Where there is no name for art

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Midas Dekkers

'People love animals - a stroke here, a pat there, a quick nuzzle in that gorgeous fur... the amount of cuddling they get can make you jealous. In Holland, dogs are caressed more than people. Not as thoroughly, though: that one spot, somewhere down below, generally remains untouched...'. Generally, but certainly not always. Kinsey's research showed that 8 per cent of men and 3.5 per cent of women had had sex with an animal, and that in rural areas the figure for men was closer to 50 per cent. Yet bestiality is almost universally condemned. While our love for animals is extolled as noble and 'natural', all erotic elements in the relationship between humans and other species are vilified and proscribed, thus consigning them to the realm of exotic pornography or crude innuendo. Even so, something remains of physical love for animals. In different forms, sublimated or occasionally celebrated, its traces can be found throughout art and popular culture: in Leda and the Swan, Beauty and the Beast or the Lorelei; in a lubricious menagerie of satyrs and centaurs, wolfmen and vampires, all the way through to King Kong and Fritz the Cat, pony clubs and amorous dolphins, or even advertisements for luxury catfoods. Dearest Pet uncovers and explores those traces, illuminating the ambivalence of human attitudes to cross-species sexuality. Its author, the biologist and broadcaster Midas Dekkers, has analysed bestiality in all its aspects - physical, psychological and legal - and examined its representations in religion and mythology, art and literature, pornography and advertising. Beautifully - and sometimes bizarrely - illustrated, his book is neither drily academic nor pruriently trivial, but erudite, witty and challenging: the first history of the last taboo. A book for animal lovers, and for those who are just their good friends.

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[by] Arthur W. Chickering

This completely revised and updated edition of Arthur W. Chickering's classic work presents new findings from the last twenty-five years and describes policies and practices in higher education that will foster the broad-based development of human talent essential to our society in the twenty-first century. Education and Identity offers a framework for human development that includes seven "vectors" - such as developing competence, managing emotions, moving through autonomy toward interdependence, and others - critical to the needs of every college student. Drawing on the latest research, including recent findings on gender and multicultural differences, the authors show how institutions can strengthen development along these vectors. They examine such factors as institutional objectives, size, curriculum, student programs and services, and student-faculty relationships that contribute to educationally powerful environments. More important, Education and Identity provides a framework for thinking systematically about students' developmental patterns and makes concrete suggestions for fostering growth in areas such as interpersonal relationships, identity, purpose, and integrity.

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Orlando Soria

"After getting his start years ago on HGTV, Orlando Soria has made his way to the upper strata of the blogosphere with Hommemaker, his blog about home decor, art, style, and life. His distinctive voice-funny, confessional, and honest-has made him the Dan Savage of millennial homemaking. Now he brings together his most original, endearing, and irreverent advice in one gorgeous book that will help readers out of all kinds of tight spots-whether it's throwing a dinner party when you're broke, hanging art like a gallery owner, or preparing your home for an unwanted guest. In sections on interior style, design, Homme Life, DIY, and general life lessons, Orlando offers advice on topics such as How to Make Non-Garbagey Flower Arrangements and How to Deal with a Soul-Sucking Breakup. He helps readers problem solve, avoid rookie mistakes, and choose a wall color that won't make them puke. Photographer Zeke Ruelas's stunning images accompany Orlando's tips on designing for dudes, making your own coffee table, and decorating a kid's room. Whether you're short on cash or have money to burn, Orlando's unique and highly contagious take on life will inspire, comfort, and reassure you that anyone can Get It Together!"--

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Bridget Christie

Bridget Christie is a stand-up comedian, idiot and feminist. On the 30th of April 2012, a man farted in the Women's Studies Section of a bookshop and it changed her life forever. A Book For Her details Christie's twelve years of anonymous toil in the bowels of stand-up comedy and the sudden epiphany that made her, unbelievably, one of the most critically acclaimed British stand-up comedians this decade, drawing together the threads that link a smelly smell in the women's studies section to the global feminist struggle. Find out how nice Peter Stringfellow's fish tastes, how yoghurt advertising perpetuates rape myths, and how Emily Bronte used a special ladies' pen to write Wuthering Heights. If you're interested in comedy and feminism, then this is definitely the book for you. If you hate both then I'd probably give it a miss. "Christie is adept at turning on a sixpence between being comical, or serious, or both at once, and at pricking her own earnestness." (Telegraph). "Christie piles derision and tomfoolery upon everyday sexism, while never pretending that jokes alone will solve the problem." (Guardian).