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In honour of World Book Day (yes, that's today), the girls and I here at Lust Bites thought we'd celebrate by sharing a few of the top erotic picks from our bookshelves. We're a diverse bunch, with widely differing tastes, and I think the list below reflects that. So, here without further ado, in no particular order are the books that we admire, aspire to, and take to bed.
1. Macho Sluts by Pat Califa.
This book was a favourite with at least three of our members.
Mathilde says: 'Macho Sluts is unbelievably good and my copy is well-worn and much loved. All kinds of whizzy things going on with gender in that book. Seriously ground breaking at the time it was published.'
2. Toward the End of Time by John Updike.
Nikki says: 'The central character is married but has this strange sort of affair with what could be a woman or could be a roe deer! Slightly futuristic, and very earthy at the same time.'
3. Ishtar Rising by Robert Anton Wilson.
Janine says: 'A slightly bonkers book about why women's breasts are really really great and how we should all love them. By one of the world's more famous pagan anarchists.'
4. Mr Benson by John Preston.
Mathilde says: 'My all time personal favourite book. The story of a cute little twink, Jamie, who goes looking for a Master and finds more than a master, he finds: Mr Benson! I want to be Mr Benson when I grow up. (And by 'grow up' here, I mean grow a penis.)
5. Lord Wraxall's Fancy by Anna Lieff Saxby.
Kristina says: 'The man you love to hate.'
Madelynne says: 'The man you hate to love.'
6. Beauty's Punishment by Anne Rice (A N Roquelaure)
Alison says: 'The second in the series. I always liked this one the best, with the townspeople and the pony boys... there is one stable scene I'll never forget.'
7. My Secret Life by 'Walter'.
Kristina says: 'Disturbing, compelling, infuriating, darkly sexy, & truly pornographic in its fascination for detail.'
8. Yellow by Makoto Tateno
Madelynne says: 'Two drug snatchers, one gay, one straight. Edgy, complex, funny and absolutely riveting, and I just love the way Taki extracts himself from all those clinches.'
9. Dominant by Felix Baron
Madeline says: '...decidedly masculine in style, yet surprisingly gentle in its
description of a sensitive man who longs to share his perversity with an
eager, honest woman. And the sex is explicit, stylish and hot.'
10. The Man Who Fell in Love With the Moon by Tom Spanbauer
Shanna says: 'This lyrical, sensual, almost-cowboy book about a bi-sexual boy named Shed will break your heart, turn you on, and break your heart again.'
11. Les Fleurs du Mal (Flowers of Evil) by Charles Baudelaire
Alison says 'I was seduced by the translated words of this poet, eg...
Rule your life and your youngness
I shall rule you with a fear."
Or "I shall beat you without rage
Or hate, as Moses struck the rock,
As a butcher strikes his block,
So, there you have it. Now it's your turn to share some of your favourites with us, and recommend some titles we may not have discovered yet. There were plenty of other books we considered but couldn't quite squeeze onto the list, but I'm sure the girls will tell you about those in the comments.
Then, when you're finished here, why not nip over to http://www.worldbookday.com/ and celebrate the literary form by helping preserve the world's greatest book collection by adopting a book at the British Library. There's a whole range of titles to choose from, including everything from Wuthering Heights to Trainspotting to Where the Wild Things Are. (Hmm, I might have to adopt that one myself.)
love
Madelynne
www.madelynne-ellis.com
9 comments:
Another fan of Spinal Tap?
I love that the top ten list is 11 strong!
Happy World Book Day!
XXX,
Alison
Where The WIld Things Are! That might be my all time favourite actually. Move over, Updike. Let the wild rumpus begin!
Ooh, spooky, I just got a copy of Mr Benson and one of Molly Weatherfield's Carrie's Story through the post. (Become a book reviewer - you know it makes free books sense).
So from the Mr Benson press release:
"A classic underground novel" Village Voice
"One of the top tem S&M novels ever written" Penthouse
"It is really, really good" Me
I'll also rec Carrie's Story, while I'm here. Press Release says "The #1 Best selling novel of neo-victorian smut - for smart readers"
A good choice for arthouse sluts, I think.
I think the most erotic book I ever read was a piece of paperback holiday trash in the holiday cottage we were renting. I'd just turned ten. It's largely - as I recall - a moral tale about a girl's falling pregnant after having sex, yup, you guessed it, just once.
BUT: this was the horny bit. She arrived at the bloke's house soaked from the rain, and *of course* the natural thing to do is take off all your clothes to get dry, and *of course* it's more normal to get into his bed while they dry than wear some yukky tracksuit pants and faded man-t-shirt, so she does. Then came the line, about him looking at her all cute and naked under the duvet, and "It took him ten seconds to undress and join her."
The chapter ended. The next chapter began with post-festivities dressing or something. In between, was all this white space. I stared at that space, avidly. I willed it to reveal its secrets. Again and again, I read up to the white space and then gazed, mesmerised...
My second Top Erotic Book is Fanny Hill, or Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure, by John Cleland (1749) said to be the first erotic novel. Lots of romping and frolicking and quite different attitudes to the order of things and how long they last, and some of the most graphic and surprising descriptions of penises I've ever read.
A little excerpt, to surprise, amuse, and educate:
"...I could not, without some remains of terror, some tender emotions too, fix my eyes on that terrible machine, which had, not long before, with such fury broke into, torn, and almost ruined those soft, tender parts of mine that had not yet done smarting with the effects of its rage; but behold it now! crest-fallen, reclining its half-capped vermilion head over one of his thighs, quiet, pliant, and to all appearances incapable of the mischiefs and cruelty it had committed. Then the beautiful growth of the hair, in short and soft curls round its root, its whiteness, branched viens, the supple softness of the shaft, as it lay foreshortened, rolled and shrunk up into a squab thickness, languid, and borne up from between his thighs by its globular appendage, that wondrous treasure-bag of nature's sweets, which, revelled round, and pursed up in the only wrinkles that are known to please, perfected the prospect, and all together formed the most interesting moving picture in nature..."
It goes on. Later, it's described as "a column of the whitest ivory, beautifully streaked with blue viens, and carrying, fully uncapped, a head of the liveliest vermilion: no horn could be harder or stiffer; yet no velvet more smooth or delicious to the touch."
I'm guessing he wrote these bits with his trousers down, gazing in happy narcicissm at his own "terrible machine"...
I love that excerpt, Olivia. Wondrous treasure-bag of nature's sweets, indeed.
I've never managed to linger for quite so long on a description of a cock. Perhaps more research is called for...
And I have just the pick-up line for you:
Bright sales-type smile: "Hi, I'm collecting sperm, would you like to make a donation?"
Damn shame I'm not allowed to use it myself... ;-)
I can see I have some serious reading to do this weekend!
Loved the Anne Rice one's.
Oh yes, Anne Rice's BEAUTY books were the stuff. If we could ask Sleeping Beauty herself which version she prefers, Disney or Rice... dare I think she'd say the latter? ;o)
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