Monica Dux

Losing your religion is harder than it looks ... From devout ten-year-old performing the part of Jesus in a primary school play to blaspheming, undergraduate atheist, Monica Dux and her attitude to the Catholic Church changed profoundly over a decade. Eventually, she calmed down and was just 'lapsed'. Then, on a family trip to Rome, her young daughter expressed a desire to be baptised. Monica found herself re-examining her own childhood and how Catholicism had shaped her. Was it really out of her system or was it in her blood for life?In Lapsed, Monica sets out to find the answer. Her investigations lead her to test a miracle cure in Lourdes and visit the grave of a headless Saint who claimed to be married to Christ (and wore a wedding ring made of his foreskin to prove it). She speaks to canon lawyers, abuse survivors and even a nun who insists that the Virgin Mary starts her car every morning.With wry humour and razor-sharp observations, Lapsed is the story of one woman's attempt to exorcise her religious upbringing, and to answer the question, is Catholicism like a blood group and, if so, is it possible to get a total transfusion?'Enlightening, forensic and laugh-out-loud funny' -- JANE CARO'A frank, funny and heartfelt exorcism of our need to believe in a man in the sky' -- SHAUN MICALLEF

Feminism, if not dead, is at least seriously ill. It is now common to hear women declare themselves 'Not Feminists', whereas in the 1970s it was taken as given that any thinking woman would be proud to wear that label.What the hell happened?In ""The Great Feminist Denial"", the authors talk with women - feminists and non-feminists, young and old, famous and not famous, child-free and with child - and use their responses as a starting point from which to refocus the key debates.Dux and Simic argue that, ultimately, feminism is still necessary for everyday life. Even the most cursory glimpse at the social and cultural landscape suggests an urgent need for a politics that identifies inequalities, differences and strengths specific to women as a sex.The ""Great Feminist Denial"" puts an ailing feminist past to rest, and proposes a way forward that offers young women of today a new way of calling themselves feminists.