2-3 books a year, along with blogs, interviews, and numerous short stories. Or it’s a dream job if it doesn’t have to pay your bills, and you can simply write when the muse whispers in your ear.

For the rest of us, it can feel a lot like being on summer vacation all the time. You’re a kid on June 1st, and school doesn’t begin again until September. The summer seems to stretch out endlessly, with plenty of time both to play and to get work done. Recently it came to me that academic summers are often only around 11 or 12 weeks long. When you’re seven years old, that’s more than 3.5% of your entire life. But if you’re forty, it’s only 6%. I’m going to go out on my very shaky math limb here and say that 3.5% of a forty-year-old’s life is about 17 months. Imagine having a 17 month stretch of time to play and plan and work! Big difference.

A lot of writing professionals end up holding onto that 3.5% mentality. I know I’m occasionally guilty of it. Sometimes my deadlines feel as ephemeral as far-off September felt when I was seven. When you live in your head for a living, you come to think in romantic terms like endless summer. Fantasy. You’re an artist! Artists are allowed to dream. And dream. Right?

It’s tough to maintain that endless summer feeling if you really want to make progress as a professional. While you desperately need your excitable, childlike spirit to access the fantasy world from which the stories come, you also have to have an adult in your head to make sure the work gets done.

To have a happy life, it’s necessary for the child inside us and the adult inside to coexist. And it’s especially true for creatives. But the problem with kids is that they mostly just want to have fun. They may secretly want boundaries, but when you, as a parent, try to impose them, they complain. Or rebel. The kid inside of me is a rebel. He gives the adult a very hard time–and it’s hard to say no to him. He pouts and pleads and jokes around, and sometimes is a little lazy. Daydreaming is his thing. Typing out the stories even feels like work to him. Some days, he takes a lot of convincing.

There’s a reason that adults who leave their young children at home alone while they go off to work or party or just get the hell away for the day, or a few days, get thrown in jail. Children are not capable of taking care of themselves. They set the kitchen on fire, or leave the bathtub running, or only eat dry macaroni, or play in the cat box, and can’t change their own…well, you get the point.

If you want to be a writer, you can’t just daydream your way into the profession. Your adult has to guide you. He makes you put your butt in the chair, then rewards you appropriately when you do well, or buys you a latte and a chocolate bar or a nice glass of wine when the words are crap. The next day he puts you back in the chair to do it all again. Kids respond to routine because they need to know that they’re safe, and loved, and secure so they can daydream without being afraid that the monsters in their heads are going to devour them.

Maybe you don’t need to hear all this, but I suspect you do. I know I do. Repeatedly. Because I’m stubborn that way.

Ask yourself what you want. If the answer is that you want to be a professional anything, then remember who’s in charge of you.

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Reading has always been everything to me, keeping me afloat when the sea of life gets choppy. Working in a bookshop added another dimension; not only was I was soothed in a near magical way by the physical presence of the books, but talking to strangers about them could always lift my mood. What joy, then, to explore all that in a bibliographic memoir. I imagined my dream customer, addressed them directly, and proffered anecdotes and themed booklists. Dear Reader was born.

My beloved sub-genre of books that are not only fiction, but about fiction; that are full of bookworms who strive to make sense of themselves and their world by reading and writing about it. Here, roughly in the order I encountered them, are 10 of my most cherished.

1. Anne of Green Gables by LM Montgomery
Orphan Anne Shirley felt as real to me as any of the flesh and blood little girls I knew, and I longed to be able to climb into the pages and join her story club. We have a lot in common. Anne is a ferocious bookworm who gets into trouble for reading Ben Hur in class because she just can’t stop until she knows how the chariot race will turn out. Such is the lure of reading, that she has to get her guardian, Matthew, to lock up tempting books in the jam closet until she has finished her homework.

2. I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith
Cassandra Mortmain writes her diary while sitting in the kitchen sink, capturing her eccentric family. Her father, still famous for his experimental novel Jacob’s Ladder, is now stuck and does nothing but read as many detective novels as he can find. Cassandra’s beautiful sister, Rose, frets because she has no clothes and no opportunities. When they hear that rich Americans are about to move in next door, it reminds them of the scene in Pride and Prejudice where Mrs Bennet says that Netherfield Hall is let at last. Perhaps now something exciting will happen …

3. Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy

I’ve been reading and rereading this novel since my teens. My favourite scene these days is near the beginning when Anna is returning from meeting Vronsky for the first time and scarcely wants to admit the attraction. On the train home she reads an English novel and it is her impatience and frustration that signal to us that she is about to transgress: “It was unpleasant to read, that is to say, to follow the reflections of other people’s lives. She was too eager to live herself.”

4. The Light Years by Elizabeth Jane Howard
In the first of the Cazalet chronicles, Howard layers up satisfying details about what everyone is reading. Somerset Maugham, Margaret Irwin, Howard Spring and Angela Thirkell all get a mention and the characters are in and out of bookshops. When the brothers and their wives meet at the family home in the country, everyone chooses a book that reveals much about their character.

5. The Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club by Dorothy Sayers
“Reading is an escape to me. Is it to you?” While investigating a death that occurs during the Armistice Day parade, Lord Peter Wimsey learns a lot about his suspect from her bookcase – Woolf, Mansfield, DH Lawrence – and rightly concludes that she is unhappy rather than guilty of a crime. Wimsey says that when he was in a nursing home with shell shock all he could do was play patience and read detective stories: “All the others had the War in them – or love … or some damn’ thing I didn’t want to think about.”

6. The English Patient by Michael Ondaatje
In a villa north of Florence in 1945, Hana chooses books from the huge library to read to her badly burned patient, who was rescued by the Bedouin when his plane crashed in the desert. He is damaged beyond recognition and has no memory. The only possession that survived the fire is his copy of The Histories by Herodotus, into which he has glued pages from other books and written observations in his small, gnarled handwriting. They live quietly and slowly, and then everything changes with the arrival of a friend of Hana’s father who has a theory about the identity of her patient.

7. My Brilliant Friend by Elena Ferrante
Elena, a writer in her 60s, learns of the disappearance of her old friend Lila and resolves to write down everything she remembers of their friendship growing up together in a poor and violent neighbourhood of Naples. The girls bought a copy of Little Women and read it together until it was tattered and sweat-stained and fell apart. When they were still children, Lila wrote a novel called The Blue Fairy but it is Elena who becomes a published writer. All through their lives, literature, education and the question of who has the right to tell a story weaves through their fraught and competitive friendship.

8. A Tale for the Time Being by Ruth Ozeki

An author called Ruth who lives on Desolation Sound in British Columbia finds a lunchbox washed up on the shore. Inside are some old letters and a diary written by a 16-year-old girl called Nao Yasutani. As Ruth reads more of Nao’s story – she has moved back from the US to Tokyo and is struggling with her depressed father, her absent mother, and truly awful bullying – she tries to find out where Nao is, and whether she has survived the many challenges that threaten to overwhelm her.

