Shelf life: our favourite reads

THIS WEEK: Don’t dismiss the power of a brilliant bonkbuster. Here, some of our favourite writers share their sexy reads

NOMINATED BY: DOLLY ALDERTON, AUTHOR OF EVERYTHING I KNOW ABOUT LOVE

I Love Dick

Chris Kraus

Julie March

I love how most of the sex is seen through Chris’s specific prism of fantasy. The radical thing about it is how uncensored her sexuality is. It’s not polite or tame, but unguarded, ravenous and obsessive. I hadn’t realised how little of raw female sexual expression we see in popular culture. I loved the prose, the exploration of infatuation and femininity – and I loved, loved, loved the descriptions of bonking!

NOMINATED BY: CANDICE CARTY- WILLIAMS, AUTHOR OF FORTHCOMING QUEENIE

Blue Is The Warmest Color

A French-adapted graphic novel about a young girl’s coming of lesbian age, this is as uniquely erotic as it is dark and melancholy. Given that their term for orgasm is ‘la petite mort’ (the little death), nobody does sad but oh-so-sexy like the French.

NOMINATED BY: JUNO DAWSON, SCREENWRITER AND AUTHOR OF THE GENDER GAMES AND CLEAN

Forever

Judy Blume

This teen classic details the burgeoning love between Katharine, Michael and Ralph – Michael’s penis. The whole plot is Katharine deciding to have sex, having sex, and pondering the aftermath. Judy Blume understands teenage girls better than anyone. As adults, we forget how momentous first-time sex is. Forever made a generation of young women feel seen and heard in their worries about sex.

NOMINATED BY: JOJO MOYES, BEST- SELLING AUTHOR AND FILM- MAKER

Riders

Jilly Cooper

Riders contains all my favourite teenage things – horses, arrogant, handsome men and badly behaved women – and left me with the (disappointingly unrealistic) expectation that men could bat bread rolls with unlikely bits of their anatomy!

NOMINATED BY: HARRIET EVANS, BEST- SELLING AUTHOR OF SEVERAL NOVELS INCLUDING FORTHCOMING THE WILDFLOWERS

Lace

Shirley Conran

I first bought this with the book token we all got when we left school, without realising it would be presented to me on stage. The looks from the parents! It’s about friendship and sex in a way that isn’t really examined today. The female characters are believable, fantastic women. Plus it is so glamorous and full of jaw-dropping details – and the goldfish!

NOMINATED BY: ALEXANDRA HEMINSLEY, AUTHOR AND GRAZIA BOOKS EDITOR

Valley Of The Dolls

Jacqueline Susann

Ludicrous yet inspiring, this gives us deliciously trashy prose and three unforgettable heroines. Dripping with ambition – for a better life, better sex, better hair and better sleep – they are at once victims of a male environment and determined to grab what they can of it.