playboy's '25 sexiest novels ever written'

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1. Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure, by John Cleland
2. Lady Chatterley's Lover, by D.H. Lawrence
3. Tropic of Cancer, by Henry Miller
4. The Story of O, by Pauline Reage
5. Crash, by J.G. Ballard
6. Interview with the Vampire, by Anne Rice
7. Portnoy's Complaint, by Philip Roth
8. The Magus, by John Fowles
9. The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, by Haruki Murakami
10. Endless Love, by Scott Spencer
11. Lolita, by Vladimir Nabokov
12. Carrie's Story, by Molly Weatherfield
13. Fear of Flying, by Erica Jong
14. Peyton Place, by Grace Metalious
15. Story of the Eye, by Georges Bataille
16. The End of Alice, by A.M. Homes
17. Vox, by Nicholson Baker
18. Rapture, by Susan Minot
19. Singular Pleaures, by Harry Mathews
20. In The Cut, By Susanna Moore
21. Brass, by Helen Walsh
22. Candy, by Terry Southern
23. Forever, by Judy Blume
24. An American Dream, by Norman Mailer
25. The Carpetbaggers, by Harold Robbins

what an odd list. harry mathews! georges bataille! judy blume!

― tom west (thomp), Tuesday, 23 May 2006 12:53 (nineteen years ago)

Lolita!

― Mikey G (Mikey G), Tuesday, 23 May 2006 13:39 (nineteen years ago)

I share the Lolita bafflement. They seemed to have confused 'novels that feature sex' with 'sexy novels'.

― Ray (Ray), Tuesday, 23 May 2006 14:19 (nineteen years ago)

Well, you know, "Lolita" has sort of become a catch-all term for all sexually provocative barely legal (and not actually legal at all) girls, I suppose the book's influence on the, erhm, collective erotic subconcious is pretty huge. Haven't read the book myself I must admit (saw the Kubrick flick tho), but yeah, what I've heard about it makes the idea of finding it "sexy" rather disturbing.

― Daniel_Rf (Daniel_Rf), Tuesday, 23 May 2006 15:06 (nineteen years ago)

You are meant, I think, to find Lolita sexy at times, although certainly not the whole book, and not without a degree of upsetfulness.

Singular Pleasures is hardly a novel, nor is it especially sexy, but it is a pretty great book, and one that is easy to talk about in magazine articles.

― Casuistry (Chris P), Tuesday, 23 May 2006 15:30 (nineteen years ago)

The Magus, eh? Guess we should prep for a reprint. I do vaguely recall it being sexy, but part of that is probably just the suspense.

― Laurel (Laurel), Tuesday, 23 May 2006 15:46 (nineteen years ago)

well, the ways in which the sexy is meant to be upsetful, that books which do this are not excluded, that is one of the things about this list i find impressive.

(true of that murakami, also. which i found myself thinking: huh. i guess it is, at that.)

― tom west (thomp), Tuesday, 23 May 2006 17:11 (nineteen years ago)

I read four of the ones listed. I have probably about ten of the books though.

I absolutely LOVELOVELOVE In The Cut.

― Nathalie (stevie nixed), Tuesday, 23 May 2006 17:50 (nineteen years ago)

The whole list feels like a an uneasy compromise between the obvious - Lawrence is waaaay too risible to be sexy - and things like Wind-Up Bird where the sexiness is unexpected or tangential. Lolita definitely has passages that behave like erotica, though that isn't the same as being sexy I don't think. And they got the wrong Nicholson Baker.

― Brian Furry (noodle vague), Tuesday, 23 May 2006 18:00 (nineteen years ago)

All of these are more or less of teh straight, right? I mean this is not a shock of course, but I'm wondering if I am missing something or don't know better or...

― Casuistry (Chris P), Tuesday, 23 May 2006 18:07 (nineteen years ago)

Is In the Cut that book with the point-of-view problem? I suppose I don't want to give anything away, just in case you're all on your respective ways to the library....

― Laurel (Laurel), Tuesday, 23 May 2006 19:16 (nineteen years ago)

That's quite an interesting list!

― Gravel Puzzleworth (Gregory Henry), Tuesday, 23 May 2006 20:27 (nineteen years ago)

Vox? Dear Christ. I suppose we should at least be grateful that The Fermata wasn't included.

― Matt (Matt), Tuesday, 23 May 2006 21:19 (nineteen years ago)

Do they say who compiled the list? Singular Pleasures is definitely not a novel, but it's great to see Mathews mentioned anywhere.

― Paul Eater (eater), Tuesday, 23 May 2006 21:50 (nineteen years ago)

"portnoy's complaint" is sexy?

― J.D. (Justyn Dillingham), Tuesday, 23 May 2006 22:43 (nineteen years ago)

i wonder if they'd also rank that seinfeld episode about the contest as one of the "sexiest tv moments ever"?

― J.D. (Justyn Dillingham), Tuesday, 23 May 2006 22:44 (nineteen years ago)

"Sexiest" as "involving sex in some way whether presented erotically or not" is a pretty established usage, right?

― Gravel Puzzleworth (Gregory Henry), Tuesday, 23 May 2006 23:01 (nineteen years ago)

the sexiest two novels there are forever and fear of flying, ive been finding really kind of sweet, breeder, slightly boring, making love horribly erotic in the last year or so, its a new trend! (see updikes last novel)

― anthony easton (anthony), Wednesday, 24 May 2006 01:21 (nineteen years ago)

wifey is sexier than forever

― tokyo nursery school: afternoon session (rosemary), Wednesday, 24 May 2006 02:05 (nineteen years ago)

Anthony you find everything erotic! I mean that as pretty unambiguous praise, I think.