9. Milkman by Anna Burns
Our 18-year-old narrator is walking along reading Ivanhoe the first time that the milkman tries to get her to go in his car. Come rain or shine, gunplay, bombs or riots, she always reads as she walks home through this unnamed 1970s city that brims with sectarian tension. Walking while reading is seen as deviant by her gossiping community, who go on to suspect that she is having an affair with the milkman. But she is scared and confused by his pursuit of her and would rather be left alone to read, always 19th-century literature because she doesn’t like the 20th. A sublime novel which is also funny.

10. The Confessions of Frannie Langton by Sara Collins
“Sometimes I picture all that reading and writing as something packed inside me. Dangerous as gunpowder. Where has it got me in the end?” Born on a plantation and brought to London by her master, Frannie knows that no one like her has ever written a book in the whole history of the world. Now, charged with the murder of her mistress, and inspired by Moll Flanders, she pens an account of everything that has happened for her lawyer. Simultaneously playful and deadly serious, this is both a highly engrossing gothic adventure and a meditation on race, ownership and the power of story.

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Top 10 books about books.

I find books within books a uniquely interesting subject – what better place to explore literature than within literature? Not to be pretentious, but let’s start with the book itself: it’s a story, lived or imaginary, told with 26 letters, which make up sentences, pages, chapters … If you think about it, that’s a pretty remarkable object in itself. In the physical sense, a pile of papers, but also a maze of feelings, emotions, actions. Stories and books are the foundations of our culture. Before we had paper, we had clay tablets. The only thing older than the book is the drawing, but that’s a whole other tale …

And then adding to that another book that lives within that book – a whole new maze!

Novels create an illusion of life. Nothing about them is real, and yet, sometimes I have a feeling that something in my writing haunts me – not least because of the publishing process, which can be fraught.

Every day, hundreds of books by unknown authors make their way to publishing houses around France. So many people write novels and dream of being published, but comparatively few make it. I’ve observed the mysterious and fascinating world of publishing. “Write about what you know,” they say, and so for a long time I’ve planned to write a book about that world, about which stories are chosen to be published, how authors interact with their publishers and with their own books.

The following 10 books – nine novels and one work of nonfiction – offer, I think, an insight into the strange world of creating books, the bizarre job that is being a novelist and the magic that can exist (sometimes literally) within the books that we read.

1. The Dumas Club by Arturo Perez-Reverte
One of Perez-Reverte’s strangest stories. Book dealer Lucas Corso embarks on a mission to find a lost book, printed in Venice in the 16th century. But this book contains engravings that, following a certain ritual can, summon the devil.

2. Lila, Lila by Martin Suter
My favourite of Suter’s books. A shy young man finds a dead man’s manuscript hidden in a cabinet in a market, and decides to pass it off as his own to impress the woman he loves. The novel is published and brings him huge success, but he is of course unable to write a second one. And then threatening letters start to arrive – from someone claiming to be the author.

3. A Ladder to the Sky by John Boyne
In a hotel in Berlin, the young Maurice Swift happens to run into the famous novelist Erich Ackerman, who confides in him about his dark past. The unscrupulous Swift quickly appropriates Ackerman’s life story – ruining him, but finally becoming the famous author he’s always dreamed of being. Years later, Swift needs new sources of inspiration … It doesn’t matter whose stories they are, or how he acquires them, so long as they continue to make his name. These stories will drive him to lie, steal and maybe even worse.

4. In Praise of Lies by Patricia Melo
Under various American pseudonyms, Jose Guber shamelessly pitches classic plots to his clueless editor – but increasingly The Stranger and Crime and Punishment are turned down for their narrative weaknesses. Whilst desperately researching what he hopes will be his next bestseller, he meets the beautiful, married snake expert Melissa. They begin a passionate fling – but Melissa, convinced that Jose is a genius, has found the perfect man to plot the murder of her husband.

5. Death by Publication by Jean-Jacques Fiechter
A quite extraordinary crime novel, featuring a particularly subtle literary vengeance. A distinguished publisher’s friendship with one of his longest standing authors has been soured by envy, slights and betrayal. His Machiavellian revenge will convince the author that his latest prize-winning masterpiece is in fact a work of plagiarism.

6. The Surgeon of Crowthorne by Simon Winchester
A true story. In the autumn of 1896, Dr James Murray, the celebrated editor of the Oxford English Dictionary, decides to visit a certain Dr Minor, who lives in Crowthorne in Berkshire, and who for years has been sending him helpful and beautifully written contributions to the dictionary. But quite a surprise awaits him: Dr Minor lives in Crowthorne – in Broadmoor Asylum, where he has been incarcerated for murder.

7. Flaubert’s Parrot by Julian Barnes
Geoffrey Braithwaite, a doctor obsessed with Gustave Flaubert, decides to make a pilgrimage to Normandy, the land of his idol. In Rouen, at the Flaubert museum, he is overcome with emotion to find the very parrot who inspired Loulou from the tale A Simple Heart. But at Croisset, Flaubert’s home, there is yet another stuffed parrot. This is the real Loulou, confirms the curator. But which is the true Loulou? A novel filled with humour and unexpected encounters.

8. Hocus Bogus by Émile Ajar
The novel in which Romain Gary explains the subterfuge that he arranged to allow him to twice win the Prix Goncourt, only supposed to be awarded to an author once, by writing La Vie Devant Soi under a pseudonym and enlisting the son of his cousin to appear as Émile Ajar. A fascinating and thought-provoking meditation about fiction and identity.

9. Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
Montag is a particular kind of fireman from the future: he burns books. Right up until the day when he decides to read a book instead of burning it, rejects the state-sanctioned happiness and dreams of a world where literature and imagination are not banned. Bradbury’s greatest work.

10. The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafón
A young boy enters the cemetery of lost books, a secret library in Barcelona, where he’s given a book by an unknown author called Carax. Entranced by the book, he searches for more of Carax’s work, and to find out more about the mysterious author. And then his path crosses that of a man who is also searching for books by Carax – but to burn them.

Photo Above:  Mel Gibson as Dr James Murray in The Professor and the Madman (2019), based on The Surgeon of Crowthorne.

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The 100 best nonfiction books of all time: the full list

After two years of careful reading, moving backwards through time, Robert McCrum has concluded his selection of the 100 greatest nonfiction books. Take a quick look at five centuries of great writing.

1. The Sixth Extinction by Elizabeth Kolbert (2014)
An engrossing account of the looming catastrophe caused by ecology’s “neighbours from hell” – mankind.

2. The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion (2005)
This steely and devastating examination of the author’s grief following the sudden death of her husband changed the nature of writing about bereavement.

