Maybe it’s the noble title or the chivalry. Perhaps it’s the dashing sense of danger. No matter your preference, prepare to fall in love with five heroes who know how to make a girl swoon in any century:Truth Within Dreams: Claudia’s plan to stage her own ruination and escape marriage to the churlish and elderly Sir Saint seemed foolproof. She was sure the kindly Henry De Vere wouldn’t mind helping her out … but somehow she hadn’t counted on him actually proposing. Can a fake scandal lead to real dreams coming true?The Winter Promise: In the fall of 1053, Lady Imma has one loyalty: to help her uncle, the king of Wales, win his war against the English. Lord Robert, the steward of Wessex, has one loyalty as well: to keep his beloved Wessex safe from enemies. When she is forced to seek shelter in his keep, they must decide if they can listen to their hearts – or if they would be wiser never to trust each other. Revolutionary Hearts: To complete his mission in India’s fight for independence, General Carton—aka U.S. undercover operative Warren Khan—must hide both his true objective and his heritage. But once he meets the captivating Parineeta, who holds the key to both his freedom and capturing her brother, a suspected anarchist, he finds the subterfuge more difficult than anticipated. Merry’s Wonderful Christmas Gift: The winter holidays used to be Miss Merry Damonson’s favorite time of year. Until her almost-fiancé Edward Everton abandoned her two days before Christmas. Now he’s returned to their country village, but is it too late to reignite old flames? A holiday ball might just offer these unlucky lovers a second chance. An Unconventional Courtship: George Fitzpatrick had boarded the new omnibus intent on nothing more than a ride from one point to another. Until a gorgeous young blonde named Charlotte Ashcroft suddenly claims he is her chaperone. What’s an up-and-coming young banker to do but help a lady out?

    Steinem has spent her life working for racial justice and women’s rights. In this interview, she speaks humorously and insightfully on everything from politics to pop culture. She reveals that the backlash she received for supporting Hillary Clinton’s 2008 presidential bid was “one of the worst experiences of my life,” and criticizes a history of feminism that forgets the deep alliances between early civil rights and women’s rights activists. Whether she’s defending Kim Kardashian from public vitriol or calling out the antiquated sexual assault policies of the U.S. military, Gloria Steinem is always engaged, always fighting for what she believes in. The interview was conducted by Salamishah Tillet, an Associate Professor of English at the University of Pennsylvania. Tillet blogs for The Nation, and is the author of Sites of Slavery: Citizenship and Racial Democracy in the Post-Civil Rights Imagination. She is also the co-founder of A Long Walk Home, a non-profit organization that uses art therapy and the visual and performing arts to end violence against girls and women. Cover design by Adil Dara Kim.

    If I had wanted to be loved by those people I would have joined the Peace Corps." Jerry Della Femina said that. He also said: "Advertising is the most fun you can have with your clothes on." And the critics agree!

    She has slept with most of her male friends. Most of her male friends have slept with most of her female friends. Sexual promiscuity is the norm. But up until a few years ago, she still envisioned her sexual experience "eventually reaching a terminus, like a monorail gliding to a stop at Epcot Center." Like many people, she imagined herself disembarking, finding herself face-to-face with another human being, "and there we would remain in our permanent station in life: the future."But, as we all know, things are more complicated than that. Love is rare and frequently unreciprocated. Sexual acquisitiveness is risky and can be hurtful. And generalizing about what women want or don't want or should want or should do seems to lead nowhere. Don't our temperaments, our hang-ups, and our histories define our lives as much as our gender?In Future Sex, Witt captures the experiences of going to bars alone, dating online, and hooking up with strangers. From her home in San Francisco, she decides to say yes to everything and to find her own path. She observes the subcultures she encounters with a wry sense of humor, capturing them in all of their strangeness, ridiculousness, and beauty. The result is an open-minded, honest account of the contemporary pursuit of connection and pleasure, and an inspiring new model of female sexuality--open, forgiving, and unafraid.

    Real plumbers share their wildest experiences on the job — from unforgettable service calls to the strangest objects they’ve fished out of toilets! This lighthearted glimpse into the world of pipe clogs and leaky faucets is “disgusting, hilarious, and scary” (Chicago Tribune).

