Kate Figes

Learn how others sustain lifelong love, and what really goes on in other people's lives.

how we make love last

Couples

Forget about the baby for just one minute; what about you? New motherhood changes everything. Few women are prepared for the radical shifts in identity, emotional intensity and relations with friends, family and the father of their child. In this fully revised and updated edition of the classic book that first bust the conspiracy of silence surrounding the upheaval of new motherhood, Kate Figes draws on medical and historical research, the invention of 'good' motherhood as well as personal testimony to reassure new mothers everywhere that they are not only normal if they find things difficult, but also doing fine.

Life After Birth

By the author known and respected for her acclaimed books on relationships. Most of us manage to be monogamous, most of the time, but who cannot imagine themselves committing the 'crime' of adultery? Does being 'faithful' mean the same to everyone? Why DO people have affairs? Using real life testimony alongside the most current research, Our Cheating Hearts looks at the big questions around love and commitment. It lifts taboos, asks the tough questions and shows how in our progressive time monogamy has become the new ideal. Some people manage monogamy. For the countless others that don't, Our Cheating Hearts opens the debate and provides the honest approach that's essential.

Love and Loyalty, Lust and Lies

Our Cheating Hearts

Teenage life from two perspectives - Frankie's diary and her mother's emails to sis in Oz. Love gets lost for a while through misunderstandings....

What About Me?' and 'What About Me, Too?'

This anthology brings together a vast array of writing from women around the world. The stories mirror the changes and expectations of women's lives everywhere, reflecting the diversity of their experience while also pooling established writers with new talent.

The Penguin Book of International Women's Stories

These days, many of us enjoy unrivalled freedom and equality when it comes to choosing and building a relationship. Yet new myths about how to live and love compromise that happiness. Kate Figes argues that, whether married or cohabiting, gay or straight, remarried or a couple living apart, the quality of our intimate relationship is fundamental to our long-term health and happiness, because our need for commitment and love hasn't changed. This is not a handbook. There are no easy 'Mars and Venus' universal recipes for success, because relationships are far too complicated, individual and important for easy answers. But learning how others sustain lifelong love, and what really goes on in other people's lives can help us to understand our own partnerships and take responsibility for making them work. Couples is an incisive and important look at how we can learn to make love endure.

How We Make Love Last

The ideal literary form for contemporary urban life, the short story flourishes. This collection brings together the best stories published in Cosmpolitan in the past ten years. It includes household names of today and household names of tomorrow, Christine Harrison and Janice Galloway, recent winners of the Cosmopolitan Short Story Prize.

The Best of Cosmopolitan Fiction

In this controversial book, the author examines the major issues of women's lives today - coming to the alarming conclusion that organized discrimination against women has worsened in recent years rather than improved, particularly at work. In spite of years of legislation and equal opportunity policies, equality and access to independence remains elusive. Such strategies have been bolted to an existing structure where the very fabric of society still refuses to accommodate a woman because of her sex.

The Myth of Equality for Women in Britain

Because of Her Sex

Coming up to her sixtieth birthday, Kate Figes found herself turning to the larger questions of family, love and life's meaning. It is like this author to examine different stages in writing, and her books - from new motherhood and adolescence to coupledom and infidelity - testify to this way of understanding herself and others: so naturally she turned to writing to explore the challenges of becoming sixty. And then - a horrible, and sudden diagnosis of breast cancer which had metastasised. Instead of a gentle journey into middle age, Kate Figes began to write for her life. Now, clawing back confidence and control was not just the ordinary business of these years: it was the only way to try and survive great pain and emotional turmoil. As her writing became an honest reflection on ageing, failing, regrets and the importance of childhood memory, friends, family and love she found a new determination to live to the full and about finding ways to face up to a shortened life expectancy with dignity. Original, passionate, funny and moving, On Smaller Dogs and Larger Life Questions will resonate with anyone dealing with the many griefs and freedoms of midlife. It is about living with a life-threatening disease but it is even more: an intelligent and passionate look at the way we can approach disappointment and trouble, friendship and love - every day.

On Smaller Dogs and Larger Life Questions

Jean Zimmerman

The birth of a child can provoke profound change in a woman-in her health, career, emotions, sex life, and relationships with friends, husband and family. Pregnancy and childbirth radically alter a women's body and metabolism--it's virtually impossible to "bounce back" quickly after childbirth. And many new moms discover that their sex lives and social lives--and with them, their self esteem--evaporate with a new baby, who they somehow seem to have been made wholly responsible for. Life After Birth doesn't cloak the truth in pastel colors, but explores the actual physical, psychological and emotional consequences of giving birth. Through extensive research and interviews, Figes tackles the tough realities of a new mother's life. What she discovered can help a new parent face some of the most difficult decisions she'll ever have to make.

What Even Your Friends Won't Tell You About Motherhood

Why do women excel at bitching? And are there ways to do it well? In this unique and entertaining book, Kate Figes explores girltalk, the way bitching erupts amongst teenage girls, the tenacity of female stereotypes as well as essential guidance on being the best kind of bitch - strong and self-assured rather than the bitch that needs to put other women down to feel stronger. Packed with witty anecdote, etiquette, interviews and contributions from strong bitches such as Kathy Lette, Wendy Holden and Virginia Ironside this is a must read for all women on the most delicious, yet dangerous of verbal art forms.

Kate Figes

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