The Dry Season Finding Pleasure in a Year Without Sex
- 5 Jun 2025
- 9781837260096
- £16.99
- 288 pp
- 141×220mm
- 5 Jun 2025
- 9781837260102
- £13.59
- 256 pp
- 5 Jun 2025
- 9781837260119
- £25
- 9 hrs 49 min
In a few words
From the bestselling author of Girlhood, an examination of celibacy as well as the solitude, the freedoms and the feminist heroes discovered along the way – a wise and transformative look at relationships and self-knowledge
In a few words
From the bestselling author of Girlhood, an examination of celibacy as well as the solitude, the freedoms and the feminist heroes discovered along the way – a wise and transformative look at relationships and self-knowledge
In a few words
From the bestselling author of Girlhood, an examination of celibacy as well as the solitude, the freedoms and the feminist heroes discovered along the way – a wise and transformative look at relationships and self-knowledge
A proven chronicler of her own desire, Febos changes tack here, charting a year of celibacy . . . a queer slant adds freshness, while the frisson between the topic's supposed austerity and the pleasure afforded by such candid prose makes it all the more compelling
[An] interesting, often witty work . . . Refreshing
A proven chronicler of her own desire, Febos changes tack here, charting a year of celibacy . . . a queer slant adds freshness, while the frisson between the topic's supposed austerity and the pleasure afforded by such candid prose makes it all the more compelling
[An] interesting, often witty work . . . Refreshing
A proven chronicler of her own desire, Febos changes tack here, charting a year of celibacy . . . a queer slant adds freshness, while the frisson between the topic's supposed austerity and the pleasure afforded by such candid prose makes it all the more compelling
[An] interesting, often witty work . . . Refreshing
More about
the book
‘Brilliant and powerful’ ELIZABETH GILBERT
‘So full of wisdom and pleasure that you don’t want it to end’ MAGGIE NELSON
‘Only Melissa Febos could convince us of the ecstasy of abstinence’ KATHERINE MAY
A TIME ‘must-read’ book of 2025
A Vogue, TIME and Vulture ‘most anticipated’ book of 2025
In the wake of a disastrous 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 Melissa, it was. Ever since her teens, she had been in one relationship or another. It was time to focus on herself and examine the lifelong patterns that had got her to this point. When those three months ended, she decided to extend her celibate period, fearing that she had not yet gained the clarity she was searching for. She knew she was taking on a challenge but had no idea that this year would become the most fulfilling and sensual of her life.
No longer defined by her romantic pursuits, Melissa learned to relish the delights of solitude, the thrill of living on her own terms, the pleasures unmediated by lovers and the freedom to pursue her ideals without distraction or guilt. She 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 work, creativity – and most of all her relationship to herself.
The Dry Season is a memoir of Melissa’s year of celibacy, and a profound exploration of independence, sexuality and deep self-knowledge.
More about
the book
‘Brilliant and powerful’ ELIZABETH GILBERT
‘So full of wisdom and pleasure that you don’t want it to end’ MAGGIE NELSON
‘Only Melissa Febos could convince us of the ecstasy of abstinence’ KATHERINE MAY
A TIME ‘must-read’ book of 2025
A Vogue, TIME and Vulture ‘most anticipated’ book of 2025
In the wake of a disastrous 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 Melissa, it was. Ever since her teens, she had been in one relationship or another. It was time to focus on herself and examine the lifelong patterns that had got her to this point. When those three months ended, she decided to extend her celibate period, fearing that she had not yet gained the clarity she was searching for. She knew she was taking on a challenge but had no idea that this year would become the most fulfilling and sensual of her life.
No longer defined by her romantic pursuits, Melissa learned to relish the delights of solitude, the thrill of living on her own terms, the pleasures unmediated by lovers and the freedom to pursue her ideals without distraction or guilt. She 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 work, creativity – and most of all her relationship to herself.
The Dry Season is a memoir of Melissa’s year of celibacy, and a profound exploration of independence, sexuality and deep self-knowledge.
More about
the book
‘Brilliant and powerful’ ELIZABETH GILBERT
‘So full of wisdom and pleasure that you don’t want it to end’ MAGGIE NELSON
‘Only Melissa Febos could convince us of the ecstasy of abstinence’ KATHERINE MAY
A TIME ‘must-read’ book of 2025
A Vogue, TIME and Vulture ‘most anticipated’ book of 2025
In the wake of a disastrous 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 Melissa, it was. Ever since her teens, she had been in one relationship or another. It was time to focus on herself and examine the lifelong patterns that had got her to this point. When those three months ended, she decided to extend her celibate period, fearing that she had not yet gained the clarity she was searching for. She knew she was taking on a challenge but had no idea that this year would become the most fulfilling and sensual of her life.