    The students had issued their challenge by calling the beloved American icon a fraud. Wayne, who had his new movie McQ to promote, responded by saying he would be happy to show his film in the pseudo-intellectual swamps of Harvard Square. After the screening, without writers, the former USC footballer delivered a classic performance. When one smart young man asked where he got his phony toupee, Wayne insisted the hair was real. It wasn't his, but it was real. The appreciative underclassmen loved him and after the Q and A session, they all sat down to dinner. Later Wayne, who was suffering greatly from both gout and the after effects of lung cancer (sadly the Duke only had five years to live), said that day at Harvard was the best time he ever had.Just when you thought you've heard everything about Hollywood comes a totally original new book -- a special blend of biography, history and lore.Hollywood Stories is packed with wild, wonderful short tales about famous stars, movies, directors and many others who have been a part of the world's most fascinating, unpredictable industry!What makes the book unique is that the reader can go to any page and find a completely engaging and illuminating yarn. Sometimes people won't realize that they are reading about The Three Stooges or Popeye the Sailor until they come to the end of the story. The Midwest Book Review says Hollywood Stories is, "packed from cover to cover with fascinating tales." Full of funny moments and twist endings, Hollywood Stories features an amazing, all-star cast of legendary characters and icons and will keep you totally entertained!

    She finds that the clubs provide an intermediate space—not work, not home—where men can enjoyably experience their bodies and selves through conversation, fantasy, and ritualized voyeurism. At the same time, she shows how the dynamics of male pleasure and privilege in strip clubs are intertwined with ideas about what it means to be a man in contemporary America.Frank’s ethnography draws on her work as an exotic dancer in five clubs, as well as on her interviews with over thirty regular customers—middle-class men in their late-twenties to mid-fifties. Reflecting on the customers’ dual desires for intimacy and visibility, she explores their paradoxical longings for "authentic" interactions with the dancers, the ways these aspirations are expressed within the highly controlled and regulated strip clubs, and how they relate to beliefs and fantasies about social class and gender. She considers how regular visits to strip clubs are not necessarily antithetical to marriage or long-term heterosexual relationships, but are based on particular beliefs about marriage and monogamy that make these clubs desirable venues. Looking at the relative "classiness" of the clubs where she worked—ranging from the city’s most prestigious clubs to some of its dive bars—she reveals how the clubs are differentiated by reputations, dress codes, cover charges, locations, and clientele, and describes how these distinctions become meaningful and erotic for the customers. Interspersed throughout the book are three fictional interludes that provide an intimate look at Frank’s experiences as a stripper—from the outfits to the gestures, conversations, management, coworkers, and, of course, the customers.Focusing on the experiences of the male clients, rather than those of the female sex workers, G-Strings and Sympathy provides a nuanced, lively, and tantalizing account of the stigmatized world of strip clubs.

    Carol Queen. Whether writing about the joys of being spanked into erotic bliss, performing in a red-light district peep show, partaking of the pleasures of the new safe sex clubs, or lobbying for the pro-pornography platform, Queen is an enthusiastic advocate for sexual pleasure.

    After all, we live in a world saturated with sex, which makes it tough not to wonder how we measure up—and even tougher to talk about our intimate experiences honestly. In this frank, poignant collection, twenty-six acclaimed writers go Behind the Bedroom Door and lay bare the messy, mind-blowing, often hilarious encounters that make up a woman’s history.By sharing their stories, authors like Susan Cheever, Hope Edelman, and Julie Powell bravely open a window on the passions, predilections and problems that we encounter between the sheets. In doing so, they reassure us that whatever we feel, whatever we do or don’t do in the bedroom, we’re not alone.Telling the truth about sex—how we like it, how often we get it, how it affects us—isn’t easy. This eye-opening anthology tells the truth about women’s intimate lives, shattering some deeply entrenched myths about what goes on in the bedrooms of real women along the way: Susan Cheever upends conventional notions about women, sex, and sentiment in her essay “In Praise of One-Night Stands.”… Sex is the last thing on Lauren Slater’s mind when the bestselling author and psychologist reveals a few surprising truths, even joys, about her virtually sexless marriage in “Overcome.”… Julie Powell serves up a searing chronicle of an illicit affair in “Lost in Space”; and novelist Valerie Frankel takes a decidedly lighter view in “Ouch, You’re Lying on My Hair.”Whether you’re twenty or seventy, single or perpetually coupled up, these frank, seriously sexy essays provide a deeply illuminating, ultimately comforting no-holds-barred look at our most private selves. Gutsy and provocative, they reveal a great deal about how far we’ve come—and how far we still have to go.

