Between the sheets: Top 10 most provocative books out this month

It Gets Better: Coming Out, Overcoming Bullying, and Creating a Life Worth Living. Edited by Dan Savage and Terry Miller.

Publisher's Description: After a number of tragic suicides by LGBT students who were bullied in school, Dan Savage uploaded a video to YouTube with his partner Terry Miller to inspire hope for LGBT youth facing harassment. Speaking openly about the bullying they suffered as teenagers, and how they both went on to lead rewarding adult lives, their video launched the "It Gets Better Project" and initiated a worldwide phenomenon. It Gets Better is a collection of essays from celebrities, everyday people and teens. It Gets Better reminds teenagers in the LGBT community that they are not alone - and it will get better.

Hilarity Ensues. By Tucker Max. Released 2/7/2012.

Publisher's Description: Tucker Max’s third and final book in his series of stories about his drunken debauchery and ridiculous antics. What began as a simple sentence on an obscure website, “My name is Tucker Max, and I am an asshole,” and developed into two infamously genre-defining books, I Hope They Serve Beer In Hell and Assholes Finish First, ends here. But as you should expect from Tucker by now, he is going out with a bang—literally and figuratively. In this book, you’ll learn: How to live and work in Cancun while still enrolled in law school, what really happened when a pageant girl tried to sue Tucker because he told the truth, what happens when Tucker turns sexting into a sport.

Sloppy Seconds: The Tucker Max Leftovers. By Tucker Max. Released 2/7/2012.

Publisher's Description: As a thank you to those who have loved Tucker Max's stories and supported him for so long, Tucker has gone back through his archive of material, culled out the "best of the rest," and arranged it here, in Sloppy Seconds, like a book version of deleted scenes. Unlike most deleted scenes, however, these don't suck. You can download the electronic version for free at TuckerMax.com

Life As I Blow It: Tales of Love, Life and Sex...Not Necessarily in That Order. By Sarah Colonna. Released 2/7/2012.

Publisher's Description: Chelsea Lately writer and comedian Sarah Colonna opens up about love, life, and pursuing her dreams... and then screwing it all up. From her formative years in small-town Arkansas to a later career of dates, drinks, and questionable day jobs, Colonna attempts to reconcile her responsible side with her fun-loving side. Sometimes this pans out, and sometimes she finds herself in Mexico handing out her phone number to anyone who calls her pretty. She tries to behave like an adult, but can’t seem to stop acting like a frat boy. If there’s one thing Colonna has learned from her many missteps, it’s that hindsight is always 100 proof.

Making Marriage Work: A History of Marriage and Divorce in the Twentieth-Century United States. By Kristin Celello. Released 2/1/2012.

Publisher's Description: By the end of World War I, the skyrocketing divorce rate in the US had generated a deep-seated anxiety about marriage. This fear drove middle-class couples to seek advice, both professional and popular, in order to strengthen their relationships. Making Marriage Work offers an account of marriage and divorce in America in the twentieth century, focusing on the development of the idea of marriage as "work." Examining the marriage counseling profession, advice columns in women's magazines, movies, and television shows, Celello describes how professionals and the public worked together to define the nature of marital work throughout the twentieth century.

Sex and Terror. By Pascal Quignard. Released 2/15/2012

Publisher's Description: The fascinus, or phallus, was at the heart of classical Roman art and life. No god was more represented in ancient Rome than the phallic deity Priapus, and the fescennine verses, one of the earliest forms of Roman poetry, accompanied the celebrations of Priapus, the harvest, and fertility. But with this emphasis on virility also came an emphasis on power and ideas of possession and protection. Pascal Quignard examines this interplay of celebration and terror. In myths, satires, memoirs, and works of ancient philosophy and visual art, Quignard locates moments of both playful, aesthetic commemoration and outward cruelty.

Sexual Intelligence: What We Really Want from Sex—and How to Get It. By Marty Klein. Released 2/7/2012.

Publisher's Description: In his three decades of working with couples and individuals as a sex therapist and marriage counselor, Dr. Marty Klein has continually seen that although most people say what they want from sex is pleasure and closeness, that’s not what they focus on during sex. Instead, we’re preoccupied with how we look, what our partner is thinking, how we’re performing, and whether we’re “normal.” We do more thinking, worrying, and judging than experiencing.

The Sex Drive Solution for Women: Dr. Jen's Power Plan to Fire up Your Libido. By Jennifer Landa. Released 2/1/2012.

Sex Drive Solution offers women of all ages the chance to learn what is happening to their bodies, why sex isn't over after 40 and how to reinvent their love lives in every stage of life. Using her expertise as an OB/GYN and now a pioneer in bioidentical hormone therapy, Dr. Jen shares real life stories of patients who have re-ignited their sex-lives and experienced complete wellness transformations with renewed energy and zest for life!

Sex for Life: From Virginity to Viagra, How Sexuality Changes Throughout Our Lives. by Laura Carpenter. Released 2/1/2012.

Publisher's Description: Sex for Life critically examines sexuality across the entire lifespan. Rooted in diverse disciplines and employing a wide range of research methods, the chapters explore the sexual and social transitions that typically map to broad life stages, as well as key age-graded physiological transitions, such as puberty and menopause, while drawing on the latest developments in gender, sexuality, and life course studies.

Occupying Power: Sex Workers and Servicemen in Postwar Japan. By Sarah Kovner. Released 2/8/2012.

Publisher's Description: In 1945, hundreds of thousands of Allied troops poured into Japan. The presence of foreign servicemen heightened the visibility of certain others, particularly panpan—streetwalkers. Although sex workers became symbols of Japan's diminished status, by earning scarce dollars they helped jump-start economic recovery. They were also blamed for increases in venereal disease and they were charged with diluting the Japanese race by producing mixed-race offspring. In 1956, Japan passed its first national law against prostitution. Though empowered female legislators had joined with conservatives in this effort to reform and rehabilitate, the law produced an unanticipated effect. By ending a centuries-old tradition of sex work regulation, it made sex workers less visible and more vulnerable.

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