The Book of the PenisMaggie Paley. Grove, $20 (272p) ISBN 0-8021-1648-5
With the claim that "the penis itself has come into fashion," the author embarks on a sprawling examination of the male organ in art, religion, American pop culture, ancient Greece, and, or course, the bedroom. An accomplished journalist, Paley ranges from a discussion of the art of Cynthia Plaster Caster, who molded the organs of famous rock musicians, to the Egyptian legend in which a god creates the world by swallowing his own semen and then spitting it out; and from the definition of a "Prince Albert" piercing ("through the urethra at the base of the glans on the underside") to the best masturbation Web sites.
