the sexiest books in my shelf
delicious reading recommendations for healing, embodiment, and fun
As I begin to write this piece, I am wondering if we are on the same page about ‘sexy.’
What makes a book sexy, for me? Well, I admit I am a connoisseur of the smutty reads of this world - from highbrow Anais Nin to Edward/Bella/Darkling/Sun Summoner/Damon/Elena/Klaus/Elijah Tumblr fanfics. Honestly, one of my imaginary alternate lives has me as a writer of sexy erotica who’s making abundant royalties from her very spicy, evocative, sinful publications.
To me, sexy is a lot more than just the obviously erotic, in a book. I have a very healthy relationship with the word ‘sexy,’ it is something I have reclaimed into my female gaze. This goes hand-in-hand with a very healthy relationship with sexiness and all it’s healing powers, but we’ll save that conversation for another day.
A book that feels sexy is a book that doesn’t feel like spiritual sit-ups. It’s not on the list of my brain’s ‘shoulds,’ rather, my sexy books are like juicy, fun play for my artist brain. It’s not that what you read because a person like you - of this job, this age, this circle, this status, blah blah - is supposed to have read this stuff.
We all have our spiritual sit-up books, don’t we? The books that are about interesting, cerebral, intellectual, awesome topics relating to career, self-help, psychology, economy, and all sorts of expansive, heady, worldly subjects that we know we should enjoy. That we could flex at a dinner, that we think will make us so much smarter, cooler and above everyone else. But when we actually try to read them, god, it feels like work. It feels like I am trying to be ‘Good,’ gain a star sticker for having read them. These are the books we’d keep front and centre, in the bookshelf in the living room.
I wonder if you’ve come across those ads about those apps that condense all the ‘you should read’ books of this world - thousands - into fifteen minute audios with key points, so that you come away having ‘read’ them without having to read them. I wonder if you appreciated the idea, admired the ease and convenience of it all, and at the same time felt horrified about what it represents about the world we have become. The ways in which our brains have collectively altered, addled with information, our attention spans reduced, due to social media and a consumption-centered, fast, hustling patriarchal-capitalist society that focuses solely on the extraction rather than the experience. An app of a world where one should read all the books, there are thousands of shoulds, and one must quickly gain as much from as many of them as possible. But why actually read them, who has the time? Apparently, reading is now about the “look, I’ve read this,” the tick off the list, the name-dropping, the ‘what does it give me,’ than it is about the reading, isn’t it? We want knowledge to be a commodity, convenient for value signalling, obtained for the performance, quickly consumed to reach a finish line, and focused on the extraction of outcomes than the pleasure of reading for the experience.
So, sexy books. I see them as the books you truly, deeply enjoy, that make you reconnect with forgotten parts of you. Maybe because the story is delicious, maybe because the drama is exciting, maybe because the knowledge disseminated is a turn-on, maybe because it heals our wounded sensuality and shame around sex, maybe because Donna Tartt’s words are strung together like art reading them feels like a cerebral massage.
Did you have that experience when you were a young teen, and you came upon something unsupervised in the school library or your mama’s bookshelf? Did you skim entire books for the forbidden delight of one juicy paragraph that the adults didn’t realise you’d come upon? There are the books that light up those aspects of yourself. The stories, the fantasy realms, the fiction, the books that you’re reading for the delight, not for the accomplishment of having read them. Sexy books are for the bedside table, the private altar, the personal corner. Here, I am talking about books that felt like experiencing visceral aliveness in all my senses when I read them. Rapture. Excitement. Awe. Giggles. Enchantment.
Books that feel like your whole body and being is responding to them, not just your mind. Books that aren’t necessarily for being seen with. Books that are for Venus days, vacations, being curled up in satin sheets and beautiful fragrances with. Books you’d probably be very selective about who you share with.
I’d like for all of us to cultivate a ‘sexy’ corner of our bookshelf where we stash little delights like hidden chocolates. I’d also like for all of us to connect with the sexy, non-serious reader in ourselves.
Most of all, I yearn for reading to be reading again, a silly, human daydream. Just us staring at sheets from tree barks and vividly hallucinating for hours. For us to read for pleasure. For us to be hiding under our blanket so that we don’t get caught enjoying our book post bedtime. For us to stop marketing reading as something ‘serious’ that you must do to become bigger or better or richer or smarter. For us to start reading for ourselves, not for other people. For reading to be about pleasure than about being seen as a reader. For us to also tell people to read because it’s so much fun. For us to stop making people feel ‘not enough’ about what they read or not read. For reading, an ancient delight of the human mind, to be freed from the influence of the fast, mindless lifestyle.
