The Coffee Table Read | Women v Leopards

New book of vintage pin-up shots celebrates big cats - and small bikinis. What a combination.

Maybe it’s the suggestion of nature’s rawest power harnessed by only the flimsiest chain — or the daintiest bikini strap — but there’s something about the union of beautiful women and dangerous animals (or vice versa) that brings out the suppressed, er, zookeeper in us.

So there’s much to enjoy in a new book of the work of legendary photographer Bunny Yeager — once a very photo-friendly blonde herself — featuring as it does fun nude and scantily clad shots of classic Fifties pin-up girls such as Bettie Page and Maria Stinger, occasionally frolicking with cheetahs, cuddling toy lynxes or wearing flayed leopard skins as mini-dresses (hey, that’s dames for you).

Bunny Yeager’s Darkroom: Pin-up Photography’s Golden Era by Petra Mason is out in September (Rizzoli New York)