Bedroom Books
Acknowledging that sex is a conundrum for most women, Sandra Leiblum and Judith Sachs explain how women can bring back desire and have the good sex they're entitled to in Getting the Sex You Want: A Woman's Guide to Becoming Proud, Passionate, and Pleased in Bed. They divide their book into two parts: "The Sexual Life Cycle" (spanning childhood to adolescence, young singlehood to mothering, and midlife to "highlife") and "Giving Yourself Permission for More and Better Sex" (where they detail solutions like surgery, Viagra and cybersex). Comprehensive and engaging, this handbook will be useful to women of all ages. Agent, Beth Vesel. (Crown, $23 288p ISBN 0-8129-3284-6; Feb.)
"Some people... assume that for me to play a sexually open character, like Samantha Jones on HBO's Sex and the City, I must have had fabulous sex most of my life. Well, the truth is that until three years ago most of my sexual experiences were miserable," confesses Kim Cattrall, in Satisfaction: The Art of the Female Orgasm, a slim yet pensive guide to pleasing women in bed. Simple sketches accompany the dry text (written by Cattrall and her husband, Mark Levinson), explaining different techniques men and women can use. This book is decidedly unflashy and its approach is not at all brashly sexual (like Cattrall's TV character). Rather, it is a thoughtful manual on women's orgasms. (Warner, $24.95 144p ISBN 0-446-53071-9; Jan. 24)
In Astrology of Intimacy, Sexuality & Relationship: Insight to Wholeness, Noel Tyl (Synthesis & Counseling in Astrology) coaches readers on looking to the stars to understand relationships. Tyl, an astrologer with 30 years of experience, shows readers how to make sense of love troubles by examining dozens of real-life couples' relationships. Not for the uninitiated, this serious book uses terms like "animus and anima" and "nodal axis." But for those with an earnest interest in astrology, Tyl's work is insightful and thorough. (Llewellyn, $17.95 224p ISBN 0-7387-0113-0; Jan.)
January Publications
The history and culture of the Mayans is brought to life with dramatic color photos in Maya: Divine Kings of the Rain Forest. Edited by Nikolai Grube, a professor of anthropology and pre-Columbian studies at the University of Texas, Austin, this art book features a collection of accessible essays by scholars on all aspects of Mayan life: the rise of political dynasties; achievements in astronomy, mathematics and art; colonial era warfare; and present-day descendants. Whether describing how the Mayans made maize loafs, viewed the cosmos or used architecture to collect rainwater, the book offers a comprehensive overview of the ancient civilization. (Könemann, $39.95 480p ISBN 3-8290-4150-0)
Galeazzo Ciano was Mussolini's foreign affairs minister and his son-in-law. He was also a meticulous journal keeper, and the first complete English translation (by Robert L. Miller and Stanislao G. Pugliese) of Galeazzo Ciano: Diary 1937—1943 records his growing disenchantment with the German alliance and with Il Duce himself. In clean, succinct prose, Ciano candidly chronicles the murderous, unscrupulous operations of Nazi leadership, especially of Hitler and von Ribbentrop. The diary was smuggled to Switzerland (in spite of Nazi attempts to capture it) after Ciano's execution for voting against Mussolini. An important document of wartime history, this book will interest students, scholars and dedicated WWII or Italian history buffs. (Enigma [www.enigmabooks.com] , $38 700p ISBN 1-929631-02-2)
