Also of interest...in sex and related distractions

The Sex Diaries Project

by Arianne Cohen (Wiley, $26)

New York’s Arianne Cohen “has learned a few things from poring over the sex diaries of 1,500 people,” said Jessica Bennett in TheDailyBeast​.com. In a book that manages to blend “sharp analysis” with “short-form erotica,” she introduces us to 39 of those diarists, whose stories suggest that what’s really going on in American bedrooms is “a lot less conventional than we might have imagined.” Fewer people than you’d think are in long-term monogamous relationships or taking steps to get there.

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Kama Sutra

translated by A.N.D. Haksar (Penguin, $15)

Vatsyayana’s Kama Sutra “resides in the popular imagination as kitsch, as if it were a series of aroused and arousing Pilates poses for two,” said Dwight Garner in The New York Times. This “clear and elegant” new translation reminds us that the 2,000-year-old Hindu poem is also a guide to living that includes thoughtful advice on intellectual pursuits and home decor. “That it also has chapter titles like ‘Scratching,’ ‘Kissing,’ ‘Biting,’ and ‘Reversing Roles’ only adds to its epicurean foxiness.”

Renegade

by Frederick Turner (Yale, $25)

Half a century ago, Henry Miller’s Tropic of Cancer was, without challenge, the “dirtiest book in the world,” said Lee Sandlin in The Wall Street Journal. Frederick Turner’s examination of Miller’s outlawed novel makes a convincing case that it was Miller’s “insolent tone,” as much as the book’s copious sex scenes, that raised the hackles of censors. Turner stumbles when trying to locate Miller’s exact place in American literature, but if anything, he’ll make you want to give Tropic another read.

Smut

by Alan Bennett (Picador, $14)

The two short novellas paired in this slim book are “nowhere near as prurient as the cheeky title suggests,” said Jim Higgins in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. In the first, a 50-something landlady agrees to watch her tenants have sex in lieu of rent. In the second, a meddling, middle-aged mother pokes around in her son’s sex life, uncovering secrets and revealing some of her own. In different hands, these stories could become tawdry, but playwright Alan Bennett turns them into “witty comedy.”