Bluebird signs Sarah Thornton's 'ultimate biography of the breast'

Bluebird has signed the "ultimate biography of the breast" from sociologist Sarah Thornton. 

Associate publisher Jodie Lancet-Grant acquired UK and Commonwealth rights to Tits Up: What Our Beliefs about Breasts Reveal about Life, Love, Sex and Society from Jessica Bullock at the Wylie Agency. The "surprising, outraging" book will be published on 9th May 2024. 

In five chapters, Thornton combines her encounters with plastic surgeons, bra designers, modern witches, donors, strippers and "lactation experts" from breast milk banks to create a biography of the the breast, examining "how women’s chests have become a billion-dollar business as well as a stage for debates about race, class, gender and desire".

Thornton commented: "I wrote Tits Up because there was nothing else out there like it. I was astonished by how my initial views of breasts were deeply and unconsciously male biased. While researching this symbolic organ, I had an epiphany: it is time for women to reclaim this body part."

Lancet-Grant added: "I am delighted to be publishing this expansive, colourful and utterly fascinating biography of the breast. Tits Up explores our ideas of beauty, health, self-esteem and equality, all underscored with Sarah’s moving personal experience. It’s a brilliant read: surprising, honest, funny and tender."