No longer defined by her romantic pursuits, Melissa learned to relish the delights of solitude, the thrill of living on her own terms, the pleasures unmediated by lovers and the freedom to pursue her ideals without distraction or guilt. She 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 work, creativity – and most of all her relationship to herself.
The Dry Season is a memoir of Melissa’s year of celibacy, and a profound exploration of independence, sexuality and deep self-knowledge.
Melissa Febos has a taste for extremes. Her new book, The Dry Season, chronicles a bold experiment in her search for self-knowledge . . . Throughout, she posed a potentially radical question: What if all that a woman needs to be happy is herself?
Reading The Dry Season is like having a nourishing conversation with a smart, wry and ever-probing friend - a conversation so full of wisdom and pleasure that you don’t want it to end. The example of Febos’s commitment throughout these pages is inspiring and rare; we’re lucky and better off for it
Maggie Nelson, Author Of The Argonauts
Beautiful . . . One of the most interesting parts of the book is reading about how celibacy, for women throughout history, has been this pathway for freedom of thought
Emily Ratajkowski
With intensity and precision, Febos writes through a year without sex—and emerges with revelations about intimacy, addiction, power, and self-respect. The Dry Season is not a memoir of lack, but of radical clarity
Esther Perel
Melissa Febos has a taste for extremes. Her new book, The Dry Season, chronicles a bold experiment in her search for self-knowledge . . . Throughout, she posed a potentially radical question: What if all that a woman needs to be happy is herself?
Reading The Dry Season is like having a nourishing conversation with a smart, wry and ever-probing friend - a conversation so full of wisdom and pleasure that you don’t want it to end. The example of Febos’s commitment throughout these pages is inspiring and rare; we’re lucky and better off for it
Maggie Nelson, Author Of The Argonauts
Beautiful . . . One of the most interesting parts of the book is reading about how celibacy, for women throughout history, has been this pathway for freedom of thought
Emily Ratajkowski
Much talked about
Melissa Febos has a taste for extremes. Her new book, The Dry Season, chronicles a bold experiment in her search for self-knowledge . . . Throughout, she posed a potentially radical question: What if all that a woman needs to be happy is herself?
Reading The Dry Season is like having a nourishing conversation with a smart, wry and ever-probing friend - a conversation so full of wisdom and pleasure that you don’t want it to end. The example of Febos’s commitment throughout these pages is inspiring and rare; we’re lucky and better off for it
Maggie Nelson, Author Of The Argonauts
Beautiful . . . One of the most interesting parts of the book is reading about how celibacy, for women throughout history, has been this pathway for freedom of thought
Emily Ratajkowski
Much talked about
Melissa Febos
View profileMelissa Febos is the national bestselling author of four previous books: Whip Smart, Abandon Me, Girlhood – winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award in Criticism – and Body Work: The Radical Power of Personal Narrative. She has been awarded prizes and fellowships from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, LAMBDA Literary, the National Endowment for the Arts, the British Library, the Black Mountain Institute, the Bogliasco Foundation, MacDowell, the American Library in Paris and others. Her work has appeared in the Paris Review, New Yorker, New York Times Magazine, Best American Essays, Vogue, Sewanee Review, New York Review of Books and elsewhere. Febos is a full professor at the University of Iowa and lives in Iowa City with her wife, the poet Donika Kelly.
@melissafebos | melissafebos.com
Melissa Febos
View profileMelissa Febos is the national bestselling author of four previous books: Whip Smart, Abandon Me, Girlhood – winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award in Criticism – and Body Work: The Radical Power of Personal Narrative. She has been awarded prizes and fellowships from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, LAMBDA Literary, the National Endowment for the Arts, the British Library, the Black Mountain Institute, the Bogliasco Foundation, MacDowell, the American Library in Paris and others. Her work has appeared in the Paris Review, New Yorker, New York Times Magazine, Best American Essays, Vogue, Sewanee Review, New York Review of Books and elsewhere. Febos is a full professor at the University of Iowa and lives in Iowa City with her wife, the poet Donika Kelly.
@melissafebos | melissafebos.com
Melissa Febos
View profileMelissa Febos is the national bestselling author of four previous books: Whip Smart, Abandon Me, Girlhood – winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award in Criticism – and Body Work: The Radical Power of Personal Narrative. She has been awarded prizes and fellowships from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, LAMBDA Literary, the National Endowment for the Arts, the British Library, the Black Mountain Institute, the Bogliasco Foundation, MacDowell, the American Library in Paris and others. Her work has appeared in the Paris Review, New Yorker, New York Times Magazine, Best American Essays, Vogue, Sewanee Review, New York Review of Books and elsewhere. Febos is a full professor at the University of Iowa and lives in Iowa City with her wife, the poet Donika Kelly.
@melissafebos | melissafebos.com
