Here at Exotic, we're not really in the habit of reviewing books. In fact, we're not in the habit of reading books, or reading at all! We'd rather look at the pictures. But something about HOW TO SPOT A BASTARD BY HIS STAR SIGN, by Adele Lang and Susi Rajah, just screamed to be read, reviewed, and then purchased for every man, woman and child we know. HOW TO SPOT A BASTARD has won an Academy Award, a Grammy, two Golden Globes and the Nobel Prize for best book ever written. Here's why!

Say you just broke up with not one but THREE Arieses, as strippers are wont to do. Pour yourself a glass of wine or Drano and turn to page three (no boring ass introductions here!) and look under the heading We're-Hot-So-Shut-Up-and Worship-Us FIRE SIGNS, which begins thusly: "Out-of-control control freaks. Untalented show-offs. Ignorant know-it-alls. And that's their good points..." On the following page, the girls go right for the Aries Bastard's jugular:

"Once upon a time, in the Dark ages, there was this quaint little term known as a man's man. Nobody knew quite what it meant. Except the poor unfortunate thing who was the man's man's woman--and she died a horrible death when she willfully stuck her head in the oven unto which she was chained."

Brilliant! What insight! What empathy! What WRITING! The next Bastard under Lang and Rajah's microscope is the Leo Bastard. Instead of a profile of Leo, they instead reprint (because he forced them to) a play written by Leo, produced by Leo, directed by Leo and, of course, starring Leo.

I personally seem to stick with Fire Sign Bastards, but I've been thinking about settling down, maybe with one of those Hi-We're-the-Most-Boring Men-On EARTH SIGNS, like, say, TAURUS. Well, Adele and Susi again know exactly where I'm at.

"You're weaning yourself off the lithium and you're in the process of finding a new job, savings account, and country to live in. In other words, you're in the delicate process of recovering from a horrendous relationship with a total bastard (Aries, Scorpio, and Pisces spring to mind here, for no apparent reason)."

How do they do it? Have they dated every bastard on earth? Judging by their especially incisive read on the Aquarius Bastard, they've dated a lot of those. They've