Boobs! This is a book about boobs!
In this captivating, fast-paced, utterly readable investigation, Seligson invites us to examine breasts. (With words, I mean. No pictures here. Sorry.)
What a great topic! Sure, you could read Henry Petrosk’s latest microhistory, Toothpick (and I’m sure it’s a very fine book, haven’t read it myself) but let’s be honest: Would you rather read about toothpicks or boobs? The toothpick, as far as I know, elicits no great emotion. People do not get jealous, excited, lustful, or fascinated by the toothpick. But boobs? Golly, everyone has an opinion on those. (But fine, read the toothpick book if you want. It’s your life, pal.)
In a tone, style, and approach reminiscent of Mary Roach’s Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers, Seligson investigates the role of the breast in our society, and she does it with style. Hardly a page went by that I didn’t laugh. Consider this bit, from the chapter where she talks about breast slang: “[There is] ‘quantum heaps,’ no doubt coined by a horny particle physicist, which, in my experience, is a redundancy.”
Teehee!
Or there was the time in third grade when the author’s timid classmate had to read aloud a stanza from a Longfellow poem containing the word ‘bosom’:
As he stammered and hesitated, perhaps hoping against hope the Castro would bombard us with warheads before he had a chance to continue, the rest of the class lost it. BOSOM!!! Ha ha ha ha ha!
The book isn’t all giggles. You really do learn a lot about the breast in society. Curious about breast reduction surgery? Learn it here. Yearning for the perfect bra? You’re in for an education. Are you one of the 300,000 women who had breast augmentation surgery in America within the past year? You’re not alone: the average female breast in England has gone up one full cup size compared to five years ago, thanks solely to implants.
And if you zip through the book in a few shorts hours like I did, don’t worry: There are other books about body parts, such as A Mind of Its Own: A Cultural History of the Penis.
Or read about toothpicks. It’s up to you.
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