― Gravel Puzzleworth (Gregory Henry), Wednesday, 24 May 2006 02:51 (nineteen years ago)

No Topping From Below, no credibility.

― The Jazz Guide to Penguins on Compact Disc (Rock Hardy), Wednesday, 24 May 2006 03:33 (nineteen years ago)

PHWOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOAR!

― PJ Miller (PJ Miller 68), Wednesday, 24 May 2006 06:47 (nineteen years ago)

Candy, by Terry Southern

my uncle was an english professor at a small college in rural virginia. when we'd go visit I slept in his awesomely stocked library, a treat for the fledgling bibliophile. Around age 12-13, my "portnoy years" nudgenudge I was trolling for something sexxy on his shelves and all I could find was Candy. sort of unsatisfying for the task at hand, as it happened, despite its reputation. years later i was amused to learn it's a PARODY.

― m coleman (lovebug starski), Wednesday, 24 May 2006 08:59 (nineteen years ago)

"The End of Alice"? I didn't finish it, but found it more disturbing than sexy. More in the "Lolita" vein of literary pedophilia/stalking themes, and more disturbing.
"Wifey" is NOT sexier than "Forever" for one simple reason - "Forever" is the book that an entire generation read, hidden beneath the sheets with a flashlight,and traded secretively like a dime bag, during adolescence. "Forever" is like "Fear of Flying" for fourteen year olds. naming the penis Ralph (I can't remember, but I THINK that's what they named it)- to The Zipless Fuck. It's a perfect leap in sexual awareness!

― aimurchie (aimurchie), Saturday, 27 May 2006 02:46 (nineteen years ago)

i read it knowing it was a mocking

― anthony easton (anthony), Saturday, 27 May 2006 17:19 (nineteen years ago)

Weird list. Not really sure what to add to what everyone else has said, but yeah... it's interesting.

Do people actually find Ballard's Crash sexy? I always thought that the sexual thrills in that book were another greyed out part of the very cold and distant world it depicts.

In particular, the repitious use of the same word combinations over and over again (pubic + chromium + dashboard, etc) created a blank, mechanised sort of effect for me. Is that slightly frightening detachment what you'd find sexy in the novel? I'm genuinely curious, because it would never have occured to me to include it on a list of sexy books.

― David A (David A), Saturday, 27 May 2006 23:35 (nineteen years ago)

Portnoy's Complaint sexy? It's so entirely the opposite: that book makes me wish I'd never heard of sex in the first place.

― nabisco (nabisco), Tuesday, 30 May 2006 17:40 (nineteen years ago)

It's not the most erotic books! Modern usage y'all.

― Gravel Puzzleworth (Gregory Henry), Tuesday, 30 May 2006 19:57 (nineteen years ago)

1. Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure, by John Cleland

this is too of its time to count as truly sexy. The obsession with virginity is weird and very un-sexy to a discerning modern reader.

― DV (dirtyvicar), Tuesday, 30 May 2006 20:03 (nineteen years ago)

it is named Ralph.

― tokyo nursery school: afternoon session (rosemary), Tuesday, 30 May 2006 23:50 (nineteen years ago)

gotta give that book to my friend r.

― tom west (thomp), Wednesday, 31 May 2006 02:47 (nineteen years ago)

Speak for yourself, so-called Dirty Vicar.

― PJ Miller (PJ Miller 68), Wednesday, 31 May 2006 12:33 (nineteen years ago)

i hated memoirs of pleasure, the cock/machine metaphors were also v. nascent industrial revoultion...i did however find crash erotic, not sexy, not hard on inducing, but sexy

― anthony easton (anthony), Friday, 2 June 2006 01:21 (nineteen years ago)

nabisco turns out to be right about portnoy's complaint, jeez

― tom west (thomp), Friday, 2 June 2006 08:42 (nineteen years ago)

Wind-Up Bird Chronicle? Really??

― jaymc (jaymc), Saturday, 3 June 2006 09:35 (nineteen years ago)

it is definitely more so than portnoy's complaint, is all i am saying at this juncture

― tom west (thomp), Saturday, 3 June 2006 11:51 (nineteen years ago)

three months pass...

is TROPIC OF CANCER any good really?

must read that some day.

― pisces (piscesx), Tuesday, 26 September 2006 17:24 (nineteen years ago)

its not

― anthony easton (anthony), Tuesday, 26 September 2006 19:30 (nineteen years ago)

Read Orwell's critical essay on Tropic of Cancer. It will put a nice positive spin on it for you. Do not under any circumstances approach Tropic (or any other Miller book) as a piece of high art, or wisdom literature, or anything else you might reverence. It is much closer to Mickey Spillane than to Chaucer.

― Aimless (Aimless), Tuesday, 26 September 2006 19:50 (nineteen years ago)

But Chaucer is all fart jokes and sitcom gags!

― nabisco (nabisco), Tuesday, 26 September 2006 21:26 (nineteen years ago)

Which I reverence immensely!

― Aimless (Aimless), Tuesday, 26 September 2006 23:48 (nineteen years ago)

just read mickey spilane or mccain and get it over with---miller is too filled with the phiolsophy bullshit

― anthony easton (anthony), Wednesday, 27 September 2006 05:05 (nineteen years ago)

great episode of seinfeld tho

― and what (ooo), Wednesday, 27 September 2006 05:41 (nineteen years ago)

wait a minute, is anthony recommending a john mccain book?

― J.D. (Justyn Dillingham), Thursday, 28 September 2006 08:50 (nineteen years ago)

m cain, john m cain, i fuck up his name all the time

― anthony easton (anthony), Friday, 29 September 2006 21:01 (nineteen years ago)

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