Femmes: Masterpieces of Erotic Photography - Tapa dura

A visual feast of the erotic, this impressively produced volume contains 190 photographs (in colour, duotone and black and white) along with appropriate text that (thankfully) resists any heavy breathing. One person's eroticism is another person's pornography, the saying goes, but only the most illiberal are likely to be upset by the sumptuous offerings here. The photographers range from the workaday to the truly inspired, but nearly all are suffused with a heady erotic charge that (in certain cases) virtually leaps off the page. This could make a very tempting present for any sensualists of your acquaintance, particularly if they are aficionados of lingerie, black leather and elegant Sapphic couplings.

A comprehensive overview of erotic photography over the last century, featuring female couples in the work of the world's leading erotic photographers.