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Excellent review of FUR the love of hair – Edge Boston: “Get This Book!”

Excellent review of FUR the love of hair on Edge Boston:

http://www.edgeboston.com/index.php?ch=entertainment&sc=books&sc3=coffee_table&id=134711

FUR the Love of Hair

by Steve Weinstein
EDGE Contributor
Tuesday July 3, 2012

“If you are a bear, if you identify with bears, if you know a bear, if [your] sister is married to a hairy guy and loves it, if you know a straight man who revels in body hair  . . .  get this book!” – Steve Weinstein, Edge Boston

Well, at last, something truly different! And it’s about time, too. Amidst the library’s worth of photo books featuring hairless, super-buf Adonises, two men have fearlessly tred where no editors have gone before.

If you have despaired of ever finding a coffee table book that reflects the kind of guys who turn you on, “FUR the Love of Hair” is a godsend. Ron Suresha cofounded Bear Bones Books; while Scott McGillivray work[ed] several key jobs at Bear Magazine and 100% Beef, and [wa]s editorial director of Bear Central, a website.

Spread out amidst the 256 (!!!) pages of fur, hair, pelts, rugs, soap strainers and every other variation of homo sapiens capillus, are sporadic essays that I found as much fun to devour as the art. “Fur as Fashion and Art”; “The Politics of Fur”; and “Hairy as a Bear” are some of the topics. There are also very cool quotations spread throughout.

  

The range of guys goes from trim to obese, from defined muscle to ample gut. For you bears, there are plenty of images of big, bigger and biggest guys here. But this book is more than just a celebration of what has become known as the bear look.

There are all kinds of guys in here, such as this slender hunk. There are so many offbeat photos and illustrations that you simply have to go to the complete flip book.

 Sweet dreams are made of these! Many of the illustrations are fantasies come to life. I can’t show you the bottom part of this man-mountain, but you can use your imagination.

 Order FUR the love of hair from TLA Books here or Amazon here.

  Even more than being exclusively devoted to men with body hair, what makes “FUR” so special is the use of “average” models. If you find perfection boring, then feast your eyes on this manly teddy bear.

The photographers always approach their subjects with respect. Everyone who is in this book is made to feel attractive. In a world where so many gay men suffer profound insecurities because they can’t live up to the go-go boys, underwear ads, porn actors or gym bunnies, this book is an affirmation that Christina Aguilera is right: You are beautiful.

Of course, since the book’s compilers are so democratic in their tastes, there are photos of some more conventionally attractive men. But … they are covered in hair.

If you are a bear, if you identify with bears, if you know a bear, if you’re sister is married to a hairy guy and loves it, if you know a straight man who revels in body hair . . . get this book.

FUR the love of hair,

by Ron J. Suresha & Scott McGillivray,

256 pages hardcover with dust jacket, $71

Published by Bruno Gmünder

Order FUR the love of hair from TLA Books here or Amazon here.
Steve Weinstein has been a regular correspondent for the International Herald Tribune, the Advocate, the Village Voice and Out. He has been covering the AIDS crisis since the early ’80s, when he began his career. He is the author of The Q Guide to Fire Island (Alyson, 2007).

Published by Ron Suresha

Ron Jackson Suresha is an editor, anthologist, and writer. He is considered an authority on emergent queer masculinities, in particular the subcultures of gay and bi male Bears and of male bisexuality. For Ron's service to the bear community, he was named "Bear of the Year" 2008. Born in Detroit, Michigan, Suresha attended the University of Michigan (Ann Arbor, 1976-8), where he studied creative writing, and Vista College (Berkeley, Cal., 1989-92), where he studied American Sign Language. For more than two decades, he has worked as a freelance proofreader for trade book publishers such as Shambhala Publications. He was married in October 2004 to Rocco Russo. He is also a licensed Justice of the Peace in Connecticut, an ordained minister, ULC, and a member of the New London Green Party. Nonfiction works include Bears on Bears: Interviews & Discussions; Bi Men: Coming Out (coeditor, with Pete Chvany); Bisexual Perspectives on the Life and Work of Alfred C. Kinsey (editor). His latest book is The Uncommon Sense of the Immortal Mullah Nasruddin: Stories, jests, and donkey tales of the beloved Persian folk hero, published by Lethe Press.