Public Love [Hardcover]

Talmage Cooley (Author), Andy Spade (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 1, 1999

Bargain Books are non-returnable.

Ever made it in the back of a cab? Or under a blanket in a park? In an elevator? If not, you’ve missed out because a lot of people have, and these 44 stories prove it. Shocking, bold, fun—Public Love is impossible to put down. Each first-person confessional describes the how, when, and where of a public sex act. (You can almost hear the giggles and the sound of buttons popping.) The stories are paired with grainy color photos of the lusty locales—be it a doorway, a truck stop, or, yes, the middle of Fifth Avenue. Designed in the best-selling spirit of Taxi Driver Wisdom (0-8118-1165-4), its look is cool and slightly seedy like the shadowy underworld of passion on the fly. Voyeuristic and sexy, the absolutely true tales in Public Love offer a sophisticated twist on a timeless subject. Prepare to blush, chuckle, and wonder if you should be having more fun. Carpe diem!

Editorial Reviews

Review

Reviews from: PAPER

JANE

Photographer Talmage Cooley and creative powerhouse Andy Spade have collected 44 tales of public acts of sexuality, recounted here in the participants' own words and illustrated with Cooley's images. The subjects' plain words convey the spontaneity and power of desire, as well as the apprehension and fear (of getting caught, perhaps, but sometimes of one's partner) inherent in an act that blurs the boundary between public and private. Almost all of the color photographs, often grainy and over- or underlit, are devoid of people: Moments like these can indeed make an elevator, a stairwell, a subway or a roadside seem the most private in the world.

If your telescope is broken and the neighbors are keeping the blinds down, don't fret: Just pick up Public Love, a voyeuristic new book that lets you observe the sex lives of strangers with out feeling skeevy. It's Talmage Cooley and Andy Spade (Kate's hubby, Davey's brother) and relays 44 hot, real-life tales of non-bedroom sex—under a semi at a truck stop; in playground grass with a big rat watching; with a spicy stranger on a New Orleans-bound train—all told from a frank, first-person perspective. It raised my temperature: After reading it on a sunny weekday, I wanted to ditch work and head to the top of the Empire State Building for a nooner. But what makes Public Love even hotter are the photos of spots like the ones where the deeds went down: shots of empty parking lots and picnic tables, locked in time. It's perfect reading material for a boring plane ride—you'll be inspired to slyly invite the cute boy across the aisle to the aptly named cockpit.

About the Author

Talmage Cooley quit a career as a bond trader on Wall Street to become a writer, director, and photographer. He lives in New York.

Andy Spade is a former advertising copywriter. He and his wife are founders of Kate Spade Fashions in New York.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 96 pages
• Publisher: Chronicle Books (April 1, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0811821536
• ISBN-13: 978-0811821537
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 7.1 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #157,146 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Not your typical coffee-table book, September 25, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Public Love (Hardcover)

This book is a great conversation piece and a revealing study of human nature at its most primal, presented as a series of confessionals told in the words of the participants themselves. The book is earthy and immediate, its narratives short, sometimes shocking, but always interesting. The pictures that accompany the text are great also. A recommended read.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Provocative and smart insight into sexual adventure, September 21, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Public Love (Hardcover)

This book is so much more than simply about people having sex in public. The stories are intensely personal, told in the participant's own words, and the descriptions of the events are filled with fascinating detail of the moment - emotion, place, time, environment. By revealing these details, the participants reveal much about themselves as human beings, and that makes the sex even more intriguing. The slyly banal photos that accompany the stories are documentary and devoid of any people, like snapshots of the places taken the day after by the participant's themselves. Public Love exposes sex as inextricably a part of a greater adventure called life.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Top stuff, very sexy, August 4, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Public Love (Hardcover)

From ski lifts to cemetaries, Hawaiian hostels to Manhattan taxis, these guys hit, and I do mean hit, it all.

My suggestion: Use it as a guide for your own special moments.