Is it ever. It was miserable looking last week where I am (maybe that’s why I spend so much time looking at porn?)(beyond the fact that I do it for you people, that is), clear today, though freezing, and tomorrow the rain’s supposed to come in. Wonderful. But on top of it, if you’re like me - and let’s face it, you probably are – there’s still holiday shopping to be done!

Prepare thyself for a madhouse.

And the hardest part is always the what to get, you know? You know who you have to shop for, but what the hell are you going to get them? Well, Luna and I, being the artsy folk that we are, will tell you that films and books are always acceptable. They’re classy as hell, telling your gift recievee, “Hey, I may want your body, but I’ll definitely take your mind as well.” So, today I’m going to help you out just a little and maybe suggest a few books you should keep an eye out for in your last minute rush (or, if you just like reading interesting stuff in general).

The Sexual Life Of Catherine M. a memoir by Catherine Millet. Called “the most explicit book about sex ever written by a woman” by Edmund White, I’d have to agree, but I’ll say it’s one of the most wonderfully, joyously explicit books written about sexy by anyone. This book came into my life several years ago and for me to even barely put my love of it down into words may take much longer than we have right now (but may be a subject for a future post). Just know that if you go out and buy this one for someone, pick one up for yourself. Here’s a lovely interview with the author, which has one of my favorite taglines ever: “By day she was a sought-after curator and well-respected member of the French intelligentsia; by night she was an insatiable hedonist whose passion was indiscriminate sex with anonymous men.” Now, tell me, how can you not want to read that?

Choke by Chuck Palahniuk. I’m not going to say a lot about this book other than this is Palahniuk back when Palahniuk was still good. Before he became the ridiculous parody of himself always striving to shock you just one more time. His best book is Survivor, something I’d definitely recommend to you (especially for airplane reading), but this is his sex book (well, his first one). This is a chapter from the book, originally released in Playboy as the short story “Cruising Altitude.” There’s another, perhaps better preview chapter that was also released as a short story beforehand, but I’m having a hard time finding it. Ah, here it is. Also, I invite you to choke on (sorry, sorry) an interesting essay that Palahniuk wrote about the writing of the book, which was of course turned into a movie starring Sam Rockwell and Anjelica Huston and should be out on DVD any day now.

Crooked Little Vein by Warren Ellis. This is just a fun, fucked up book about how weird, wrong, and wonderful certain parts of America are. The titular crooked little vein is the part of this country that the main character travels on a quest to find… well, let’s just say that sometimes the journey is the destination, and this journey includes porn,  dirty (literally) politics, guys injecting things into their balls for a good time, and Godzilla bukkake. This is something I frequently give people as a gift. Hell, I even gave it to Luna for her birthday.

The Silent War: Ministering To Those Trapped In The Deception Of Pornography by Henry J. Rogers. I wouldn’t actually give this as a gift or recommend it to anyone. I only mention here because I ran across it at work and it’s bullshit.

Army@Love vol. 1: The Hot Zone Club by Rick Veitch. I mentioned this a while back and while it’s not a great graphic novel, it is a lot of fun in the way it deals with sex, love, and gender in wartime.

Fear Of Flying by Erica Jong. This 1973 book is a towering example of pro-sex feminism and all about indulging your fantasies. Also, it coined the term “zipless fuck” into the lexicon and that’s no small feat. This is a very nice excerpt from this book, a seminal classic.

All of those truly wonderful books (except for The Silent War, that is).

Quick mentions:

Bonk: The Curious Coupling Of Science And Sex by Mary Roach is a book that I’ve had for quite some time but haven’t found the opportunity to read yet, but it looks like it’ll be fascinating so I’d throw that on your list. I think it also bears mentioning that while searching for it on Amazon to share with you, I accidentally clicked on Boink: College Sex By People Having It and that just looks… nice.

The Best Of Sexology, edited by Craig Yoe, collecting articles from Sexolgy, The Illustrated Magazine Of Sex Science. Bathroom reading, maybe? Maybe even a nice coffee table book too.

The Intimate Sex Lives Of Famous People, a book that… well, do I even need to mention why this would be interesting? A good companion to this would probably be Sex Lives Of The Rich And Famous, because, well, again, do I even need to explain?

The Book Of Weird Sex by Chris Gordon. Damn. Someone took the title of my eventual autobiography.

Maybe the Hot Chicks With Douchebags book? I just don’t know how ironic you want to be.

Salmonella Men On Planet Porno: Stories by Yasutaka Tsutsui is worth the purchase just for the title alone, if you ask me.

Anything on this Boing Boing post would make a lovely gift, either for someone else or, much more importantly, for yourself, don’t you think?

I’ll let you digest all of that and we’ll call it part one with a part two to come tomorrow and then… will there be an erotic films holiday shopping list as well? I guess we shall see. But since some of these books are of an explicit nature, and you know what explicit tends to mean (BANNED), I’ll leave you with this lovely excerpt from an article by Phillip Pullman talking about book banning and censors…

Because they never learn. The inevitable result of trying to ban something – book, film, play, pop song, whatever – is that far more people want to get hold of it than would ever have done if it were left alone. Why don’t the censors realise this?

…and we’ll catch you tomorrow.