3. No Logo by Naomi Klein (1999)
Naomi Klein’s timely anti-branding bible combined a fresh approach to corporate hegemony with potent reportage from the dark side of capitalism.

4. Birthday Letters by Ted Hughes (1998)
These passionate, audacious poems addressed to Hughes’s late wife, Sylvia Plath, contribute to the couple’s mythology and are a landmark in English poetry.

5. Dreams from My Father by Barack Obama (1995)
This remarkably candid memoir revealed not only a literary talent, but a force that would change the face of US politics for ever.

6. A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking (1988)
The theoretical physicist’s mega-selling account of the origins of the universe is a masterpiece of scientific inquiry that has influenced the minds of a generation.

7. The Right Stuff by Tom Wolfe (1979)
Tom Wolfe raised reportage to dazzling new levels in his quest to discover what makes a man fly to the moon.

8. Orientalism by Edward Said (1978)
This polemical masterpiece challenging western attitudes to the east is as topical today as it was on publication.

9. Dispatches by Michael Herr (1977)
A compelling sense of urgency and a unique voice make Herr’s Vietnam memoir the definitive account of war in our time.

10. The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins (1976)
An intoxicating renewal of evolutionary theory that coined the idea of the meme and paved the way for Professor Dawkins’s later, more polemical works.

11. North by Seamus Heaney (1975)
This raw, tender, unguarded collection transcends politics, reflecting Heaney’s desire to move “like a double agent among the big concepts”.

12. Awakenings by Oliver Sacks (1973)
Sacks’s moving account of how, as a doctor in the late 1960s, he revived patients who had been neurologically “frozen” by sleeping sickness reverberates to this day.

13. The Female Eunuch by Germaine Greer (1970)
The Australian feminist’s famous polemic remains a masterpiece of passionate free expression in which she challenges a woman’s role in society.

14. Awopbopaloobop Alopbamboom by Nik Cohn (1969)
This passionate account of how rock’n’roll changed the world was written with the wild energy of its subject matter.

15. The Double Helix by James D Watson (1968)
An astonishingly personal and accessible account of how Cambridge scientists Watson and Francis Crick unlocked the secrets of DNA and transformed our understanding of life.

16. Against Interpretation by Susan Sontag (1966)
The American novelist’s early essays provide the quintessential commentary on the 1960s.

17. Ariel by Sylvia Plath (1965)
The groundbreaking collection, revolving around the poet’s fascination with her own death, established Plath as one of the last century’s most original and gifted poets.

18. The Feminine Mystique by Betty Friedan (1963)
The book that ignited second-wave feminism captured the frustration of a generation of middle-class American housewives by daring to ask: “Is this all?”

19. The Making of the English Working Class by EP Thompson (1963)
This influential, painstakingly compiled masterpiece reads as an anatomy of pre-industrial Britain – and a description of the lost experience of the common man.

20. Silent Spring by Rachel Carson (1962)
This classic of American advocacy sparked a nationwide outcry against the use of pesticides, inspired legislation that would endeavour to control pollution, and launched the modern environmental movement in the US.

21. The Structure of Scientific Revolutions by Thomas S Kuhn (1962)
The American physicist and philosopher of science coined the phrase “paradigm shift” in a book that is seen as a milestone in scientific theory.

22. A Grief Observed by CS Lewis (1961)
This powerful study of loss asks: “Where is God?” and explores the feeling of solitude and sense of betrayal that even non-believers will recognise.

23. The Elements of Style by William Strunk and EB White (1959)
Dorothy Parker and Stephen King have both urged aspiring writers towards this crisp guide to the English language where brevity is key.

24. The Affluent Society by John Kenneth Galbraith (1958)
An optimistic bestseller, in which JFK’s favoured economist promotes investment in both the public and private sectors.

25. The Uses of Literacy: Aspects of Working-Class Life by Richard Hoggart (1957) This influential cultural study of postwar Britain offers pertinent truths on mass communication and the interaction between ordinary people and the elites.

26. Notes of a Native Son by James Baldwin (1955)
Baldwin’s landmark collection of essays explores, in telling language, what it means to be a black man in modern America.

27. The Nude: A Study of Ideal Art by Kenneth Clark (1956)
Clark’s survey of the nude from the Greeks to Picasso foreshadows the critic’s towering claims for humanity in his later seminal work, Civilisation.

28. The Hedgehog and the Fox by Isaiah Berlin (1953)
The great historian of ideas starts with an animal parable and ends, via a dissection of Tolstoy’s work, in an existential system of thought.

29. Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett (1952/53)
A bleakly hilarious, enigmatic watershed that changed the language of theatre and still sparks debate six decades on. An absurdist masterpiece.

30. A Book of Mediterranean Food by Elizabeth David (1950)
This landmark recipe book, a horrified reaction to postwar rationing, introduced cooks to the food of southern Europe and readers to the art of food writing.

31. The Great Tradition by FR Leavis (1948)
The controversial critic’s statement on English literature is an entertaining, often shocking, dissection of the novel, whose effects are still felt to this day.

32. The Last Days of Hitler by Hugh Trevor-Roper (1947)
The historian’s vivid, terrifying account of the Führer’s demise, based on his postwar work for British intelligence, remains unsurpassed.

33. The Common Sense Book of Baby and Child Care by Dr Benjamin Spock (1946)
The groundbreaking manual urged parents to trust themselves, but was also accused of being the source of postwar “permissiveness”.

34. Hiroshima by John Hersey (1946)
Hersey’s extraordinary, gripping book tells the personal stories of six people who endured the 1945 atom bomb attack.

35. The Open Society and Its Enemies by Karl Popper (1945)
The Austrian-born philosopher’s postwar rallying cry for western liberal democracy was hugely influential in the 1960s.

36. Black Boy: A Record of Childhood and Youth by Richard Wright (1945)
This influential memoir of a rebellious southern boyhood vividly evokes the struggle for African American identity in the decades before civil rights.

37. How to Cook a Wolf by MFK Fisher (1942)
The American culinary icon was one of the first writers to use food as a cultural metaphor, describing the sensual pleasures of the table with elegance and passion.

38. Enemies of Promise by Cyril Connolly (1938)
Connolly’s dissection of the art of writing and the perils of the literary life transformed the contemporary English scene.

39. The Road to Wigan Pier by George Orwell (1937)
Orwell’s unflinchingly honest account of three northern towns during the Great Depression was a milestone in the writer’s political development.

40. The Road to Oxiana by Robert Byron (1937)
Much admired by Graham Greene and Evelyn Waugh, Byron’s dazzling, timeless account of a journey to Afghanistan is perhaps the greatest travel book of the 20th century.

41. How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie (1936)
The original self-help manual on American life – with its influence stretching from the Great Depression to Donald Trump – has a lot to answer for.

