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[Sneakeater]

I’d have been better off sneaking Candy.

[small h]

My parents left The Sensuous Woman by "J" just lying around. Damn progressives.

[StephanieL]

My mom left Judith Krantz novels lying around.

[Wilfrid]

2 hours ago, Sneakeater said:

Holy shit.  I read that — that very edition — when I was maybe 12.  I snuck it off my parents’ bookshelf:    I wasn’t supposed to be reading books like that.

Really all I remember about it was the cover.

Wow. 

I recently found a picture of the cover of Andrew Halloran’s first novel as a mass market (gay appeal) paperback. I’ll post it if I can find it again. And he’s so serious.

I felt bad because Moore had serious intentions, but hardly had the chance to develop into a writer who could execute them.

Incidentally, I found this copy online for $4 (plus shipping) and it is absolutely mint. As new. Must be used.

[Wilfrid]

My parents didn’t have anything salacious in the house. I did get into trouble as a young teenager for borrowing what my father deemed inappropriate books from the library.

The one I remember upset him, and I am not even joking, was Sartre’s The Age of Reason. There was a BBC television version he might have been aware of.

He didn’t have the awareness to think: well that’s a little adult, but hey he’s reading Sartre.

[Wilfrid]

An eye-opener for me was Puzo. I took a copy of The Godfather with me on a scouting trip. I must have been 11 or 12.There is some strong sex in there. Long before the movies of course.

[small h]

1 hour ago, StephanieL said:

My mom left Judith Krantz novels lying around.

I had to acquire those on my own, ditto Danielle Steele, Jackie Collins and VC Andrews. Too lowbrow for our fancy bookshelves. Plenty of Tom Robbins, though.

[joethefoodie]

4 hours ago, Sneakeater said:

I’d have been better off sneaking Candy.

Remember the movie?

[Sneakeater]

I mean, the movie was not good.

Although I really do love the genre of totally bonkers late-'60s movies.

[Sneakeater]

Well I mean it was good-bad but not evil.

[Wilfrid]

Because I reversed into Holleran’s wonderful work from his late and heavy novels this is weird. Not weird if you started here.

[splinky]

[Wilfrid]

This year's Thanksgiving Nero Wolfe novells: "A Window for Death." Particularly excited as I saw the relevance of the missing ice cream ahead of Archie.

[Wilfrid]

I finished Ottessa Moshfegh's most recent novel Lapvona a couple of weeks ago, and have been pondering my reaction. Her three novels featuring (more or less) contemporary female main characters -- Eileen, My Year of Rest and Recreation and Death in Her Hands -- were all remarkable. Grim, maniacal but also very funny. Her earlier novella McGlue, set in 19th century New York with a male central character, was violent and funny and very well written.

So Lapvona. It has levels of visceral cruelty -- ultra-violence -- that far exceed anything in the other works. It's an excruciating read at times, reminding me of Selby's notorious The Room. The thing is, Selby (and Sade, for that matter) is depicting horror in the service of sincerely held beliefs he wishes to communicate with urgency.

Moshfegh just seems to be getting her kicks. I am uncomfortable with this book. I do still have her short stories to read.

[Wilfrid]

My Christmas Nero Wolfe story was “Immune to Murder,” hugely entertaining but outrageously unfair, the solution based on facts about brook trout not vouchsafed to the reader and very improbably vouchsafed to Wolfe. But there’s a massive clue lying around anyway.