Tits Up

A fascinating, wide-ranging and hugely readable biography of of the breast: think The Vagina Monologues meets Invisible Women with a sprinkling of The History of Art Without Men.

A consciousness-raising romp around feminism via the rack.

An excellent new book. . . Owners and admirers will not look at breasts in the same way again.

Will make any woman reconsider her body, and any man reconsider how he treats the bodies of the women in his life

[Thornton’s] impassioned polemic makes a convincing case that the derogatory way Western culture views tits…helps perpetuate the patriarchy…Tits Up asks readers to reimagine the bosom, no matter its size and shape, as a site of empowerment and even divinity.

Tits Up is avant-garde sociology as well as a witty and important feminist contribution to knowledge.

This witty and informative sociological study of women's breasts in Western societies is sometimes shocking, often hilarious, always revealing. Tits Up is a must read – especially for men

Sarah Thornton strikes the perfect balance of personal experience, scholarship, and fun. This is an important book.

A foundational ethnography of the most visible emblems of womanhood.

Tits Up is a wonderfully written book which deepens our understandings of the many and complicated lives of breasts, tits, bosoms and baps. Hugely entertaining, amply proportioned and wide-ranging, Sarah Thornton’s field guide to how tits are treated across different spheres of life and culture challenges many existing preconceptions and makes an important contribution to both feminist thought and everyday experience.

I highly recommend this brilliant, witty, informative and activist book, both to those who have breasts and those who don’t.

Sarah Thornton is a sociologist who writes about art, design and people. Formerly the chief art market correspondent for The Economist , she is the author of three previous books. Her second, Seven Days in the Art World was an international bestseller, published in eighteen languages, and named one of the best art books of the year by the New York Times . Sarah has written for The Guardian, W, Art Basel, Cultured, among others. A skilled interviewer and engaging public speaker, Sarah has given hundreds of talks around the world and contributed to NPR, Netflix, ZDF and BBC radio and TV. A Canadian who went to the UK on a prestigious Commonwealth Scholarship, Thornton was hailed as “Britain’s hippest academic.” Now based in San Francisco, Thornton is better known as “the Jane Goodall of the art world.” She is the author of Tits Up .