Clean Sheets Bookstore

Vox by Nicholson Baker
On a private adult phone-sex line, Jim, a West Coaster in his late 20s, connects with East Coast Abby. Birds of a feather -- both of them witty, obsessive, yuppie masturbators -- they're off, trading stories and fantasies and the psychopathologies of everyday life. "Baker has found a conceptual format, phone sex, perfectly tailored to his talents." from Kirkus Reviews

Story of the Eye by Georges Bataille
"In 1928, Bataille published this first novel under a pseudonym, and it was a legendary shocker that uncovered the dark side of the erotic by means of the forbidden, obsessive fantasies of excess and sexual extremes. A classic of pornographic literature, Story of the Eye finds parallels in de Sade and Nietzsche, and in the investigations of contemporary psychology.

Doc and Fluff : The Dystopian Tale of a Girl and Her Biker by Pat Califia
"Then there's the sex. Hot, raunchy, unabashedly hardcore queer SM. There's sex between women and sex between men, all of it extreme, with the rules of consent being a grey area in more than one instance...Doc and Fluff is a relentlessly realistic extrapolation of human nature and still-current social trends." Read the Clean Sheets review by Cliff Winnig

Macho Sluts by Pat Califia
"No, Macho Sluts isn't for the faint of heart. I first read it many years ago and was both shaken and thrilled to have my ideas about what constitutes normality, pleasure, pain and love so thoroughly brought into question. It was a riveting read. I had trouble putting it down even when I was finished." Amazon reviewer Read the Clean Sheets review by Gwydion McCarthy

Chocolat by Joanne Harris
This is the novel that the Academy Award nominated film is based on -- but with a very different ending. The tale of what happens when a mysterious woman moves into an old-fashioned, quaint French village, opens up a chocolate shop across the street from a church during Lent, and begins to charm most of the neighborhood with her delicious treats and touch of magic, is a poetic amazement of riches. Read the Clean Sheets review of the movie, by David Steinberg

Eat Me by Linda Jaivin
This eye-popping debut novel invites readers to partake of a lusty banquet of conversations. With its layering of stories within stories, Eat Me is as provocative in structure as it is potent in detail. One reader says, "The book itself is a sexual tour de force...I've passed it around to my friends at law school (male, female and uncertain), my mum (50 years old and still a bit of a pervert), and my grandmother (83 or so), and all have raved about Linda's easy style and relaxed feel with the subject matter."

Junglee Girl by Ginu Kama
Subverting her outrage to the tools of ambiguity and irony, Kamani exposes the extreme individual displacement, pervasive throughout all the castes, that results from an oppressive society. "'Junglee girl' is an Indian term to describe a wild and uncontrollable woman. In the same spirit, Kamani drives these stories with wanton bawdiness and explicit sexuality."-- Ms. magazine

Eyes Wide Shut: A Screenplay by Stanley Kubrick et al
A fascinating read of both the original novella by Arthur Schnitzler and Kubrick's final screenplay, side by side. Some consider the original story intensely erotic and rhapsodic, others feel Kubrick improved upon it in his 1999 film of sexual fantasy and jealousy, with Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman. Either way, you can see why Kubrick bought the rights to this in the sixties (and all copies of the original novel) and spent years obsessing over getting it on film. Purchase the film on DVD through Amazon.

Torn Shapes of Desire by Mary Anne Mohanraj
This is Mary Anne's first collection of erotic fiction and poetry, and features reader favorites such as "Chantal", "Jinsong" and "Fleeing Gods", as well as material not currently available on the Net.

Too Beautiful by Mark Pritchard
A finely crafted collection of stories by the founder of the groundbreaking San Francisco zine, Frighten the Horse. A moving exploration of bisexuality, the meaning of penetration and anal play for heterosexual men, and the possibility of finding love and transcendence through open relationships. The author is already well-known regionally and in sex-radical circles, but the quality of his prose lends this collection significant literary crossover potential.