42. Testament of Youth by Vera Brittain (1933)
Brittain’s study of her experience of the first world war as a nurse and then victim of loss remains a powerful anti-war and feminist statement.

43. My Early Life: A Roving Commission by Winston Churchill (1930)
Churchill delights with candid tales of childhood and boy’s own adventures in the Boer war that made him a tabloid hero.

44. Goodbye to All That by Robert Graves (1929)
Graves’s account of his experiences in the trenches of the first world war is a subversive tour de force.

45. A Room of One’s Own by Virginia Woolf (1929)
Woolf’s essay on women’s struggle for independence and creative opportunity is a landmark of feminist thought.

46. The Waste Land by TS Eliot (1922)
Eliot’s long poem, written in extremis, came to embody the spirit of the years following the first world war.

47. Ten Days That Shook the World by John Reed (1919)
The American socialist’s romantic account of the Russian revolution is a masterpiece of reportage.

48. The Economic Consequences of the Peace by John Maynard Keynes (1919)
The great economist’s account of what went wrong at the Versailles conference after the first world war was polemical, passionate and prescient.

49. The American Language by HL Mencken (1919)
This declaration of linguistic independence by the renowned US journalist and commentator marked a crucial new chapter in American prose

50. Eminent Victorians by Lytton Strachey (1918)
Strachey’s partisan, often inaccurate but brilliant demolitions of four great 19th-century Britons illustrates life in the Victorian period from different perspectives.

51. The Souls of Black Folk by WEB Du Bois (1903)
The great social activist’s collection of essays on the African American experience became a founding text of the civil rights movement.

52. De Profundis by Oscar Wilde (1905)
There is a thrilling majesty to Oscar Wilde’s tormented tour de force written as he prepared for release from Reading jail.

53. The Varieties of Religious Experience by William James (1902)
This revolutionary work written by Henry James’s less famous brother brought a democratising impulse to the realm of religious belief.

54. Brief Lives by John Aubrey, edited by Andrew Clark (1898)
Truly ahead of his time, the 17th-century historian and gossip John Aubrey is rightly credited as the man who invented biography.

55. Personal Memoirs by Ulysses S Grant (1885)
The civil war general turned president was a reluctant author, but set the gold standard for presidential memoirs, outlining his journey from boyhood onwards.

56. Life on the Mississippi by Mark Twain (1883)
This memoir of Samuel Clemens’s time as a steamboat pilot provides insight into his best-known characters, as well as the writer he would become.

57. Travels With a Donkey in the Cévennes by Robert Louis Stevenson (1879)
The Scottish writer’s hike in the French mountains with a donkey is a pioneering classic in outdoor literature – and as influential as his fiction.

58. Nonsense Songs by Edward Lear (1871)
The Victorians loved wordplay, and few could rival this compendium of verbal delirium by Britain’s “laureate of nonsense”.

59. Culture and Anarchy by Matthew Arnold (1869)
Arnold caught the public mood with this high-minded but entertaining critique of Victorian society posing questions about the art of civilised living that still perplex us.

60. On the Origin of Species by Charles Darwin (1859)
Darwin’s revolutionary, humane and highly readable introduction to his theory of evolution is arguably the most important book of the Victorian era.

61. On Liberty by John Stuart Mill (1859)
This fine, lucid writer captured the mood of the time with this spirited assertion of the English individual’s rights.

62. The Wonderful Adventures of Mrs Seacole in Many Lands by Mary Seacole (1857)
A gloriously entertaining autobiography by the widely revered Victorian sometimes described as “the black Florence Nightingale”.

63. The Life of Charlotte Brontë by Elizabeth Gaskell (1857)
Possibly Gaskell’s finest work – a bold portrait of a brilliant woman worn down by her father’s eccentricities and the death of her siblings.

64. Walden by Henry David Thoreau (1854)
This account of one man’s rejection of American society has influenced generations of free thinkers.

65. Thesaurus by Dr Peter Mark Roget (1852)
Born of a Victorian desire for order and harmony among nations, this guide to the English language is as unique as it is indispensable.

66. London Labour and the London Poor by Henry Mayhew (1851)
The influence of the Victorian journalist’s detailed, dispassionate descriptions of London lower-class life is clear, right up to the present day.

67. Household Education by Harriet Martineau (1848)
This protest at the lack of women’s education was as pioneering as its author was in Victorian literary circles.

68. Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave by Frederick Douglass (1845)
This vivid memoir was influential in the abolition of slavery, and its author would become one of the most influential African Americans of the 19th century.

69. Essays by RW Emerson (1841)
New England’s inventor of “transcendentalism” is still revered for his high-minded thoughts on individuality, freedom and nature expressed in 12 essays.

70. Domestic Manners of the Americans by Frances Trollope (1832)
Rich in detail and Old World snobbery, Trollope’s classic travelogue identifies aspects of America’s national character still visible today.

71. An American Dictionary of the English Language by Noah Webster (1828) Though a lexicographical landmark to stand alongside Dr Johnson’s achievement, the original sold only 2,500 copies and left its author in debt.

72. Confessions of an English Opium-Eater by Thomas De Quincey (1822)
An addiction memoir, by the celebrated and supremely talented contemporary of Coleridge and Wordsworth, outlining his life hooked on the the drug.

73. Tales from Shakespeare by Charles and Mary Lamb (1807)
A troubled brother-and-sister team produced one of the 19th century’s bestselling volumes and simplified the complexity of Shakespeare’s plays for younger audiences.

74. Travels in the Interior Districts of Africa by Mungo Park (1799)
The Scottish explorer’s account of his heroic one-man search for the river Niger was a contemporary bestseller and a huge influence on Conrad, Melville and Hemingway.

75. The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin by Benjamin Franklin (1793)
The US founding father’s life, drawn from four different manuscripts, combines the affairs of revolutionary America with his private struggles.

76. A Vindication of the Rights of Woman by Mary Wollstonecraft (1792)
This radical text attacked the dominant male thinkers of the age and laid the foundations of feminism.

77. The Life of Samuel Johnson LLD by James Boswell (1791)
This huge work is one of the greatest of all English biographies and a testament to one of the great literary friendships.

78. Reflections on the Revolution in France by Edmund Burke (1790)
Motivated by the revolution across the Channel, this passionate defence of the aristocratic system is a landmark in conservative thinking.

79. The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano by Olaudah Equiano (1789)
The most famous slave memoir of the 18th century is a powerful and terrifying read, and established Equiano as a founding figure in black literary tradition.

80. The Natural History and Antiquities of Selborne by Gilbert White (1789)
This curate’s beautiful and lucid observations on the wildlife of a Hampshire village inspired generations of naturalists.

81. The Federalist Papers by ‘Publius’ (1788)
These wise essays clarified the aims of the American republic and rank alongside the Declaration of Independence as a cornerstone of US democracy.

