{"product_id":"the-dry-season-a-memoir-of-pleasure-in-a-year-without-sex-hardcover","title":"The Dry Season: A Memoir of Pleasure in a Year Without Sex - Hardcover","description":"\u003cdiv\u003e\u003cp style=\"text-align: right;\"\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/reportcopyrightinfringement.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\"\u003e\u003cb\u003eReport copyright infringement\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\u003cp\u003eby \u003cb\u003eMelissa Febos\u003c\/b\u003e (Author)\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eFrom Melissa Febos, the national bestselling author of \u003ci\u003eGirlhood, \u003c\/i\u003e comes an examination of the solitude, freedoms, and feminist heroes she discovered during a year of celibacy and a wise and transformative look at relationships and self-knowledge. \u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\"Only Melissa Febos could convince us of the ecstasy of abstinence. She never fails in her candor and precision.\"--Katherine May, author of \u003ci\u003eWintering\u003c\/i\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eIn the wake of a catastrophic two-year relationship, Melissa Febos decided to take a break: For three months she would abstain from dating, relationships, and sex. Her friends were amused. Did she really think three months was a long time? But to Febos, it was. Ever since her teens, she had been in one relationship after another with men and women. As she puts it, she could trace a \"daisy chain of romances\" from her adolescence to her midthirties. Finally, she would carve out time to focus on herself and examine the patterns that had produced her midlife disaster. Over those first few months, she gleaned insights into her past and awoke to the joys of being single. She decided to extend her celibacy, not knowing it would become the most fulfilling and sensual year of her life. No longer defined by her romantic pursuits, she learned to relish the delights of solitude, the thrill of living on her own terms, the distinct pleasures unmediated by lovers, and the freedom to pursue her ideals without distraction or guilt. Bringing her own experiences into conversation with those of women throughout history--from eleventh-century mystic Hildegard von Bingen, Virginia Woolf, and Octavia Butler to the Shakers and Sappho--Febos situates her story within a newfound lineage of role models who unapologetically pursued their ambitions and ideals. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eBy abstaining from all forms of romantic entanglement, Febos began to see her life and her self-worth in a radical, new way. Her year of divestment transformed her relationships with friends and peers, her spirituality, her creative practice, and, most of all, her relationship to herself. Blending intimate personal narrative and incisive cultural criticism, \u003ci\u003eThe Dry Season\u003c\/i\u003e tells a story that's as much about celibacy as its inverse: pleasure, desire, fulfillment. Infused with fearless honesty and keen intellect, it's the memoir of a woman learning to live at the center of her own story, and a much-needed catalyst for a new conversation around sex and love.\u003ch3\u003eAuthor Biography\u003c\/h3\u003e\u003cp\u003eMELISSA FEBOS is the national bestselling author of four books, including\u003ci\u003e Girlhood\u003c\/i\u003e--which won the National Book Critics Circle Award in Criticism, and \u003ci\u003eBody Work: The Radical Power of Personal Narrative\u003c\/i\u003e. She has been awarded prizes and fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, LAMBDA Literary, the National Endowment for the Arts, the British Library, the Black Mountain Institute, the Bogliasco Foundation, and others. Her work has appeared in \u003ci\u003eThe Paris Review, The New Yorker, The New York Times Magazine, The Best American Essays, Vogue, The Sewanee Review, New York Review of Books, \u003c\/i\u003eand elsewhere. Febos is a full professor at the University of Iowa and lives in Iowa City with her wife, the poet Donika Kelly. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eHer memoir, \u003ci\u003eThe Dry Season, \u003c\/i\u003e will be published by Knopf in June.\n            \u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eNumber of Pages:\u003c\/strong\u003e 288\u003c\/div\u003e\n            \u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eDimensions:\u003c\/strong\u003e 0.93 x 9.44 x 6.46 IN\u003c\/div\u003e\n            \u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003ePublication Date:\u003c\/strong\u003e June 03, 2025\u003c\/div\u003e\n            ","brand":"BooksCloud","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":51987380896045,"sku":"9780593537237","price":28.19,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0938\/3185\/6429\/files\/TQziOfZZ2s9780593537237.webp?v=1776178376","url":"https:\/\/ishookbooks.com\/products\/the-dry-season-a-memoir-of-pleasure-in-a-year-without-sex-hardcover","provider":"iShook Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}