Here goes my list of very sexy books that were so, so transformational for my life - in the things they taught me, in the inspiration they provided, and simply in the full-bodied delight I experienced in reading them.
Originally written by the poet Tiruvalluvar, this book is an erotic, feminist retelling translated by Meera Kandasamy, an English version of the third part of the Tirukkural - one of the most important, significant, ancient texts in Tamil literature. This book is about the most intimate section of this great work, the part about Kama, desire. To nobody’s surprise, it is also, historically, the part that has been most heavily censored. Although hundreds of male translations of the text have been published, it has also only ever been translated by a woman once before. This sensuous, sparkling, evocative poetry gave me glimmers - as ancient Indian erotic poetry and romance always does - about how the ancestors and ancestresses were so much cooler, sexier and more passionate than these times I live in. A beautiful book to read as an accompaniment to a new lover, or to get into the frequency of being a lover yourself.
The most visual, aesthetic and beautiful introduction to the world of Tantra. This isn’t essentially New Age Tantra, it’s more about the history of Tantra in India. It’s a great starting point, leisure read, and food for your visual, creative, artist brain. The art, the sculptures and the historical anecdotes are absolutely sensual and stunning.
3. The artful, tasteful compilation that my young teenager (who had to skim whole entire books to find just one sexy part) needed. That’s all I’ll say. A treasure to own and to gift as a bedside delight
4. A book that completely transformed my life, worldview and understanding of Desire, and that ignited my beginnings of doing the work for healing shame around sensuality in a diseased world. This is the book I say that every person should read once in their lifetime, and I’ll add that if you are an Indian person, you especially and absolutely should experience this re-connection with Kama as an emotion and as an aesthetic flavour (rasa). This book is written as a fictional story, through which the author shares his delicious, thought-provoking insights. It is rich in beautiful references that will transport you to many, many worlds and yet so easy to read because of the simple, relatable storytelling. The use of fiction to convey complex, nuanced anecodtes from history, spiritual lessons and philosophy from around the world, in a way that touches your heart and strikes a chord without any mental acrobatics whatsoever. Probably my most favourite non-highbrow yet very highbrow read ever, as cringe as it feels to say that.
5. The most delicious history book ever? Transports you into a whole different world, and will have you come away from it with something gently transformed about your relationship with the feminine as an energy - whether inner or outer. You might also feel like a fool for the shame, shadow and trigger we have all always internalized around what ‘courtesans’ were. This book inspires respect and realisation at so many levels. But, I wouldn’t make this recommendation about the moral takeaway - I recommend it for the beauty, gorgeousness, richness, elegance, storytelling, seduction, wit and sparkle of it all.
6. The way that Donna Tartt paints imagery with her words is something that I loved experiencing, and I have never stopped randomly opening this to re-read for the pleasure of witnessing just how beautiful someone can make the English language. Of course, yes, this book has it’s notoriety in the cancel culture circles. I still recommend experiencing it for the aesthetic, the ethereal way every sentence is crafted, and all the visuals it evokes and inspires. A cerebral massage. And a classic dark academia satire on elitism.
7. This whole book is beautiful, beautiful pictures of real street style and what people wear in many cities of the world. The Sartorialist is a photographer that I learnt about in design school, and this compilation of his captures of street style in cities around the world is so delightful. How much we loved books with pictures as children? This book is only pictures - it’s a book where you read style in the form of photos of the way people dress around the world as they go about their lives, no words, no text. This one inspires many outfits for me, and something about it is just so beautiful. Fashion, culture and people-watching enthusiasts will love it.
8. I am a huge foodie, and when history and cuisine come together, I can’t help but be pulled in. I first read this cover for cover as a school kid, hiding it under my desk while pretending to pay attention in class. I re-read it only recently. A history of Indian cuisine, and picking up threads on how what we eat was built and shaped by the influence of all sorts of cultures. It has ancient recipes that offer a glimpse into how people cooked thousands of years ago, and it will make you very hungry.
What would you add to this list? Have you already experienced one of these? Tell me about your sexy bookshelf!
Some of the academic essays that delve into the erotic aspects/energies of Shiva and Parvati from an anthology called "Shiva : Lord of the Cosmic Dance" by Karan Singh.
It's sad that I can't include images in comments here. Otherwise, I could share abstracts of a few essays! :(
Erotic Poems from Sanskrit : An Anthology by R. Parthasarathy is a treat.