82. The Diary of Fanny Burney (1778)
Burney’s acutely observed memoirs open a window on the literary and courtly circles of late 18th-century England.

83. The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Edward Gibbon (1776-1788)
Perhaps the greatest and certainly one of the most influential history books in the English language, in which Gibbon unfolds the narrative from the height of the Roman empire to the fall of Byzantium.

84. The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith (1776)
Blending history, philosophy, psychology and sociology, the Scottish intellectual single-handedly invented modern political economy.

85. Common Sense by Tom Paine (1776)
This little book helped ignite revolutionary America against the British under George III.

86. A Dictionary of the English Language by Samuel Johnson (1755)
Dr Johnson’s decade-long endeavour framed the English language for the coming centuries with clarity, intelligence and extraordinary wit.

87. A Treatise of Human Nature by David Hume (1739)
This is widely seen as the philosopher’s most important work, but its first publication was a disaster.

88. A Modest Proposal by Jonathan Swift (1729)
The satirist’s jaw-dropping solution to the plight of the Irish poor is among the most powerful tracts in the English language.

89. A Tour Through the Whole Island of Great Britain by Daniel Defoe (1727) Readable, reliable, full of surprise and charm, Defoe’s Tour is an outstanding literary travel guide.

90. An Essay Concerning Human Understanding by John Locke (1689)
Eloquent and influential, the Enlightenment philosopher’s most celebrated work embodies the English spirit and retains an enduring relevance.

91. The Book of Common Prayer by Thomas Cranmer (1662)
Cranmer’s book of vernacular English prayer is possibly the most widely read book in the English literary tradition.

92. The Diary of Samuel Pepys by Samuel Pepys (1660)
A portrait of an extraordinary Englishman, whose scintillating firsthand accounts of Restoration England are recorded alongside his rampant sexual exploits.

93. Hydriotaphia, Urn Burial, or A Brief Discourse of the Sepulchral Urns Lately Found in Norfolk by Sir Thomas Browne (1658)
Browne earned his reputation as a “writer’s writer” with this dazzling short essay on burial customs.

94. Leviathan by Thomas Hobbes (1651)
Hobbes’s essay on the social contract is both a founding text of western thought and a masterpiece of wit and imagination.

95. Areopagitica by John Milton (1644)
Today, Milton is remembered as a great poet. But this fiery attack on censorship and call for a free press reveals a brilliant English radical.

96. Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions by John Donne (1624)
The poet’s intense meditation on the meaning of life and death is a dazzling work that contains some of his most memorable writing.

97. The First Folio by William Shakespeare (1623)
The first edition of his plays established the playwright for all time in a trove of 36 plays with an assembled cast of immortal characters.

98. The Anatomy of Melancholy by Robert Burton (1621)
Burton’s garrulous, repetitive masterpiece is a compendious study of melancholia, a sublime literary doorstop that explores humanity in all its aspects.

99. The History of the World by Walter Raleigh (1614)
Raleigh’s most important prose work, close to 1m words in total, used ancient history as a sly commentary on present-day issues.

100. King James Bible: The Authorised Version (1611)
It is impossible to imagine the English-speaking world celebrated in this series without the King James Bible, which is as universal and influential as Shakespeare.

Daily inspiration. Discover more photos at http://justforbooks.tumblr.com

mapsontheweb:

The average lifespan of a company has been shrinking dramatically.

Sadly, government figures suggest less than half of the UK’s new businesses will survive their first four years – and around 25-30% won’t even make it to their second anniversary.

But how many can survive 50, 100, 150 or even 200 years?

BusinessFinancing.co.uk identified the longest-running, continually operating businesses in 58 major cities across the UK: https://businessfinancing.co.uk/oldest-uk-companies/ 

The results show an array of businesses that have, in some cases, lasted for over 500 years.

The map shows the oldest company in every UK region.

say-no-to-the-o:

SAY NO TO THE O ORGASM RELATIONAL CONTINUUM

INTRODUCTION

After exhaustive interviews with over 3000 women, ages 18-56, from 42 countries, Say No To The O Researchers have identified four categories of women that make up the Say No To The O Sisterhood: Orgasm Whores, Denial Sluts, Good Girls, and Achievers/Lifers. No category is superior to another, nor are they mutually exclusive. Rather, they lie on a continuum that represents the relationship of the Say No To The O Sisters to orgasm. A Sister may fall on any part of the continuum, jump from one part to another, or even move incrementally up or down the continuum as her relationship to orgasm changes. That is, a given Sister may start out a confirmed Orgasm Whore but move toward being a Denial Slut as she begins to prefer intense, prolonged, sexual stimulation over the immediate release of an orgasm. For a variety of reasons (e.g., relationship status, time constraints), Sisters have been observed making radical shifts on the continuum. For instance, a confirmed Denial Slut may revert back to being an Orgasm Whore when she is not involved in a relationship with a real-life or virtual sexual partner.

It is important to note the following: the four categories described below are completely independent from the many sexual fantasies that are common across the World Wide Web of Female Orgasm Denial. They are unrelated to fantasies of misogyny, patriarchy, female inferiority, female subservience, female oppression, male dominance, humiliation, cuckoldry, female circumcision, and so forth. While those fantasies – or even practices – may be incorporated into the life of a particular Sister, they were not factors in development of categories or the continuum. The categories are based solely on the relationships of the Say No To The O Sisters to their orgasms. All other factors were excluded in their development.

ORGASM WHORES

Orgasm Whores make up the majority of women in the generation population. They are generally regarded by the Sisterhood as self-indulgent, orgasm addicts, who lack the self-control and self-discipline to abstain from orgasm. They are known to end nearly every sexual encounter – either alone or with a sexual partner – with at least one full orgasm.

Nearly every member of the Say No To The O Sisterhood reported being an Orgasm Whore at some point in her life. Nearly every Orgasm Whore reported – at some point in her life – an inability to abstain from orgasm for even a single session of masturbation or sexual encounter. Nearly every Orgasm Whore reported inducing multiple orgasms during each session of masturbation for extended periods of time in the past (sometimes as many as 10+ orgasms per day 7 days per week for many years). All Orgasm Whores reported great difficulty in delaying, postponing, or skipping orgasms during their earliest attempts at doing so. This was observed in all Sisters, regardless of their level of sexual experience with real-life sex partners (which varied from no sexual contact to sustained sexual relationships).

With rare exceptions, most Sisters reported becoming Orgasm Whores during their teenage years. Most became confirmed Orgasm Whores between the ages of 15-17, with outliers starting as early as 11-12 years old or as late as their mid twenties. In most cases – but not all – Sisters reported decreased pleasure from orgasms as 1) the number of orgasms per day increased or 2) the number lifetime orgasms increased. Orgasms that were “boring,” “blah,” or “unfulfilling” were often cited as the impetus to experiment with delayed sexual gratification, combined with increased sexual stimulation. On average, most Orgasm Whores reported between 800-2.000 orgasms per year, with a few reporting 3.000+ orgasms per year.

