What Do Women Want?, Bread, Roses, Sex, Power

What do women want? is a book of inspiration, humor, and provocation-- an intimate conversation between the reader and Erica Jong. In these personal statements Jong addresses many of the questions that concern women and men today: Are women better off today than they were twenty-five years ago? What was Princess Diana's importance to women? Has Hillary Clinton prepared us for a woman president? Why do powerful women evoke ambivalence? Why do mothers continue to be blamed for working outside the home? How does the mother-daughter dialectic influence cycles of feminism and backlash? What is the relationship of pornography to the creative spirit? Who is the perfect man? What constitutes sex appeal?

With her characteristic wit and her refreshing refusal to bow down before political correctness, Erica Jong tackles these and other issues. She also celebrates Nabokov's "Lolita" and relates it to the history of censorship; analyzes Anaos Nin's importance to contemporary writers; captures the seductive charm of Italy, her second home; and honors the necessity for poetry in our lives. "What Do Women Want?" is at once an informal memoir and a book of inspiration for all women and the men in their lives.

What Do Women Want? is both funny and serious, full of Jong's delight in language and her passion for ideas. It grapples with the writers she loves and the hypocrisy she hates, and reveals her own original, quirky take on the world we live in.