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Playgirl: The Official History of a Cult Magazine
A lively, unbelievably fun (even titillating!) art book that celebrates Playgirl magazine’s 50-year anniversary, including historic articles, spreads, commentary, photography, and artwork from the ’70s through today
Playgirl is a movement.
This groundbreaking magazine was never just a pale imitation of Playboy; it was a major player at the dawn of women’s liberation, featuring stories on barrier-breaking women from across the globe, articles about reproductive health, and interviews with feminist icons. All this revolutionary material could be found nestled among the tasteful and erotic male nudes that the magazine was built on, leading Playgirl to resonate, too, with the significant gay male readership it maintains today.
This wide-reaching Playgirl compendium includes not only some of the most important and engaging archival materials from across the past five decades, but also a number of new essays about the publication’s origins, its role in the women’s liberation movement, and its contributions to pop culture at large.
Playgirl is a movement.
This groundbreaking magazine was never just a pale imitation of Playboy; it was a major player at the dawn of women’s liberation, featuring stories on barrier-breaking women from across the globe, articles about reproductive health, and interviews with feminist icons. All this revolutionary material could be found nestled among the tasteful and erotic male nudes that the magazine was built on, leading Playgirl to resonate, too, with the significant gay male readership it maintains today.
This wide-reaching Playgirl compendium includes not only some of the most important and engaging archival materials from across the past five decades, but also a number of new essays about the publication’s origins, its role in the women’s liberation movement, and its contributions to pop culture at large.
240 pages, Hardcover
Published October 29, 2024
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November 6, 2024
Absolutely terrible. Call me crazy, but if a book is subtitled "The Official History of a Cult Magazine," then I expect it to be a history of the magazine. There's about 4 pages of history (literally: page 17 to page 21) in a chapter called "50 Years of Playgirl," but other than that it's a couple of forewords, and then the republication of articles, letters, ads, and images, that had run in the magazine before. I honestly thought I'd get an interesting behind-the-scenes history, but no. If it had been called "The Best of Playgirl" and contained exactly the same content, fine: but this title is misleading, and the contents are not what was advertised.
(Note: I'm a writer, so I suffer when I offer fewer than five stars. But these aren't ratings of quality, they're a subjective account of how much I liked the book: 5* = an unalloyed pleasure from start to finish, 4* = really enjoyed it, 3* = readable but not thrilling, 2* = disappointing, and 1* = hated it.)
(Note: I'm a writer, so I suffer when I offer fewer than five stars. But these aren't ratings of quality, they're a subjective account of how much I liked the book: 5* = an unalloyed pleasure from start to finish, 4* = really enjoyed it, 3* = readable but not thrilling, 2* = disappointing, and 1* = hated it.)
Displaying 1 of 1 review