Kiss And Tell

Book excerpt: “Everything begins with a kiss. We are born in our parents’ first kiss and our earliest memories are of our mother’s fond kisses. Kisses come on kisses, and of the kisses that follow none seems more intense than our first romantic kiss. We are kissed by fortune, by love. We shape our most potent desires with our lips. Kisses are the electric gates of love and passion. Like summer lightning, kisses dance, they wriggle, they slip away.” Did kissing originate as a by-product of “pre-mastication,” that is, the transfer of a mother’s soft, prechewed food into the mouth of her infant? Does a pooch—or any other animal—smooch? Can a mother’s kiss symbolically suck out the evil force that is causing her child pain? How is a sniff-kiss different from a mouth kiss? And how does a lipstick’s rosy hue harken back to a woman’s subconscious labial awareness? These tantalizing questions and many more are answered in Kiss and Tell, the first comprehensive book to embrace the subject of kissing in sensuous detail. Author and journalist Julie Enfield offers us a panoply of kisses, from the celebrated French kiss to the unforgettable first kiss. She explores how each of our five senses enhances and informs a kiss, and reveals the sometimes surprising chemistry behind desire. From a fascinating exposé of literary, film, and artistic kisses to a lush landscape of lipstick and iconic pouts, this playfully designed and beautifully packaged book is the ultimate guide to lip reading —and a perfect gift of love.