Some Orgasm Whores self-identify as Denial Sluts because they enjoy long sessions of prolonged, intense masturbation as a way to increase the intensity of the orgasm that they will eventually have (which might be hours or days away). These would-be Denial Sluts are really just Orgasm Whores who postpone orgasms to make them more pleasurable. Many will become Denial Sluts. They would be placed somewhere between Orgasm Whore and Denial Slut on the Orgasm Relational Continuum, which can subdivided into the following subcategories: orgasm whore, playful teasing, edging, intense edging, ruined orgasms, and finally full denial slut.

Orgasm Whores rarely remain Orgasm Whores once they have experienced multiple episodes of extended, intense sexual stimulation without orgasm. They will continue to finitize about and long for repeated and/or extended periods of intense sexual stimulation without orgasm. This transformation generally takes about 30 days. However, it has been observed in as little as 7-10 days. Newcomers are advised to be aware of the likelihood of this transformation if they explore increased sexual stimulation, combined with reducing/eliminating orgasms. Of note, rarely do newcomers heed this warning nor do they express regret after the transformation.

The Sisterhood does not view Orgasm Whores as “normal” because doing so implies that non-Orgasm Whores are in someway “abnormal.” However, Orgasm Whores are known to look down on or be perplexed by the behavior of their Sisters (i.e., Denial Sluts, Good Girls, and especially Achievers/Lifers). They do so because Orgasm Whores can rarely fathom sexual pleasure beyond that of having an orgasm, much less the benefits of prolonged abstinence from orgasms. As a result some Orgasm Whores – even those in the kink community – have been known to accuse the Say No To The O Sisters of being the victims of inconsiderate, self-absorbed, or abusive lovers (or worse yet, predators).

Denial Sluts, Good Girls, and Achievers/Lifers have been observed taunting Orgasm Whores for having orgasms, but only in a good-natured, fun way. For instance, at the Say No To The O Sorority, the Sorority Sisters were frequently observed awarding their Orgasm Whore counterparts a “Badge of Shame” (known as a Scarlet O) to the delight of the “shamed” Orgasm Whore. Orgasm Whores were frequently observed asking for a Scarlet O, following an orgasm the previous night to the delight of Denial Sluts. In general Denial Sluts, Good Girls, and Achievers/Lifers are supportive of Orgasm Whores, encouraging them to sample the many benefits and pleasures of edging and reducing/eliminating orgasms.

Some Orgasm Whores report having difficulty reaching orgasm for a variety of reasons, ranging from inexperience to feelings of shame to complete anorgasmia. Because this subset wants to have orgasms – just like their orgasm-achieving counterparts – they are classified as Orgasm Whores on the continuum. This inability to induce orgasm is generally regarded as problematic by Orgasm Whores. However this subset often finds the difficulty in or inability to induce orgasm advantageous, because it allows them to masturbate harder and longer than their Sisters who are able to have orgasms.

Orgasm Whore Analogy: Orgasm Whores are like unsupervised children in a candy store. They will eat as much candy as possible with no awareness of or regard for the impact of doing so.

DENIAL SLUTS

Denial Sluts want to have their orgasms withheld from them. They become aroused by being deprived of orgasm. They enjoy being teased and taunted about not being allowed to have orgasms. They want to be promised an orgasm only to be told at the last moment that they must wait until tomorrow, next week, or perhaps forever. Denial sluts still want orgasms; they just do not want to be allowed to have them. They are sexually aroused by having their orgasms controlled by another person. Many like to earn orgasms by completing tasks (e.g., housework, homework, chores, masturbating to the point of orgasm then stopping a certain number of times, etc.). They are known to like or prefer “ruined orgasms,” which deny them the full pleasure of an full orgasm.

Denial Sluts are known to become sexually aroused while watching Orgasm Whores who 1) have repeated self-induced orgasms, 2) are made to have orgasms by a partner, or 3) are forced to have orgasms by a partner either as punishment or for the partner’s pleasure. Many Denial Sluts fantasize about permanent denial. However, these fantasies are not based on the benefits of extended periods or permanent denial. Instead they are based on the thrill Denial Sluts get at the thought of not having another.

A common refrain among Denial Sluts is “I love that I hate it and I hate that I love it.” For Denial Sluts, the thought of never being allowed to orgasm again is both distressing and sexually arousing. Furthermore, the simultaneous presence of these conflicting emotions increases the intensity of each. That is, the more sexually aroused a Denial Slut becomes the more fearful she will be. This increased fear of never having orgasms again will, in turn, increase the sexual arousal she experiences. This phenomenon is never present in Orgasm Whores, Good Girls, or Achievers/Lifers, making it a defining feature for Denial Sluts.

The thought of losing the ability to have an orgasm or being unable to remember what an orgasm feels like (a state know as Orgasm Amnesia) is a standard fantasy of Denial Sluts. Many experienced Denial Sluts will report their bodies have been so conditioned that they are unable to have an orgasm when they are given the chance. This inability to do the thing that they want to do (i.e., have an orgasm) produces two co-occurring outcomes: 1) a heightened fear that they will never have another orgasm again and 2) a sexual thrill at the thought of never having another orgasm. Many Denial Sluts fantasize about a full or partial clitorectomy (not to be confused with female genital mutilation), which is the ultimate form of orgasm denial. [Editor’s note: There are no credible reports from a member of the Say No To The O Sisterhood of this actually happening.]

After 100 days of frequent, intense masturbation without orgasm, most Denial Sluts will start to fantasize about an orgasm-free life. 100 days is generally regarded as the point where the thrill of constant arousal, sexual frustration, and pre-occupation with orgasm starts to become secondary to the newfound feelings of self-confidence, improved self-image, clarity of thought, etc. When encouraged to extend beyond 100 days, two-thirds will express the desire to remain orgasm-free for an extended period of time, usually to a period of one year. Of those who reach one year without orgasms, half will choose to be orgasm-free permanently. Of those who choose to be orgasm-free permanently, half will remain orgasm-free beyond two years. Sisters who extend beyond two years rarely return to having orgasms, except under extreme conditions.

In general, the transformation from Orgasm Whore to Denial Slut happens incrementally as a Sister increases the frequency and intensity of sexual stimulation, while increasing the length of time between orgasms. That is, an Orgasm Whore may start out trying to remain orgasm-free for one day, but end up extending until day 10. On day 10, she may choose to extend to day 30. On day 100 she may extend to one year. Nearly every Achiever/Lifer followed this path of transformation from Orgasm Whore to the complete elimination of orgasms.

