Chicks with Guns, by Lindsay McCrum, is "a playful yet perturbing visual essay on the statistic that some 20 million women in America own guns," to quote the review on the Time website.  My favorite is Jenevieve, of San Antonio, Texas, standing in a Victorian parlor in her wedding dress, an antique single-shot percussion dueling pistol by her side.

Howard Chua-Eoan, News Director of TIME and TIME.com, is shocked that 20 million American women own guns. What a sheltered life the man must lead, innocent as he must be of American history: Has he never heard of Annie Oakley, who was not the only frontierswoman proficient in the handling of arms?

The backdrops are gorgeous, the compositions good, and the story compelling. I have only one nit to pick. Samantha, of Livingston, Montana, has her finger on the trigger of her AR-15. Tsk tsk. When The Blue Press, the monthly catalog of Dillon Precision, makers of fine reloading gear, published an issue years ago with a model on the cover with finger on trigger, they received no end of letters taking them to task for poor safety practices. Dillon has scrupulously avoided the faux pas ever since.

Yes, this book looks "playful yet perturbing." Perturbing, forsooth! Dear, dear, what's the republic coming to? Such a work must send shivers through the salons of the Upper East Side, where a well-bred woman would never think of handling a firearm -- that's for her bodyguard to do.

Looks like a stocking stuffer to me.

Henry Percy is the nom de guerre for a technical writer living in Arizona. He may be reached at saler.50d[at]gmail.com.