Erotic Writing

Erotic literature has a long and colorful past, from Ovid to Tijuana Bibles to today's contemporary fiction. Books have the ability to spark the imagination and quicken the libido. Here you’ll find an array of sexuality-based books, ranging from, fiction, to true stories, to essays, to how-to volumes, and more. If it's on the printed page and it's about sex, we strive to cover it and give you our opinion of it.

We want our readers to find books that will both entertain and enlighten. We have fiction, anthologies, and graphic novels for that erotic fix. There are many excellent how-to guides for those of you who'd like to get away from the printed page for you jollies. Finally, we will have non-fiction on the topic of sex, histories both general and specific, and books of contemporary essays. Some of these books will blur the lines, being both instructional and erotic simultaneously.

Books are rated on several levels. First, we consider the quality of the writing. Second, we think about the ideas presented in the books, and how they relate to our readers. Finally, we let you know if it's really hot. The best books in this genre are able to provoke our bodies as well as our minds.

The SexHerald Book Review section is dedicated to bringing our readers a great variety. The books we review are for everyone in the reading community, and we strive to bring you the best erotica covering a variety of sexualities. Concise and most importantly honest, we strive to consistently provide a high level of accuracy in all our reviews.

Suggestions? Suggestions for books to review are welcome; please contact editor@sexherald.com with ideas.

The title gets straight to the point: this is a collection of short stories about spanking, and if you like spanking, you will probably like this collection. As always, Rachel Kramer Bussel does an excellent job of pulling together a set of well-written stories that explore a breadth of sexual experience and emotion while remaining sizzling hot. Despite the somewhat narrow focus of the collection, the stories in this book manage to avoid becoming overly repetitive. In part, this is accomplished by judicious selection and positioning of stories to provide a nice balance—there is a varying mix of male topping and female topping, and gay sex mixes cheerfully in with hetero (though straight sex is more frequently featured throughout).

Innocence and Seduction, The Art of Dan DeCarlo is a lush, gorgeous book that showcases the art of DeCarlo, a man best known for being the originating Betty and Veronica and Josie and the Pussycats, among others. Beginning as a part-time freelancer, DeCarlo worked until his style became synonymous with all the Archie characters. His love of the female form and understanding of sex and sales helped shaped those now-classic icons. The book tells the story of DeCarlo’s life, but the primary focus is his artistic career. His creative history is thoroughly explained, though his personal issues often seem like an afterthought.

Purchasing Steve and Vera Bodansky’s Instant Orgasm: Excitement at First Touch is like buying a magic set; some tricks seem easy enough, but the rest take far too much sleight of hand and patience. Both Bodanskys have PhDs in sensuality from More University, an “experimental school” in Northern California. With over two decades of experience teaching “the art of sexual arousal” and three other sex books, including Extended Massive Orgasm, The Illustrated Guide to Extended Massive Orgasm, and To Bed or Not to Bed, these presumed sex titans have coauthored a book that describes “how to invest a little time and attention in creating an orgasmic experience whenever you choose.”