The coffee table tome features semi-nude and nude works of men and women who have cosmetically enhanced their faces and bodies.

The subjects in the book have undergone a combination of procedures, including lip augmentation, rhinoplasty (nose reshaping), breast augmentation or pec implants, blepharoplasty (eyelid lift or modification) and body resculpting.

Shot in the traditional chiaroscuro style, the contrasting light and dark tones only serve to further enhance the modifications the models - dubbed The Botox Botticellis - have undergone in the pursuit of physical perfection, or in an attempt to turn back time.

Some may find the portraits haunting, despite Toledano's attempt to recreate the sense of a classical portrait. For his part, Toledano says there's something 'transcendant' in their classical poses, and their 'determined' faces, though he too stops short of deeming them beautiful.

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I've always had an irrational and bitter resentment toward good sleepers. You know who you are. You probably don't mean to brag, but you guys always do. You always do.

"I could sleep ANYWHERE," you say, casually. And, "I'm a mess without my ten hours of sleep." And you don't confine your annoying somnolence to nighttime. "I need a disco nap," you'll say, tucking your legs up, closing your eyes and falling asleep at will during broad daylight on some lumpy, scratchy couch without a single ritual or sleep aid or even a moment of doubt about your ability to greet The Sandman. Jackhammers, neighbor dogs barking, horns honking, doorbells ringing, nothing can rouse you from your REM delirium.

Meanwhile, I could be lying on a mattress made from homemade marshmallows and space-age polymers custom fitted to my firmness needs, my cheek on a silk pillowcase, with Sade and Kenny G perched on the edge of my bed to provide optimum easy listening -- while under the influence of a fistful of pharmaceutical sleep aids -- and still be wide awake even as a team of massage therapists kneaded the kinks from my shoulders.

Becoming a parent was to insomnia what a box of cupcakes and a gallon drum of Hershey's chocolate syrup is to diabetes. What can be managed under the best of circumstances is now a full-scale crisis that has been ignited by the sweet nectar of parenthood.

I really had a handle on it before I had a baby two years ago, and looking back, I have no idea what I had to toss and turn about back then. Seriously, any worries subordinate to "responsible for entire human life" seem pretty trivial to me now.

Taylor Swift looks good in a teeny bikini!

The 22-year-old country queen took a break from her Speak Now concert tour in Australia Thursday to splash around at Cottesloe beach in Perth showing off her curves in a retro black and white halter swimsuit.


Accessorizing her 50s-style suit with tortoiseshell sunglasses, The Lorax star wore her hair in a loose ponytail while going barefoot in the sand.

PHOTOS: Sexy winter beach bods

Currently hard at work on the road entertaining sold out crowds worldwide, Swift -- who saw her most recent Dr. Seuss film project break box office records this weekend -- says she wouldn't mind settling into an acting career, given the right amount of spare time.

She's spoken about her weight problem in the past but it seems Lauren Goodger is still hung up about her size.

The Only Way Is Essex star has spoken out about her constant weight battle revealing her struggle to shift the excess pounds.

Speaking to Heat magazine, the 25-year-old opened up about unhappy it makes her and the affect is has on her on a daily basis

The reality TV star - whose Essex salon was recently petrol bombed - has tried many attempts to shape up in the past but just can't seem to stick to a routine.

'I've tried boot camp, had a personal trainer and a nutritionist,' she said. 'But I just start eating again. I have a problem.'


'It’s awful,' Lauren said of some of the messages. 'There are some really unkind bullies out there. They don’t even know me. Who do they think they are?

'They call me a beached whale and a fat c***. They also call me Miss Piggy.'

But it seems Lauren is ready to confront these people and her own demons as she exposes her body and bare face in the magazine.

Wearing a pair of red shorts, a white vest and just a hint of lipgloss, the brunette looks miserable as she stares into the camera and admits that she hardly ever looks in the mirror when leaving for her various nights out on the town.

By using his mighty megaphone for raunchy name calling, Rush Limbaugh has handed the Democrats a big fat gift.

Whatever the damage to the nation’s top radio talker, he has put a face on the argument that President Obama’s party has been mounting for months—that Republicans are waging a “war on women.” In calling Georgetown law student Sandra Fluke a “slut” and a “prostitute” merely because she testified to Congress in favor of insurance coverage for birth control, Limbaugh has given the Democrats an indelible image to make their case.

“I don’t know any woman in America who finds being called a ‘slut’ funny,” Debbie Wasserman Schultz, the Democratic national chairman, told me. She was referring to Limbaugh’s explanation that his attempt at humor had gone awry. “To suggest that in exchange for access to contraception a woman should have to post sex tapes is just so outrageous.”

The Florida congresswoman also took a shot at Mitt Romney for his tepid response to Limbaugh’s three-day assault on Fluke. “The most their frontrunner could bring himself to say is that he wouldn’t have chosen those words,” Wasserman Schultz says. “You have countless candidates quaking in their boots when asked to criticize him.”

A onetime Romney adviser didn’t argue the point. The former Massachusetts governor “didn’t help himself,” says Alex Castellanos, a top strategist for Romney’s 2008 presidential campaign. “He had an opportunity to demonstrate strength. He left the bat on his shoulders.”

As the sky glowered black and Stephanie Decker felt the monster tornado begin to suck her house into its vortex, she knew it would not hold and she had no choice but to shield her two young kids with her own body. She lost her legs in the process.

"I knew my leg was barely attached or it was severed. I didn't know which but I knew it was bad. If I didn't get help soon, I was going to bleed out," Decker told ABC News, which interviewed her Monday night from her hospital bed in Louisville, Ky.