While most Denial Sluts will not reach 100 days, nearly every Orgasm Whore – who extends the length of time between orgasms, while increasing the frequency and intensity of sexual stimulation – will become a Denial Slut. With rare exception, this is acceptable and desirable. In general, this transformation happens between 14-30 days but has been observed among sisters in as little as 7-10 days when they were paired with supportive and encouraging partners or peers. Even when a Denial Slut returns to behaving like an Orgasm Whore, she will continue to fantasize about being a Denial Slut. When she finds a suitable and supportive sex partner, she will return to her preferred state of being a Denial Slut. With the loss of supportive sex partners, most Denial Sluts will revert back to being Orgasm Whores until a suitable sex partner can be found. Some continue to self-limit their orgasms, usually with some difficulty. Others will continue to ruin most or all orgasms.

Sooner or later, nearly all Denial Sluts will exhibit the characteristics of the Good Girl, because frequent and intense masturbation without an orgasm causes a sharp increase in feelings of and the desire to be obedient and submissive. Unlike Good Girls, Denial Sluts immediately loose the feelings of and the desire to be obedient and submissive as soon as they have an orgasm. With rare exception, the newfound obedient and submissive tendencies are so desirable to Denial Sluts that they will report a sense of loss when these submissive tendencies disappear following an orgasm. Because of this increased desire to be obedient and submissive, Denial Sluts are cautioned to play with trustworthy partners who act in their best interest.

Denial Sluts (who exhibit submissive behavior as a result of prolonged sexual excitement) will channel their pent-up sexual energy into pleasing their sex partners. This is done for a variety of reasons, examples of which are 1) sexually satisfied partners are less likely to give into their begging, 2) sexually satisfied partners are less likely to induce or require orgasms, 3) Denial Sluts enjoy the increased emotional and physical connection with their partners, and 4) Denial Sluts take pleasure in pleasing partners who do not allow them the pleasure of orgasm in return.

A state of sexually-induced submission can be confusing for sex partners, who do not understand the subtle difference between Denial Sluts (i.e., those who are submissive as a result of prolonged sexual excitement) and Good Girls who are submissive by nature. These sex partners must remember that Denials Sluts want to beg and plead for orgasms (but be told no), whereas as a Good Girl wants someone else to decide (regardless of what she wants). In the case of Denial Sluts (who exhibit submissive behavior as a result of prolonged sexual excitement), they still do not want to have orgasms. Denials Sluts do not want the orgasm they want, whereas Good Girls want what their partners want.

When paired with a sex partner who is unable/unwilling to withhold the orgasm she does not want, Denial Sluts may experience/express feelings of disappointment, frustration, irritation, or anger at the partner’s inability/unwillingness to do so. In an attempt to avoid or eliminate orgasms, it is common for the Denial Slut to use fellatio, anal sex, or faked orgasms to distract a sex partner (usually a man) who wants the Denial Slut to have orgasms for his sexual gratification. Distraction techniques are rarely used in lesbian relationships.

Denial Sluts frequently report feelings of regret, shame, loss of interest in sex, and other symptoms of Post-Orgasmic Distress Disorder (PODD) after an orgasm more frequently than Good Girls (who experience PODD about half the time). Say No To The O Researchers were unable identify a satisfactory explanation for this due to an insufficient sample size and lack of a control groups.

Denial Slut Analogy: 

#1 - Denial Sluts are like children being tickled by a parent. They beg, scream and writhe to escape the tickle-torture only to beg the parent to “do it again!” 
#2 - Denial Sluts want to be forced to smell a freshly cooked pizza while they are famished. They want to be promised the last piece. At the last possible second they want the last piece of a delicious pizza to be dropped in the dirt before their very eyes.

GOOD GIRLS

Good Girls do not want to have orgasms unless they are told, made, or forced to have them. When they do have orgasms, they generally find them pleasurable and express gratitude to the sex partners that permitted them to have the orgasm. However, if given the choice to have a full orgasm, half of Good Girls will either choose to not have an orgasm or choose to “ruin” the orgasm. Good Girls commonly report they would prefer fewer or even no orgasms at all, but will have one if they are told to do so. This group of Good Girls fall between Good Girl and Achiever/Lifer on the Orgasm-Relational Continuum. A smaller group of Good Girls report they would like be Orgasm Whores, but avoid orgasms to please their sex partners.

Good Girls masturbate regularly to keep their arousal levels high but channel that sexual energy elsewhere – usually into serving a real-life or virtual sex partner. They know that an orgasm will end the benefits that come from not having orgasms, but are willing do so to please a their partners. Good Girls, who still have orgasms, generally report that three to six orgasms per year are sufficient, but add that the decision is entirely up to the individual who is in control of their orgasms. They are known to advocate for fewer orgasms – because they feel emotionally and physically better without them – even though doing so is in conflict of their desire to let the partner decide.

Knowing that another person is in charge of the decision to have orgasms is freeing. It reduces the stress of having to decide when, if, how, or how often a Good Girl has an orgasm. Without a sex partner to take ownership of her orgasms, a Good Girl will likely return to being an Orgasm Whore, until a desirable partner – who will take ownership of her orgasms – can be found. While this temporary return to being an Orgasm Whore may be agreeable, they continue to harbor a deep-seated desire to return to a life as a Good Girl. For this reason, a Good Girl rarely returns to being an Orgasm Whore permanently.

On the whole, Good Girls do not make good Denial Sluts. While Denial Sluts want to be teased and taunted by the individuals who are in charge of their orgasms, Good Girl do not want a say in the matter. While Denial Sluts want to beg for an orgasm only to be told no, Good Girls just want to be told yes or no, with little or no input for what they want – even when it undermines the sense of well-being they experience from not having orgasms.

About two-thirds of Good Girls report their bodies are so conditioned to not have orgasms that they are either 1) unable to have an orgasm or 2) have difficulty inducing orgasm when they are given the chance. Good Girls do not find the inability to have orgasms sexually thrilling the way that Denial Sluts do. Rather it is an accepted and acceptable as a natural state of being. Good Girls rarely attempt to retrain or recondition their bodies to have orgasms. When they are successful at doing so, they do not experience it as a loss the way many Denials Sluts do.

Good Girls are known to exhibit signs and symptoms of Post-Orgasmic Distress Disorder (PODD) following an orgasm but this is not universal. About half the time, Good Girls report feelings of regret, shame, and other signs and symptoms of PODD after an orgasm – even though they had permission or were told to have the orgasm. About half report no or minimal symptoms of PODD. Good Girls who have orgasms without permission always express great remorse for failing themselves and/or their sex partners. In almost all instances, they will ask for and accept a suitable punishment from their sex partners.

Frequent and intense masturbation without orgasm intensifies feelings of and the desire to be obedient and submissive that are already present in Good Girls. Because of this increased desire to be obedient, Good Girls are cautioned to play with trustworthy partners who act in their best interest. An orgasm will reduce obedience and submissive tendencies but does not eliminate them, because submissiveness is an underlying trait not a by-product of intense, prolonged, sexual stimulation. This is a major difference between Good Girls and Denial Sluts, whose increased obedience and submissiveness is the result of increased masturbation and the elimination of orgasms.

