This Valentine's Day, resolve to make your bedroom over as a love nest. Step one: How about a stack of sexy books for the nightstand by your bed?

Here are five great gift suggestions chosen from the many titles I've covered in my ongoing Sexy Books feature over the last year:

1. Best Sex Writing 2010, edited by Rachel Kramer Bussel, selected and introduced by Mating In Captivity author Esther Perel.

Might as well start with the best of the best, right? (While you're at it, check out the other Best... 2010 titles from Cleis Press, including Best Women's Erotica 2010, Best Lesbian Romance 2010, Best Lesbian Erotica 2010, Best Gay Romance 2010, and Best Gay Erotica 2010).

2. Moregasm: Babeland's Guide to Mindblowing Sex, by Claire Cavanah, Rachel Venning, and Jessica Vitkus.

One seriously sexy reference book to rule them all, this one's dedicated to The Big O and the many enlightened paths that will lead there, whether
you're hetero, homo, bi, or going it alone. I love the Babeland Sex
Bill of Rights the book is built around, and Moregasm is full
of sexy science, nitty gritty anatomy lessons, and a vast introduction
to sex, sexuality, sex toys, safer sex practices, and the sex-positive
and female-friendly frank discussion of all things sex that has made
Babeland one of the best sex shops in the world.

3. Oysters & Chocolate: A Sensual Feast... Erotic stories of every flavor, edited by Jordan LaRousse and Samantha Sade.

I'm honored to say that this one comes from my very sexy colleagues Jordan & Samantha, who write here at Examiner as both the Denver Sex & Romance Examiners and the National Sex Scandals Examiners, in addition to running the erotica website OystersAndChocolate.com
these stories were selected from. This anthology explores "the many
different ingredients necessary to excite the mind and body," and its
contents are broken out into a "menu" representing various flavors of
erotica: Vanilla, Dirty Martini, Licorice Whips, and Oysters. Hungry?
Try pairing this one with The New Intercourses: An Aphrodisiac Cookbook, the first book i ever featured in Sexy Books.

4. Nerve: The First Ten Years

This one might be my favorite of all the sexy books I've collected since starting this gig as Sex & Relationships Examiner, and Nerve.com
has been an inspiration to me ever since I first started thinking
about, reading about, and writing about sex. This anthology of Nerve's
first decade (which also included a brief run as a print mag of
"Literate Smut") features the work of photographers Richard Kern,
George Pitts, Spencer Tunick, Barron Claiborne, Natasha Papadopoulou,
and Mike Dowson alongside A-List writers like Jonathan Lethem, Chuck
Palahniuk, and Jonathan Ames (plus interviews with the likes of Mary
Gaitskill, Norman Mailer, and David Cronenberg). The book's also online, for free, for all you cheapskates.

5. The Private Collection 1970-1979: The Best of the Revolutionary Swedish Sex Magazine, edited and with an introduction by Dian Hanson.

This delightfully retro anthology set from Taschen Books rehashes the glory days of Berth Milton's Private Magazine and some of the earliest roots of published hardcore pornography. Other sexy look-back books from Taschen worth more than a couple of looks: Bob's World: The Life & Boys of AMG's Bob Mizer and Hugh Hefner's Playboy 1953-1979

Don't miss Sarah Estrella's other Valentine's Day and Sexy Books articles, and check out the Examiner.com 2010 Valentine Guidefor sexy ideas from across the country. For the latest Sex & Relationships headlines, please subscribe to this column (above) and
follow @Sexaminer on Twitter. 

Posted by Cleis Press on February 8, 2010
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