Sex and Sensibility

'A punkette turned babe, a Stalinist mouthpiece reborn as a material girl. Her short items read like ransom notes, with a boom-box level of prose' - James Wolcott Vanity Fair

A collection of gems from celebrated scribe Julie Burchill, she takes aim at cultural trends and social tribes of the eighties and early nineties, inventing some of her own along the way. The Sex Zombie, “in a dress as tight as a tourniquet, as black as a bruise”, and the Phantom Nympho – “here she is again – large as life and twice as louche”. Never afraid to take down her own sex, Burchill is nonetheless a feminist by way of her uncompromising spirit and her achievements. Full of stunning bon mots – “she drags feminism along casually in her slinking stride like a cave woman who has just killed her dinner” – her throwaway comment on Madonna could just as well be applied to herself. She gives her unique take on the two other key female figures of those decades - Princess Diana, who “now outshines Madonna as pop’s brightest spark” and Margaret Thatcher, the iron lady, no friend of feminism but “what she has done has proved it can be done”.

If you were there you will be gripped by the sheer audacity and brilliance of Burchill’s wit, and if you weren’t this book will tell you all you need to know about Thatcher’s Britain. Burchill has achieved an unprecedented level of fame as a print journalist, from when she started at the New Musical Express aged just sixteen and then as an international best selling novelist with Ambition. Always entertaining, uniquely perceptive and often hilarious, she is one of the great writers of our time.

'The cleverest woman of all time' - Peter York

‘Weaves her moral outrage through a web of wit and joky iconoclasm’ - The Guardian

‘It is the uniqueness of Julie Burchill’s vision that makes her a splendid writer’ - Daily Telegraph

Julie Burchill arrived in London aged 16, having won a job at the New Musical Express. She has since written for numerous publications including The Spectator, The Literary Review and The Sunday Times, and is among the best known journalists of our time. She has also written a number of novels, including Sugar Rush which was adapted for TV, and an autobiography.