Editor’s Note: On the Say No To The O Orgasm Relational Continuum, the term Good Girl applies only the Sister’s relationship to orgasm. It should not be confused with other definitions of the term that can refer to anything from being well-behaved to sexually submissive to completely submissive in all areas of her life. Many Good Girls (as defined by the Orgasm Relations Continuum) do not exhibit submissive characteristics in other areas of their lives.

Good Girl Analogy: A Good Girl is like an obedient dog. No matter how much she wants to play, she will lie contentedly at her owner’s feet until the owner decides when, where, how, or if she will play.

ACHIEVERS/LIFERS

Achievers/Lifers are women who choose to live orgasm-free lives. They do not acknowledge that they are being denied anything (thus they are not Denial Sluts) nor do they want to be told or allowed to have them (thus they are not Good Girls). They have achieved a level of emotional well-being and self-satisfaction that is more highly valued than the most intense orgasm possible. This is the result of the elimination of orgasms combined with long-term, sustained sexual stimulation. Achievers/Lifers are not orgasm avoidant. Instead, they have chosen the benefits and pleasures of not having orgasms over the temporary pleasure of having orgasms. These Sisters report a variety of benefits that may include the following: increased self-esteem, self-control, and self-satisfaction; decreased melancholia and anxiety; improved performance, concentration, and motivation; feeling sexier, more desirable, more independent, and more accomplished; and improved sexual, familial, and personal relationships. They report that the longer they remain orgasm-free and sexually stimulated the more permanent and long-lasting the changes become. Results vary from Sister to Sister.

Some Achievers/Lifers may find that the benefits of eliminating orgasms may lessen if they are unable to maintain sufficient levels of sexual arousal. However, they rarely resort to inducing orgasm to compensate for this temporary change in their overall sense of well-being and self-satisfaction. In general, this flattening of emotions is connected to the lack or loss of a real life partner, excessive stress, or other unsatisfactory life circumstances.

Like Achievers/Lifers, Denial Sluts and Good Girls regularly report the positive effects of increasing sexual arousal and eliminating orgasm. Among Denial Sluts, these desirable feelings and experiences cease after a single orgasm and may take weeks to regain. Among Good Girls, this loss is less dramatic, because much of their self-concept was related to being obedient and submissive. That is, self-esteem, reduced anxiety, and so forth were not wholly dependent on being orgasm-free. [Editor’s note: the benefits of being orgasm-free are regularly observed among most Denial Sluts and Good Girls, sometimes in as little as two weeks. However, this is not universal.]

Just like Good Girls, Achievers/Lifers use intense and frequent masturbation to keep their arousal levels high but channel that sexual energy elsewhere. They will not risk the disruption that orgasm causes to their lives in exchange for the most intense orgasm, nor will they do so for the pleasure of a sex partner. This is a major difference that distinguishes them from Good Girls. The permanent and voluntary discontinuation of orgasms is a defining characteristic of Achievers/Lifers. It is not observed among any group on the continuum.

Most Achievers/Lifers eventually report total orgasm amnesia, having completely forgotten what an orgasm feels like. The inability to remember what an orgasm feels like is considered desirable among all Achievers/Lifers. Many report that their bodies have become so resistant to orgasm that inducing orgasm is extremely difficult to impossible. 

Rarely does an Achiever/Lifer return to being an Orgasm Whore or Denial Slut, although she may adopt the lifestyle of a Good Girl, when she is in a relationship with a partner (usually with a man) who needs the validation of her orgasm to prove his virality or sexual prowess. Would-be Achievers/Lifers will sometimes masquerade as a Denial Slut to please a partner (usually a man) who desires a woman who can satisfy his need to induce orgasms for his own pleasure. This has been observed in lesbian couples as well. These sexual relationships are generally unsatisfactory, resulting in resentment by the Sister of the sex partner, whom she sees as undermining her well-being. Some Achievers/Lifers will resort to fellatio, anal sex, and faking orgasms as a way of maintaining their chosen lifestyle when paired with a sex partner (usually a man) who wants her to have orgasms for his sexual gratification. Distraction techniques are rarely used in lesbian relationships.

In rare instances, Achievers/Lifers have been known to return to having frequent orgasms but only after traumatic life experiences (e.g., lose of a long-term life partner, natural disasters, excessive stress, etc.). Each of those Sisters expressed a great sense of loss when they did. In only one instance was an Achiever/Lifer observed purposefully attempting to be an Orgasm Whore again. Despite six months of multiple, daily orgasms, she was unable to do so. She eventually abandoned orgasms permanently. Two years later, she continued to express regret over that six month period.

Achiever/Lifer analogy: Achievers/Lifers are like former alcoholics who no longer have a relationship with alcohol. They are not willing to risk the hard earned benefits of sobriety to imbibe with their best friends who are drinking the most expensive liquor at the world’s best party.

FINAL THOUGHTS

Each woman must – through experimentation – find the relationship to orgasm that works best for her individual preference, life circumstances, genetic makeup, emotional constitution, and sexual relationships. When she does, she will likely find the experience transformative, making sex more fun, satisfying, and fulfilling in ways that chasing the perfect orgasm cannot. The role of a caring partner is to support her through this journey of self-discovery. Enjoy! 

EDITOR’S NOTES 

Women – who have difficulty achieving orgasm or experience anorgasmia – often find solace or success when they stop defining themselves as being defective, inferior, or suffering from a disorder. By learning to “flip the script,” they often find their “defect” is a benefit that allows them to sexually stimulate themselves for many hours without worrying about having an orgasm.

Women who were sex avoidant, lacked a functioning libido, or had no desire to have sex or masturbate were excluded from the study. The most common factors were related to emotional trauma, medication problems, religious affiliation, and/or age. It is worth noting that all of these women were followers of Say No To The O and agreed to participate in interviews.

A small group of women – who had a desire to reduce the number or frequency of orgasms – reported an increase in emotional problems after reducing the frequency of orgasms. In almost all cases, there was a previously-diagnosed, underlying emotional disorder for which they had received professional treatment. A second, small group of women reported an increase in headaches, migraines, emotional instability, anxiety, irritability or anger, etc. as a result of reducing the frequency of orgasms. In all cases, an orgasm eliminated the identified problems and returned them to their original state. For both of these groups, extended periods without orgasm are contraindicated. However, in all cases, both groups of women expressed the desire to identify the minimum number of orgasms and maximum number of days/weeks between orgasms before the onset of problems. The optimal range of days/weeks varied widely from a several days to three months. 

CITATION: Prudence Langtree, et al., Say No To The O Journal of Female Sexuality. December, 2020.