    His specially embroidered jacket, laden with medals, made him the most decorated dog in history.Extracted from the bestselling title Beyond The Call Of Duty, the story of the unofficial mascot for the 26th ‘Yankee’ Division and his rescuer Private Robert J Conroy takes us on a journey through the build up to WWI and beyond."

    From the Madly-In-Love 17-Year-Old Who Might be Pregnant to the Cheating Father of Three and the Grandma Who Is Perfectly Happy Alone, these tales of love, lust, longing and leaving will shock, titillate, and educate. Cohen serves as tour guide, drawing on her deep database of Sex Diaries for her incisive and illuminating commentary. Cohen was the first editor of the Sex Diaries column, a popular feature in "New York" magazine, editing it from 2007 to 2010. Her work regularly appears in "Marie Claire" and the "New York Times" and she is a contributing editor at "Woman's Day." She is executive producing a TV reality series based on this book.Presents a groundbreaking portrait of relationships in America?including myriad options beyond single, dating, and marriedIncludes Sex Diaries of straight, gay, bi, single, married, young, and older Sex Diarists, published here for the first timeGives readers tips on how to evaluate their own relationships and sex livesSex is everywhere in our culture?yet how people best connect and disconnect is largely a mystery. "The Sex Diaries Project" turns the lights on to reveal the secrets that lie behind closed bedroom doors.

    Obedient Wife. Porn Slave. Deep Throat Was Only The Beginning… Linda Boreman was just twenty-one when she met Chuck Traynor, the man who would change her life. Less than two years later, the girl who wouldn't let her high school dates get past first base was catapulted to fame she could never have imagined in her wildest dreams--or worst nightmares. Linda Boreman of Yonkers, New York, had become Linda Lovelace, international adult film superstar. The unprecedented success of Deep Throat made porn popular with the mainstream and made Lovelace a household name. But nobody, from the A-list celebrities who touted the movie to the audiences that lined up to see it, knew the truth about what went on behind the scenes. Enslaved by the man who would eventually force her into marriage so that he could control her completely, Linda was beaten savagely with regularity, hypnotized, and raped. She was threatened with disfigurement and death. She was terrorized into prostitution at gun and knifepoint. She was forced to perform unspeakable perversions on film. She made Deep Throat under unimaginable duress. Years later, Linda would come out of hiding to relate her side of the story--a modern horror tale of humiliation, betrayal, and violence that would rock the porn industry and put its teller in fear for her life... Ordeal Linda Lovelace became a household name in 1972, when Deep Throat became the first pornographic movie ever to cross over into the mainstream. Due to the success of Deep Throat, she appeared in Playboy, Bachelor, and even Esquire between 1973 and 1974. Soon after, Lovelace joined in with anti-pornography feminists led by Andrea Dworkin and Catharine MacKinnon, and she testified before Attorney General Meese's Commission on Pornography in 1986. She died in Denver on April 22, 2002, due to severe injuries in a car accident.

    

    In this book inspired by Emma Koenig's wildly popular website, a diverse collective of women do just that. Emma Koenig was inspired to answer this question after a truly frustrating sexual experience with a partner. As she says, "The simplest version of this story devoid of all identifying details: He thought I had an orgasm. I hadn't." She knew she couldn't be the only woman to have been mystified by an experience such as this, and so her Tumblr, How to Make Me Come, was born as a safe space for women to talk honestly and openly. The website touched a major chord. It received tons of press and garnered over a million page views in a month. And now, a broad range of the best of these anonymous essays have been collected into Moan. The ways through which women achieve sexual pleasure are often ignored, devalued, or misunderstood. Moan tackles the ideas surrounding the sometimes elusive orgasm head on. Here is a look into the spectrum of desire. Of frustration. Of experiences that have left an impact. From the hilarious to the tragic, from the intellectual to the erotic, these essays will leave you feeling inspired and excited to embark on your own journey of sexual exploration and empower women to do what most of the time is hardest for us: asking for what we want and don't in the bedroom and beyond. What people are saying about it: "Prioritizing women's pleasure is a critical part of our liberation. Not only is Moan an intimate, educational and funny collection about orgasm and desire but it pushes the cultural conversation forward." -- Rashida Jones, actress, writer, producer "Koenig's book is exactly what we need to break the absurd, toxic silence around female sexual pleasure." -- Peggy Orenstein, bestselling author of Girls & Sex and Cinderella Ate My Daughter

    As Elle magazine informs us, “All the bases are covered here, from the hard lessons women learn (and impart) to the inextricability of romance and cold hard cash.”