For some reason I was really expecting a ten-pounder when I read the title " Mammoth Book of Illustrated Erotic Women." The kind of thing that you could leave on the coffee table. At least twelve inches tall, and hard cover. That's the type of book that deserves the title "Mammoth." In reality though, this book is a bit easier to conceal. Eight inches tall, and five and a half inches wide and paperback makes this book smaller in size than a best selling novel.

If the book wasn't "Mammoth," hopefully it wasn't "Illustrated" either. I signed up for erotic photography, not illustrations. Thankfully that part of the title was also incorrect, and the book is indeed filled with photos and not drawings.

I selected this book because I had heard that it was how Petter Hegre had gotten his start as a well-known erotic photographer, and I was excited to see a book full of his work.

The book is four hundred eighty pages long, but it turns out that each photographer only has six pages. So, as far as Hegre's photos, I got six pages, six photos. And these photos aren't always full page either. Every six pages of the book, one page is devoted to a write-up about the photographer. There is no mention or caption of each photo, so you don't know who the models are, just the photographers.

So the book itself is not really a collection of hand selected erotic women, but a collection of photographers. The book serves better as an introduction and a "who's who" to the erotic photographers of the world.

The book does though in that regard give a crash course in all of the different styles and voices of the industry, although each bit is really just a taste for a style. The book is just is almost just a visual directory of what's out there, and begs for further research online for additional photographs from each photographer.