In Delta of Venus Anaïs Nin penned a lush, magical world where the characters of her imagination possess the most universal of desires and exceptional of talents. Among these provocative stories, a Hungarian adventurer seduces wealthy women then vanishes with their money; a veiled woman selects strangers from a chic restaurant for private trysts; and a Parisian hatmaker named Mathilde leaves her husband for the opium dens of Peru. Delta of Venus is an extraordinarily rich and exotic collection from the master of erotic writing.Part of the Quality Paperback Book Club series with limited-edition art cover. Cover art painted by Monica Elias.

    The goal is to inspire photographers of all levels who wish to improve their work, as well as readers interested in deepening their understanding of the art of photography. Each volume is introduced by a student of the featured photographer. In this book, Mary Ellen Mark (1940-2015)--well known for the emotional power of her pictures, be they of people or animals--offers her insight on observing the world and capturing dramatic moments that reveal more than the reality at hand. Through words and pictures, she shares her own creative process and discusses a wide range of issues, from gaining the trust of the subject and taking pictures that are controlled but unforced, to organizing the frame so that every part contributes toward telling the story.

    An honest and moving story of youth and friendship, Smith brings the same unique, lyrical quality to Just Kids as she has to the rest of her formidable body of work--from her influential 1975 album Horses to her visual art and poetry.

    Now back in print by popular demand, the classic volume I Will Never Forget You collects more than 50 striking portraits of Kahlo as we know and love her, wearing traditional costumes, heavy jewelry, and flowers in her hair. Archival letters and photographs that tell the story of Kahlo and Muray's touching relationship accompany these stunning plates and make for a truly unique celebration of one of the 20th century's most beloved artists.

    Shibari is the Japanese-inspired art of tying a subject to not only immobilize them, but to do so elegantly and beautifully - creating an intimate and erotic experience for both the subject and the person tying. Adopted by rope enthusiasts all over the world, shibari (literally "to tie" or "to bind") is a cornerstone of erotic rope art and the subject of captivating performances and photographs. However, in-depth resources for learning the art are difficult to obtain, making shibari intimidating, obscure and difficult to master... Until now. The Complete Shibari series is the most complete and accessible English-language guide to shibari ever published. Author Douglas Kent strips away shibari's mystery and reveals how to create visually stunning compositions with rope and the human form... in your own home or play space. About Complete Shibari: Land Complete Shibari Volume 1: Land explores the essential ground-based ties and forms of shibari. With short, clear explanations and over 450 lavish, step-by-step illustrations and photographs, Douglas Kent introduces the basic "building blocks", then guides you in applying those basics to create a full range of beautiful and exciting ground-based shibari ties. This is not a "knot book" - if you can tie an overhand knot, you already know half the knots you'll ever need. This practical, hands-on guide to doing shibari covers everything from choosing and preparing rope, to scene safety, to the techniques... and the reasoning behind the techniques. Complete Shibari Volume 1: Land is a ground-breaking, must-have book for anyone interested in playing with rope. Buy it today and tie tonight!

    With her brilliant bestsellers Sexual Pcrsonae: Art and Decadence from Nefertiti to Emily Dickinson and Sex, Art and American Culture she became America's first internationally recognized public thinker since the 1960s. Her new collection, Vamps and Tramps, is forthcoming in Penguin and covers subjects from pop to politics to pagan sexuality.

    Working three jobs, responsible for her aging father, and worrying that the crumbling warehouse she lives in is being sold to developers, she is at a point of desperation. One day, in the background of a self-portrait, Lu accidentally captures on film a boy falling past her window to his death. The photograph turns out to be startlingly gorgeous, the best work of art she’s ever made. It’s an image that could change her life…if she lets it. But the decision to show the photograph is not easy. The boy is her neighbors’ son, and the tragedy brings all the building’s residents together. It especially unites Lu with his beautiful grieving mother, Kate. As the two forge an intense bond based on sympathy, loneliness, and budding attraction, Lu feels increasingly unsettled and guilty, torn between equally fierce desires: to use the photograph to advance her career, and to protect a woman she has come to love. Set in early 90s Brooklyn on the brink of gentrification, Self-Portrait with Boy is a provocative commentary about the emotional dues that must be paid on the road to success, a powerful exploration of the complex terrain of female friendship, and a brilliant debut from novelist Rachel Lyon.

    Spare yet evocative, this explicit collection depicts the pleasures of new and rediscovered love, lust, and obsession. In the flashes that blur the line between fantasy and reality, each story captures the spontaneous erotic experiences of a small group of middle-class acquaintances, showcasing sexual interludes of kaleidoscopic range—heterosexual, homosexual, bisexual, exhibitionistic, and sadomasochistic. Each of these stories, alternating between a woman’s point of view and a man’s, a participant’s and a voyeur’s, expresses a passion for youth, excitement for the new, and nostalgia for love lost. Sensual and provocative, Quiver introduces a fresh voice to the genre of erotica. For fans of Anne Rice's (A.N. Roquelaure) Sleeping Beauty trilogy or Sylvia Day's Bared to You, Learner's writing will electrify readers with its every impulse.

    In the last decade these machines have started to rapidly disappear, causing an eclectic group of individuals from around the world to come together and respond. Illustrator, writer and long-time photobooth lover, Meags Fitzgerald has chronicled this movement and the photobooth's fortuitous history in a graphic novel. Having traveled in North America, Europe and Australia, she's constructed a biography of the booth through the eyes of technicians, owners, collectors, artists and fanatics. Fitzgerald explores her own struggle with her relationship to these fleeting machines, while looking to the future.

