This book is a multi-disciplinary collection of essays from leading researchers and practitioners, exploring legal, ethical, social, psychological and practical aspects of surrogate motherhood in Britain and abroad. It highlights the common themes that characterise debates across countries as well as exploring the many differences in policies and practices. Surrogacy raises questions for medical and welfare practitioners and dilemmas for policy makers as well as ethical issues of concern to society as a whole. The international perspective adopted by this book offers an opportunity for questions of law, policy and practice to be shared and debated across countries. The book links contemporary views from research and practice with broader social issues and bio-ethical debates. The book will be of interest to an international audience of academics and their students (in law, social policy, reproductive medicine, psychology and sociology), practitioners (including doctors, counsellors, midwives and welfare professionals) as well as those involved in policy-making and implementation.

THE DUD AVOCADO gained instant cult status on first publication and remains a timeless portrait of a woman hellbent on living. It is, as the GUARDIAN observes, 'one of the best novels about growing up fast'. Sally Jay Gorce is a woman with a mission. It's the 1950s, she's young, and she's in Paris. Having dyed her hair pink, she wears evening dresses in the daytime and vows to go native in a way not even the natives can manage. Embarking on an educational programme that includes an affair with a married man (which fizzles out when she realises he's single and wants to marry her); nights in cabarets and jazz clubs in the company of assorted "citizens of the world"; an entanglement with a charming psychopath; and a bit part in a film financed by a famous matador. But an education like this doesn't come cheap. Will our heroine be forced back to the States to fulfill her destiny as a librarian, or can she keep up her whirlwind Parisian existence?

This story traces the life of Harriet Richardson, a mentally-disabled young woman who was allowed to die of starvation by her husband.

'One of the funniest books I've ever read' - Gore Vidal * The Dud Avocado gained instant cult status on first publication and remains a timeless portrait of a woman hellbent on living. It is, as the Guardian observes, 'one of the best novels about growing up fast'. Sally Jay Gorce is a woman with a mission. It's the 1950s, she's young, and she's in Paris. Having dyed her hair pink, she wears evening dresses in the daytime and vows to go native in a way not even the natives can manage. Embarking on an educational programme that includes an affair with a married man (which fizzles out when she realises he's single and wants to marry her); nights in cabarets and jazz clubs in the company of assorted "citizens of the world"; an entanglement with a charming psychopath; and a bit part in a film financed by a famous matador. But an education like this doesn't come cheap. Will our heroine be forced back to the States to fulfill her destiny as a librarian, or can she keep up her whirlwind Parisian existence? * A champagne cocktail ... Rich, invigorating, and deceptively simple to the taste ... One falls for Sally Jay Gorce from a great height from the first sentence - Observer As delightful and delicate an examination of how it is to be twenty and in love and in Paris as I've ever read - Sunday Times I had to tell someone how much I enjoyed The Dud Avocado. It made me laugh, scream, and guffaw (which, incidentally, is a great name for a law firm). - Groucho Marx Books included in the VMC 40th anniversary series include: Frost in May by Antonia White; The Collected Stories of Grace Paley; Fire from Heaven by Mary Renault; The Magic Toyshop by Angela Carter; The Weather in the Streets by Rosamond Lehmann; Deep Water by Patricia Highsmith; The Return of the Soldier by Rebecca West; Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston; Heartburn by Nora Ephron; Memento Mori by Muriel Spark; A View of the Harbour by Elizabeth Taylor; and Faces in the Water by Janet Frame

