Today, tattoos on women are about as rare as birthmarks, but once upon a time, being inky was considered kinky. In this artful book, Osterud explores how, beginning in 1882, a few brave ladies bared (almost) all for their tattooists and then showed off their body art in sideshows.

Punk-rock poet Patti Smith's life story could probably fill a Proustian number of volumes. But in this slim, richly realized memoir, she focuses on 1967 to 1989--the years that spanned her friendship with photographer Robert Mapplethorpe, before his life was cut short by AIDS.

The third annual edition of Best Sex Writing, edited by notable sex expert Rachel Kramer Bussel, bills itself as a thinking persons sex book.

Violet Blue confides, in her books introduction, that her job as an erotica editor is like the work of a chocolate taster and what a good one she is.

Leave no orgasm unturned! The founders of Babeland, the nation's most popular sex-toy business, have compiled a fantastic book celebrating great, realistic sex, both with partner(s) and alone.