A veteran science reporter's investigation into the fascinating and distinctive nature of women's friendships In Girl Talk, New York Times science reporter Jacqueline Mroz takes on the science of female friendship -- a phenomenon that's as culturally powerful as it is individually mysterious. She examines friendship from a range of angles, from the historical to the experiential, with a scientific analysis that reveals new truths about what leads us to connect and build alliances, and then "break up" when a friendship no longer serves us. Mroz takes a new look at how friendship has evolved throughout history, showing how friends tend to share more genetic commonalities than strangers, and that the more friends we have, the more empathy and pleasure chemicals are present in our brains. Scientists have also reported that friendship directly influences health and longevity; women with solid, supportive friendships experience fewer "fight or flight" impulses and stronger heart function, and women without friendships tend to develop medical challenges on par with those associated with smoking and excessive body weight. With intimate reporting and insightful analysis, Mroz reveals new awareness about the impact of women's friendships, and how they shape our culture at large.

The psychiatrist-author of The Secret Psychology of How We Fall in Love takes a close-up look at female friendships and their implications, revealing why women have fewer friends than they used to, examining the primal codes of friendship, and offering advice on how to become a better friend, cultivate new friendships, and build deeper relationships. Original.

Most dating books tell you what NOT to do. Here's a book dedicated to telling you what you CAN do. In his book, Get the Guy, Matthew Hussey—relationship expert, matchmaker, and star of the reality show Ready for Love—reveals the secrets of the male mind and the fundamentals of dating and mating for a proven, revolutionary approach to help women to find lasting love. Matthew Hussey has coached thousands of high-powered CEOs, showing them how to develop confidence and build relationships that translate into professional success. Many of Matthew’s male clients pressed him for advice on how to apply his winning strategies not to just get the job, but how to get the girl. As his reputation grew, Hussey was approached by more and more women, eager to hear what he had learned about the male perspective on love and romance. From landing a first date to establishing emotional intimacy, playful flirtation to red-hot bedroom tips, Matthew’s insightfulness, irreverence, and warmth makes Get the Guy: Learn Secrets of the Male Mind to Find the Man You Want and the Love You Deserve a one-of-a-kind relationship guide and the handbook for every woman who wants to get the guy she’s been waiting for.

“Fascinating . . . The Social Sex is a paean to companionship. Share it with a bosom friend.” —NPR From historian and acclaimed feminist author of How the French Invented Love and A History of the Wife comes this rich, multifaceted history of the evolution of female friendship In today’s culture, the bonds of female friendship are taken as a given. But only a few centuries ago, the idea of female friendship was completely unacknowledged, even pooh-poohed. Only men, the reasoning went, had the emotional and intellectual depth to develop and sustain these meaningful relationships. Surveying history, literature, philosophy, religion, and pop culture, acclaimed author and historian Marilyn Yalom and co-author Theresa Donovan Brown demonstrate how women were able to co-opt the public face of friendship throughout the years. Chronicling shifting attitudes toward friendship—both female and male—from the Bible and the Romans to the Enlightenment to the women’s rights movements of the ‘60s up to Sex and the City and Bridesmaids, they reveal how the concept of female friendship has been inextricably linked to the larger social and cultural movements that have defined human history. Armed with Yalom and Brown as our guides, we delve into the fascinating historical episodes and trends that illuminate the story of friendship between women: the literary salon as the original book club, the emergence of female professions and the working girl, the phenomenon of gossip, the advent of women’s sports, and more. Lively, informative, and richly detailed, The Social Sex is a revelatory cultural history.

Women in Victorian England wore jewelry made from each other's hair and wrote poems celebrating decades of friendship. They pored over magazines that described the dangerous pleasures of corporal punishment. A few had sexual relationships with each other, exchanged rings and vows, willed each other property, and lived together in long-term partnerships described as marriages. But, as Sharon Marcus shows, these women were not seen as gender outlaws. Their desires were fanned by consumer culture, and their friendships and unions were accepted and even encouraged by family, society, and church. Far from being sexless angels defined only by male desires, Victorian women openly enjoyed looking at and even dominating other women. Their friendships helped realize the ideal of companionate love between men and women celebrated by novels, and their unions influenced politicians and social thinkers to reform marriage law. Through a close examination of literature, memoirs, letters, domestic magazines, and political debates, Marcus reveals how relationships between women were a crucial component of femininity. Deeply researched, powerfully argued, and filled with original readings of familiar and surprising sources, Between Women overturns everything we thought we knew about Victorian women and the history of marriage and family life. It offers a new paradigm for theorizing gender and sexuality--not just in the Victorian period, but in our own.

This original interpretation of the lives and social interactions of Quaker women in the British Atlantic between 1650 and 1750 highlights the unique ways in which adherence to the movement shaped women's lives, as well as the ways in which female Friends transformed seventeenth- and eighteenth-century religious and political culture.

This feminist classic explores the many manifestations of friendship between women and examines the ways women have created their own communities and destinies through friendship.

THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER

DIVFrom bestselling author Fay Weldon comes the story of three women’s enduring friendship /divDIV They first met as children in 1940s London. Thirty years later, Marjorie, Chloe, and Grace make their way through an almost unrecognizable post-war society, coping with husbands, children, parents, and the messy business of life. Trapped by her dependency on her tormented screenwriter husband, Chloe finds a novel way of liberating herself from his sexual and domestic oppression. Marjorie, a childless BBC director, is overwhelmed with guilt upon seeing her mother, the woman who abandoned her thirty years earlier, dying in a hospital bed. And egocentric Grace, who lives with a much younger man, her husband having passed away, sacrifices the wellbeing of her son upon the altar of pleasure. /divDIV /divDIVA smart, prescient novel that speaks for a generation of women struggling to find their place in a male-dominated world, Female Friends is a masterwork from a storyteller at the top of her game. /div

A Washington Post Notable Book of 2017. Deborah Tannen's bestselling You Just Don't Understand: Conversations Between Women and Men made us aware of the deep and subtle meanings behind the words we say. She has since explored the way we talk at work, in arguments, to our mothers and our daughters. Now she turns to that most intense, precious and potential minefield: women's friendships. Best friend, old friend, good friend, new friend, neighbour, fellow mother at the school gate, workplace confidante: women's friendships are crucial. A friend can be like a sister, daughter, mother, mentor, therapist or confessor. She can also be the source of pain and betrayal. From casual chatting to intimate confiding, from talking about problems to sharing funny stories, there are patterns of communication and miscommunication that affect friendships. Tannen shows how even the best of friends - with the best intentions - can say the wrong thing, how the ways women friends talk can bring friends closer or pull them apart, but also how words can repair the damage done by words. She explains the power of women friends who show empathy and can just listen; how women use talk to connect - and to subtly compete; how fears of rejection can haunt friendships; how social media is reshaping relationships. Exploring what it means to be friends, helping us hear what we are really saying, understanding how we connect to other people; this illuminating and validating book gets inside the language of one of most women's life essentials - female friendships.