The Story of O by Pauline Reage
The classic erotic novel of BDSM, The Story of O relates the passion of a beautiful Parisian fashion photographer for her lover, Rene. As part of that intense love, she undergoes debasement and severe sexual and psychological tests. A unique tale, and a must-read on the erotic-lit list. Rent or buy the movie version of "O" through BlueDoor.com.

Lucie's Long Voyage (Lucie au Long Cours) by Alina Reyes
A dream-like story of a young woman who gets lost in the woods and ends up living in a cave with a bear who eventually becomes her lover. Later, she returns to the city with her baby where she meets an author who tells her of his childhood love for Luci and her transformation into the serpentine Melusine. If you can, read the original French; the translation isn't nearly as fluid. (This story is also included in The Butcher.)

The Drag Queen of Elfland : Short Stories by Lawrence Schimel
The Drag Queen of Elfland is a collection of gay fantasies and fairy tales by the indefatigable Lawrence Schimel. All the stories are original, not a retelling of classical fairy tales, and Schimel has attached a brief introduction to each one. Schimel weaves sex, magic, and fantasy into this wonderfully gender-diverse set of fables, which is sure to capture your imagination and, in a few cases, perhaps your heart. -- Ken Furtado, for Echo Magazine.

Black Feathers : Erotic Dreams by Cecilia Tan
In this collection, Tan blurs the very definition of sexuality and redefines the future of erotic fiction. She delves deep into the world of dark fantasy in a powerful collection of stories that interweave the supernatural and science fiction with the fantasy of daydream; she combines noir erotica at its most potent with startling sensuality, to shatter the physical and emotional boundaries of sex. From the critically acclaimed, otherworldly "Pearl Diver" to "The Game," all of Tan's stories celebrate the body and sex, revealing the positive emotions behind even the darkest desires. -- Kirkus Reviews. Read the Clean Sheets Review by William Dean

Valencia by Michelle Tea
A fast-paced account of one girl's search for love and high times in the drama-filled dyke world of San Francisco's Mission District. Through a string of narrative moments, Tea records a year lived in a world of girls: there's knife-wielding Marta, who introduces Michelle to a new world of radical sex; Willa, Michelle's tormented poet-girlfriend; Iris, the beautiful boy-dyke who ran away from the South in a dust cloud of drama; and Iris's ex, Magdalena Squalor, to whom Michelle turns when Iris breaks her heart. From Susannah Indigo's Amazon review: "I found this book completely engaging and read it all in one sitting. Tea's writing has a Kerouac-feel to it, that touch of simply existing and being exactly where you are, in the depths of the good, the bad, the depressing, and, really, why don't we all quit our jobs and stay home and make more love and more art and be more free and focus on all the things that actually matter?"

The City and the Pillar by Gore Vidal
"I have read that I was too stupid at the time to know what I was doing," Vidal notes in his introduction to this edition, "but in such matters I have always had a certain alertness. I knew that my description of the love affair between two 'normal' all-American boys, of the sort that I had spent three years in the army with during the war, would challenge every superstition about sex in my native land." His publisher hated the book. The New York Times would not advertise it. The City and the Pillar became a bestseller, nevertheless, and is now a classic.

Tipping the Velvet by Sarah Waters
This delightfully saucy debut novel recounts the unconventional life and times of Nan King, a Victorian-era lesbian bold enough to embrace and to eventually celebrate her unorthodox sexual orientation. When she falls in love with an artful male impersonator, Nan follows her secret paramour to London and becomes part of a popular cross-dressing music hall act. A humorous and remarkably honest period piece that pays homage to women who courageously crossed the boundaries of conventional Victorian behavior and sexuality. -- Booklist

Written on the Body by Jeanette Winterson
The most beguilingly seductive novel to date from the author of The Passion and Sexing the Cherry. Winterson chronicles the consuming affair between the narrator, who is given neither name nor gender, and the beloved, a complex and confused married woman. "At once a love story and a philosophical meditation."-- NYT Book Review