Valentine’s Day Reading

There is no shortage of both raunchy and loving literature to explore this Valentine’s Day. The Independent does a terrific job today rounding up some of the best of the worst (or the worst of the best?):

So will you be reading your beloved a Shakespearen sonnet in a grand gesture of romance? Probably not. Instead, why not explore the vast array of ‘erotic’ literature that past writers have so kindly bestowed upon us for such occasions?

The Independent’s offerings include Paul Theroux from The Stranger at the Palazzo d'Oro (“Still I could not tell where her soft skin ended and her silk began, and the complexity of her vaginal lips was like another elaborate silken garment she had put on for me to stroke.”), Haruki Murakami from 1Q84 (“Her breasts themselves were large, however, and fully ripe. They seemed to be virtually uninfluenced by the force of gravity, the nipples turned beautifully upward, like a vine's new tendrils seeking sunlight.”) and my favorite from this batch, Jonathan Littell from The Kindly Ones (“I came suddenly, a jolt that emptied my head like a spoon scraping the inside of a soft-boiled egg.”

You can check out The Independent’s “Best Bad Sex Scenes from Books” piece here. The art, above right, is Tang Yau Hoong. You can see (and buy) more of that artist’s work here.