Bookshelf: Naked Women For The Holidays

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Femalia

It’s a slim book, compared to the rest of this list, but feminist legend Joani Blank (founder of the iconic sex toy store, Good Vibrations) offers up some lovely vulva art in Femalia ($12, Last Gasp). Blank has worked as an educator in the sexuality field for over 30 years, but her book is anything but clinical. Blank shows cleverly how the anatomical variety of female genitalia creates a kind of lovely biological art all it’s own. Buy It

Ellen von Unwerth: Fraulein

Famed photographer Ellen von Unwerth is easily one of the world’s most successful fashion photographers and in this new collection, Ellen von Unwerth: Fraulein ($42, Taschen), she celebrates the form of some of the world’s most desirable femmes. Among them: Kate Moss, Britney Spears, Eva Mendes, Lindsay Lohan, Dita von Teese, Carla Bruni and Christina Aguilera. Von Unweth’s images were shot over the last 15 years and many were previously unpublished. Even though they’re celebrities, the women in these shots — some nude, some in lingerie or sheets — feel like ordinary beauties, and each image is riveting and almost romantic in gaze. Bonus points: the author of the whopping 472-page book is a lesbian, Ingrid Sischy, who is a contributing editor for Vanity Fair and the longtime former editor in chief of Interview magazine. Buy It

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