This jaunty, fictional story connects mystical imagination with mysterious fantasy as the author merges sensual realism with mature emotions. With a sweep of her hand, Rachel Cook wakes up poignant dreams and questions the unexpected realities of the characters she meets on the blue elevator of her condominium. Set in the residence of the writer, the Ortega Yacht Club Condominiums in Jacksonville, Florida, fanatical actions revolve around "fictional" characters, as a chance meeting on the blue elevator maneuvers the fates of the two main characters. Adele "Dell" Marie Bell (Septuagenarian) is a writer who discovers that everyone has a tale to tell. She has retired and plays with the minds of her friends and acquaintances as she writes romantic fast reads (and would rather eat and enjoy life, than diet and suffer). Robert Andrew "Andy" McIntosh (Thirty), a wandering, unemployed chef, is the grandson of her deceased neighbor Pansy, who owned an ostrich farm in Ocala, Florida. This odd couple unconsciously ignores convention as fate; food, fun, and fantasy pull their unparallel lives together for a short time, introducing "mystery" to shine up rusting pieces of them. Now don't go jumping to conclusions, the first inkling of this unbalanced relationship is not what you are thinking when the heart of an obnoxious neighbor is stolen (with a steak knife) Dell's aging imagination is rekindled as the mystery of the unbridled "heart thief" unravels, drawing the two main characters into an intriguing story. Adele Marie Bell, the quirky writer of romance novels (pseudonym, Rochelle) accepts the challenge of writing the story as she unwinds a twisted journal given to her by her neighbor (Andy's eccentric grandmother), Pansy Oag McIntosh. The journal's untethered words wets her journalistic appetitive, and she is served an appetizer (a human heart); an entree (Thanksgiving dinner, broiled ostrich on an ostrich farm in Ocala, Florida); a main course (a three-star dinner in Paris, France, that reveals Andy's curved heritage). And for a delightful dessert, Andy himself dishes up pen and ink answers to delectable questions Adele Marie Bell writes notes in a journal as she tunnels into the buried past of Andy's dysfunctional family, digging up, and recording the reclusive secrets of his tightly wound grandmother (Pansy). Her talent for romantic expression and intrigue is left challenged, as Pansy's rambling journal reveals a webbing of jangled words that leaves difficult questions unanswered, telling young Andy he is not who he thinks he is The writer wets the reader's appetite, salivating taste buds, as Andy's gourmet talents cook up surprisingly lip-smacking results, and the two become unlikely cell mates. These two dimensional characters invite word-hungry readers to dine with them in the neighborhood's most popular restaurants as they uncover secrets lurking behind the doors of the condominium and glamorize the art of dining for pleasure, versus eating to fill the gut. Tasty words unravel a yummy mystery that keeps the reader's tummy grumbling for more, and love's definition breaks all rules as it unfolds with astonishing realism, making the reader think "endings are not such a bad thing . . ." Rachel Cook scraps below the surface of her characters, using her mature power of words to enamor her readers with surprises, knowing that every life is a tale to be told.

THE DUD AVOCADO gained instant cult status on first publication and remains a timeless portrait of a woman hellbent on living. It is, as the GUARDIAN observes, 'one of the best novels about growing up fast'. Sally Jay Gorce is a woman with a mission. It's the 1950s, she's young, and she's in Paris. Having dyed her hair pink, she wears evening dresses in the daytime and vows to go native in a way not even the natives can manage. Embarking on an educational programme that includes an affair with a married man (which fizzles out when she realises he's single and wants to marry her); nights in cabarets and jazz clubs in the company of assorted "citizens of the world"; an entanglement with a charming psychopath; and a bit part in a film financed by a famous matador. But an education like this doesn't come cheap. Will our heroine be forced back to the States to fulfill her destiny as a librarian, or can she keep up her whirlwind Parisian existence?

In her apron and rubber gloves, a smile lipsticked permanently across her face, the woman of the Fifties has become a cultural symbol of all that we are most grateful to have sloughed off. A homely compliant creature, she knows little or nothing of sex, and stands no chance at all of having a career. She must marry or die. But what if there was another side to the story? In this book Rachel Cooke tells the story of ten extraordinary women whose pioneering professional lives - and complicated private lives - paved the way for future generations. Muriel Box, film director. Betty Box, film producer. Margery Fish, plantswoman. Patience Gray, cook. Alison Smithson, architect. Sheila van Damm, rally car driver and theatre owner. Nancy Spain, journalist and radio personality. Joan Werner Laurie, editor. Jacquetta Hawkes, archaeologist. Rose Heilbron, QC. Plucky and ambitious, they left the house, discovered the bliss of work, and ushered in the era of the working woman.