Decker, 37, and her family were smack dab in the middle of a tornado outbreak Friday that included 140 reported twisters, 76 confirmed landings and 39 deaths.

"It was nothing I expected," the Henryville, Ind., woman said. "I never, ever thought in a million years my house would be blown away."

She was determined to keep her kids safe, and her actions saved them, but at a steep cost. Not only was her home lost, but both of her legs had to be amputated late Friday -- one just below the knee, the other just above it.

"I assumed I was safe and I heard the roar like a train, and I heard it behind me, and I knew it was coming," she recalled today. "And it was so loud that I knew that I needed to do something different. I knew staying put wasn't going to work."

So Decker acted. She dashed down into her home's basement with son Dominic, 8, and daughter Reese, 5. As the house began to disintegrate she tried to shield them with a comforter.

"My daughter said, 'Mommy, I don't like this,' and I said, 'I know honey,'" Decker said. "I could see the wind. I could see the window blew out and the house burst."

She was crushed under the cascade of debris.

"I remember the whole thing," she said. "I stayed conscious the whole time. I couldn't afford [to pass out]. They needed me. They had to have me, so I had to figure out what to do. And my son is a hero. He went to get help."

They were the image of prim, proper and polished when they hit the red-carpet at the Vanity Fair Oscars after party just over a week ago in their corresponding navy outfits.

But inside the bash, Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes let their hair down and showed off their goofy side.

In new pictures seen on Vanityfair.com and taken inside a photo booth at the star-studded event, the duo are seen pulling animated faces and puckering up fish lips to lean in for a kiss.

The 49-year-old Top Gun star looks adoringly at his wife of five years and puts an affectionate arm around her, while Katie pulls a very animated face.

The two snaps show a fun side of the couple, who while often affectionate, rarely ham it up for the camera.

The 33-year-old actress looked stylish in a navy blue Elie Saab embellished gown as she posed up with her spouse on the red carpet outside the event in West Hollywood, California.

Katie showed off her new look by wearing her hair tied back in a high ponytail, and accessorised her dress with a pretty diamond necklace and matching earrings.

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Former baseball player Lenny Dykstra, who once made so much money as a financial adviser he bought Wayne Gretzky's Ventura County mega-mansion, was taken into custody Monday after being sentenced to three years in state prison for a scheme to lease cars using fraudulent paperwork. The former Mets and Phillies outfielder tried to take back a no contest plea before sentencing, but the judge rejected his request. Dykstra's fall from wealth has been chronicled over the last few years. He's 49, grew up in Garden Grove in Orange County, and played in 1,278 games over 12 seasons.

In Punjab where trends were available for 16 seats, Congress was leading in 11 seats while ruling Akali Dal-BJP combine was ahead in four seats. Punjab has a 117 seat Assembly.

Ruling BJP was ahead in six seats in Uttarakhand with Congress close behind in five seats. The trends were availabe for 11 out of 70 seats.

In 60-member Manipur Assembly, trends were available for four seats with Congress leading in all of them.

The results will end all the speculations on who will for the government in these states. Elections were held in a total of 690 assembly seats -- 403 in UP, 117 seats in Punjab, 70 in Uttarakhand, 60 in Manipur and 40 in Goa -- in a span of over a month.

The results are likely to have a bearing at the national level as Congress faces one controversy after another and is looking forward to salvage its image while the opposition treats it as an occasion to test the grounds ahead of 2014 Lok Sabha polls.

Congress faces an uphill task in reviving its fortunes in the Mayawati-ruled Uttar Pradesh where its campaign was led from the front by Rahul Gandhi.
Congress is contesting 357 seats in the state out of 403 seats where it won 22 seats in the 2007 state polls.

The ruling BSP, which won 206 in last elections, in UP has contested all 403 seats, SP 402, BJP 398 and RLD 46.

The result in UP, the state having 403 seats, is most awaited. Will Mulayam Singh's Samajwadi Party emerge as the party with maximum number of seats as predicted in most exit polls? Will SP get the majority and be able to form the government on its own or will it need the support of other parties like the Congress to form the government? How will the ruling BSP perform in the elections and how will campaigning by Rahul Gandhi change the fortune of the Congress party in the assembly polls are some of the most eagerly awaited questions which will be answered today.

Election results from five states are to be announced on Tuesday, with the fortunes of the Gandhi political dynasty and the national government riding on the outcome.

The most important polls took place in Uttar Pradesh, India's most populous state and its most politically significant where 200 million people live amid some of the most entrenched poverty on the planet.

Rahul Gandhi, the next in line in the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty which has dominated Indian politics since independence in 1947, has led campaigning there for the Congress party, which runs the federal government

The 41-year-old presumed "prime-minister-in-waiting" faces the biggest test yet of his credibility as he looks to improve on the dismal record of Congress locally that stretches back 22 years.

"His efforts will be well-rewarded," Congress spokeswoman Renuka Chowdary told reporters at the national headquarters in New Delhi on Monday. "The Congress is not going to be in any embarrassing position."

Success would energise his supporters and perhaps hasten his ascent to national leadership at a time when his mother Sonia, the president of the party, has been diagnosed with an undisclosed illness, rumoured to be cancer.

Failure would feed the doubters -- and there are many -- as well as interest in his sister Priyanka, whom some Gandhi loyalists still prefer.

"As the family has scripted it, this should be the age of Rahul," concluded Outlook, a weekly news magazine, in a front-page article headlined "What if he fails?"
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