Books as guilty pleasures.....

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Ok - I confess - I am reading "Forever Amber" (which has been reprinted).

I NEVER read romance novels - or so I tell myself (though I love the cynical, ascerbic and sensual historical novels of Phillipa Gregory!)

BUT - Forever Amber is - or so the jacket blurb says - "The original bodice ripper". And I am LOVING it - she is on her third husband - has lived through everything including the Plague and the Great Fire of London - has just murdered husband number three - and is dicing for position of most powerful mistress of Charles II - I can't put it down!!!

I am kinda ashamed - especially given the great pile of deep and meaningful fiction and work-related literature overflowing all constraints, like our heroine's breasts when she takes her corset off...ahem.....

Anyhoo - what are YOUR guilty pleasures? And what do you love about them?

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Nothing half as exciting as Forever Amber, Deb ..... sorry to disappoint.

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I like the "bride of the tower"

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When tired and in need of light comfortable feel-good reading I like Georgette Heyer's books - sort of Pride & Predjudice/Sense and Sensibility-ish

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Hmmm - I had forgetten ol' Georgette existed!

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I don't recall ever feeling guilty about reading anything, but the notorious autobiography of Frank Harris, "My Life and Loves" is a smashing read.

It's not just because of the incredibly straightforward descriptions of his sexual escapades, but also for his candid opinions of so many popular figures of the day, including Wilde, Crane, Whitman, and Lord Randolph Churchill, among others.

It's porn with passion, wit, and insight. The damn thing is nearly 1000 pages, and he was an editor!

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I'm fond of fantasy and science fiction--including some rather sentimental fantasies and some unabashed space opera in which Our Heroine saves the day.

As for Forever Amber. I read that book when I was twelve. It made me feel very sophisticated and worldly. It was more glamourous than Gone with the Wind.

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cavfancier wrote:

I don't recall ever feeling guilty about reading anything, but the notorious autobiography of Frank Harris, "My Life and Loves" is a smashing read.

It's not just because of the incredibly straightforward descriptions of his sexual escapades, but also for his candid opinions of so many popular figures of the day, including Wilde, Crane, Whitman, and Lord Randolph Churchill, among others.

It's porn with passion, wit, and insight. The damn thing is nearly 1000 pages, and he was an editor!

Lol! I began that - read about him in a scholarly work on Victorian pornography ("The Other Victorians") that I had to read as part off my honours degree.

I bought his book - never got into it, really - but it was interesting.

Heehee - speaking of guilty pleasures, I moved back to my dad's house briefly in my final honours year - and brought my books with me, of course - I found "The Other Victorians" missing - and knew - since it quoted lots of steamy passages - that my father was having a guilty pleasure of his own....odd feeling - we know our parents have NO SEXUAL FEELINGS - or ought not to have!

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Noddy24 wrote:

I'm fond of fantasy and science fiction--including some rather sentimental fantasies and some unabashed space opera in which Our Heroine saves the day.

As for Forever Amber. I read that book when I was twelve. It made me feel very sophisticated and worldly. It was more glamourous than Gone with the Wind.

Hmmm - I loved SF as an adolescent - short stories, mainly. I have never got into fantasy - except LOTR - again as an adolescent.

Murder mysteries are a bit of a guilty pleasure for me - you know Ruth Rendell/Barbara Vine, Minette walters, stuff like that.

They are guilty pleasures because thay are all, I guess, about schadenfreude - even if only fictional - which is not a feeling I believe one ought to cultivate - and, in the case of Rendell, her view of humanity is so bleak and unforgiving - and she details the seamier side of us with such startling radiance. Not the sinful side of us - just the ordinary, sordid, pedestrian awfulness - Salutory, prolly.

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I'll read it all - literally - and I have no guilt/no shame. Romance/mystery/War and Peace/The Tao of Bow-Wow/Fran Liebowitz/E.F. Benson - it's all in the mix.

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Actually, Noddy - I am quite fond of dear Scarlett! GWTW is certainly a guilty pleasure. And, she is way ahead of her day re women's stuff - though, of course, 'orrid on black stuff.

I will never forget the day I happened on that book - I think I was about 10 or 11 - I loved it - though I knew already that her stuff on black people was terrible.

I think I found Wouk's "Marjorie Morningstar" at about the same time - loved that as well.

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ehBeth wrote:

I'll read it all - literally - and I have no guilt/no shame. Romance/mystery/War and Peace/The Tao of Bow-Wow/Fran Liebowitz/E.F. Benson - it's all in the mix.

Who is Fran Leibowitz?

I have read some Benson. It got too - nasty(?) - for my taste? Just relentlessly cynical - I can only take so much satire in that sort of form - I find things like Catch 22 and The House of God warmer and more hopeful.

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I digress a bit, but I was curious if the bunny had read Anais Nin's 'Cities of the Interior'?

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I shouldn't admit this but I still get itchy fingers when I come across "Mad" magazine.

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Hmmm - I read the de rigeur amount of Nin in the late seventies, Cav - finding her an overblown, over-hothouse, over-sensitivised, over-celebrated bore!

I don't recall Cities of the Interior especially - I take it is erotica??

Did you like it?

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boomerang wrote:

I shouldn't admit this but I still get itchy fingers when I come across "Mad" magazine.

Do you recall the one where the cover was printed as though it was War and Peace? Only upside down?

BTW - I think Mad Magazine has reached heights of cool - and one might now well read War and peace with a cover made to look like Mad Magazine, in order to appear intellectual!

Cav - never fear to digress on a thread of mine!

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Oh - I have a lovely boxed set of Nin's diaries!

She looked like my closest friend of that period.....

Man - that was a great time! Well - it was when study stuff and lerve wasn't making me miserable!

Edit:

http://www.morbidoutlook.com/nonfiction/articles/images/2001_03_anaisnin_mp.jpg

This is the version of Nin my friend looked like - only less hectically dressed!

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dlowan wrote:

Man - that was a great time! Well - it was when study stuff and lerve wasn't making me miserable!

Fondly remembered by many of us as well

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Don't scorn fantasy--most fantasy comes with happy endings and when reality is too much with me I need those happy endings.

By the by, when you call F/SF "speculative fiction" it is socially aceptable. I read speculative fiction, too.

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dlowan wrote:

Hmmm - I read the de rigeur amount of Nin in the late seventies, Cav - finding her an overblown, over-hothouse, over-sensitivised, over-celebrated bore!

I don't recall Cities of the Interior especially - I take it is erotica??

Did you like it?

Actually, it's not erotica. I found it interesting. Here is a link: http://www.ohiou.edu/oupress/citiesinterior.htm

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Books as guilty pleasures.....

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