    I was a very ugly child. My appearance has not improved so I guess it was a lucky break when he was attracted by my youthfulness." So begins the wrenching diary of Minnie Goetze, a fifteen-year-old girl longing for love and acceptance and struggling with her own precocious sexuality. Minnie hates school and she wants to be an artist, or maybe a speleologist, or a bartender. She sleeps with her mother's boyfriend, and yet is too shy to talk with boys at school. She forges her way through adolescence, unsupervised and unguided, defenseless, and yet fearless.The story unfolds in the libertine atmosphere of the 1970s San Francisco, but the significance of Minnie's effort to understand herself and her world is universal. This is the story of an adolescent troubled by the discontinuity between what she thinks and feels and what she observes in those around her. The Diary of a Teenage Girl offers a searing comment on adult society as seen though the eyes of a young woman on the verge of joining it.In this unusual novel, artist and writer Phoebe Gloeckner presents a pivotal year in a girl's life, recounted in diary pages and illustrations, with full narrative sequences in comics form.

    It continues as a series of unforgettable encounters with men and, especially, women whose lives have been improbably and yet permanently transfigured by the strange power of desire. Lucid and lyrical, The Pure and the Impure stands out as one of modern literature's subtlest reckonings, not only with the varieties of sexual experience, but with the always unlikely nature of love.

    The project began with a grievance, the grievance of a daughter whose parent had absconded from her life. I was in pursuit of a scofflaw, an artful dodger who had skipped out on so many things—obligation, affection, culpability, contrition. I was preparing an indictment, amassing discovery for a trial. But somewhere along the line, the prosecutor became a witness.”So begins Susan Faludi’s extraordinary inquiry into the meaning of identity in the modern world and in her own haunted family saga. When the feminist writer learned that her 76-year-old father—long estranged and living in Hungary—had undergone sex reassignment surgery, that investigation would turn personal and urgent. How was this new parent who identified as “a complete woman now” connected to the silent, explosive, and ultimately violent father she had known, the photographer who’d built his career on the alteration of images?Faludi chases that mystery into the recesses of her suburban childhood and her father’s many previous incarnations: American dad, Alpine mountaineer, swashbuckling adventurer in the Amazon outback, Jewish fugitive in Holocaust Budapest. When the author travels to Hungary to reunite with her father, she drops into a labyrinth of dark histories and dangerous politics in a country hell-bent on repressing its past and constructing a fanciful—and virulent—nationhood. The search for identity that has transfixed our century was proving as treacherous for nations as for individuals.Faludi’s struggle to come to grips with her father’s metamorphosis self takes her across borders—historical, political, religious, sexual--to bring her face to face with the question of the age: Is identity something you “choose,” or is it the very thing you can’t escape?

    He collaborated with Prince longer than any other photographer. Afshin was the only photographer allowed to shoot the legendary 3121 private parties in Los Angeles that became the most sought after invitations in Hollywood; some of those photos are included in this book.Prince: A Private View compiles photographer Afshin Shahidi’s work into a journey through Prince's extraordinary life. With never-before-seen photos, it is the ultimate collection of shots of Prince. Brief, but complete and rich, stories about Shahidi and Prince’s collaboration and time together are alternately incisive, personal, and even funny.

    “When I first got into the adult industry, I decided to take my photography much more seriously. I started taking a camera with me to capture my experiences on set, so it was a moment in time, a memory for myself—not the video that would be seen by thousands of people. On days where I was physically unable to capture an image, Ian, my fiancé, became my third arm. He understands my aesthetic, or lack thereof. Ian is a photographer, yet the work in this book is quite different from his usual style. When you are so close with someone, there is a shorthand and true understanding of what the other person is trying to accomplish. If there’s something I am physically unable to photograph, I can say one word and Ian can assist me with my vision. Ian can capture intimate moments with me that nobody can fabricate, because of our relationship. The strong sense of familiarity eliminates all boundaries between the subject and the photographer. “Documenting myself has almost become a necessity.  “There are so many photos of me, taken by other people, that aesthetically I have no control over. Documenting myself allows me to reflect on the day, on the feelings I am having at that second. When you work in the entertainment industry, there are always surprises; there certainly isn’t one day that is similar to the last. Personally, it’s important to embrace this and appreciate it every day. “Still images vividly capture emotion, a second in time that can be left open for interpretation by the viewer and the creator. I am inspired by the work of Cindy Sherman and Nan Goldin. Sherman’s work continues to inspire me to develop certain characters. I figured if I am on set I might as well take advantage of my surroundings, and document my life in an exciting, untraditional manner. I look back at photos, and see how much I’ve grown, how my opinions have changed, and how they will continue to change.” —Sasha Grey

    He died at the age of 43, one of the oldest people with the disease. The physical pain of his childhood suffering was principally alleviated by masturbation and sexual experimentation, where pain and pleasure became inextricably linked, resulting in his lifelong practice of extreme masochism. In deeply confessional interviews, Bob details his sexual practices and his extraordinary relationship with long-term partner and Mistress, photographer Sheree Rose. Through his insider's perspective on the Sado-Masochist community, we learn firsthand about branding, piercing, whipping, bondage, and endurance trials. These extreme narratives are infused with humor, honesty, and self-reflective irony.