A good kiss gives your body the same kind of chemical surge as skydiving. Sharon Stone says her best on-screen kiss was from Robert de Niro in “Casino.” Most women would rather give up sex than forgo lip-locking for life.
In “Kissing” (Perigee, $9.95 paper), first-time author Andrea Demirjian gives a breezy, fun, informative and, yes, very enthusiastic look at puckering up and what it all means. Though geared toward women, men can learn a lot in these quick-read pages. A lot.
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“Kissing” is a veritable almanac of cultural customs, ratings of memorable TV and screen kisses, and amusing historical quotations like this one from conductor Arturo Toscanini: “I kissed my first girl and smoked my first cigarette on the same day. I haven’t had time for tobacco ever since.”
Demirjian doesn’t claim to be a social scientist and doesn’t write like one, but she did do a nice little survey on kissing and uses those responses to supplement some history lessons, gender psychology and practical instruction along the way.
A fine weight-reduction plan: “You can kiss away two to six calories a minute (as compared to eleven calories on a treadmill). That’s got to be the nicest way to eliminate dessert before it reaches your hips!”