Books about sexuality

Here, one of France's greatest intellectuals explores the evolving social, economic and political forces that have shaped our attitudes to sex. Foucault describes how we are in the process of making a science of sex which is devoted to the analysis of desire rather than the increase of pleasure.

A story of Calliope Stephanides, and three generations of the Greek-American Stephanides family who travel from a village overlooking Mount Olympus in Asia Minor to Prohibition era Detroit, witnessing its glory days as the Motor City, and the race riots of l967, before they move out to the tree-lined streets of suburban Grosse Point, Michigan.

Our Miniature Edition abridgment of one of the world's best-known texts is accompanied by lush, sensuous illustrations. The oldest existing Hindu book of erotic love, the Kamasutra still has much to offer modern lovers looking for new paths to pleasure and enlightenment.

Offers an account of the emergence of Christianity from the Ancient World. Foucault describes the stranger byways of Greek medicine (with its advice on the healthiest season for sex and exercise and diet), the permitted ways of courting young boys, and the economists' ideas about the role of women.

Drawing on art, architecture, literature, theology and numerous scientific disciplines, the author intends to provide a long entertaining look at sexual attitudes, customs and practices in all the world's major civilizations past and present.

Written by a sociologist and historian of ideas whose works include Madness and Civilization , The Archaeology of Knowledge , The Birth of the Clinic and Discipline and Punish .

The story of Humbert Humbert, poet and pervert, and his obsession with 12-year-old Dolores Haze. Determined to possess his Lolita both carnally and artistically, Humbert embarks on a disastrous courtship that can only end in tragedy.

A phenomenon: a play that has changed thousands of lives and inspired a dynamic new women's movement With a foreword by Gloria Steinem

This title, the winner of the 1985 Whitbread Award for a First Novel, chronicles the struggles of a young girl against a domineering mother and the strictures of religion. The novel takes a look at religious excess and human obsession.

This work offers a unified field theory of Western culture, high and low, since the Egyptians invented beauty. From Emily Dickinson and Medusa to Madonna, it makes a persuasive case for all art as a pagan battleground between male and female, form and chaos, civilization and demonic nature.

Trapped in a marriage which has become sterile and joyless since her husband's return from the trenches of the First World War, partially paralysed and confined to a wheelchair, Connie seizes the chance of sexual fulfilment she had thought lost to her forever.

The original classic reissued with a new introduction by the author.

In this title, Dr Comfort covers the subject of sex in a refreshingly light-hearted yet knowledgeable way. He addresses concerns about sex and health, and balances the need for a responsible attitude to the risks presented by AIDS with the importance of happy and relaxed sexuality in people's lives.

A fascinating insight into how human sexuality came to be the way it is now - Jared Diamond explains why we are different from the animal kingdom