THE ART OF THE PIMP

In this sex-drenched memoir, the proprietor of the Las Vegas brothel the Moonlite BunnyRanch spills his guts about the joys of running a stable of women.

Readers may think that such an individual would be completely unsavory, but as it turns out, he's only partly unsavory. Hof comes across less as a dirty old man—he's even a bit of a romantic, as witnessed by his lifelong pursuit of love—and more as a businessman, albeit one who is acutely aware of how and why his business works. (He was a regular BunnyRanch customer before he took it over in 1993.) Throughout the book, the author brings other voices to the mix to share their experiences of Hof and the BunnyRanch, including celebrity madam Heidi Fleiss, Chicago-based radio personality Mancow, a goodly number of the bunnies, and, most notably, porn legend Ron Jeremy, who infuses the proceedings with his trademark good-natured sleaze. The most emblematic portion of the book is an eight-page section in which Hof teaches Sunny Lane on how to be the finest whore she can be, going into graphic detail about how to get into a john's head and, most importantly, his wallet over and over again. Hof takes himself more seriously than one would expect, considering that one of his nicknames is "the P.T. Barnum of Booty," but that's probably why the BunnyRanch has thrived for the last two-plus decades under his watch—and it shows no sign of slowing down. All readers are aware that sex sells, and Hof unquestionably knows how to sell sex. Whether or not that's a good thing is for readers to decide.

Those seeking depictions of graphic sex and the ins and outs of prostitution will dig Hof’s salacious memoir. Others should steer clear.