(Part 2) Reddit mentions: The best womens literature books

OK, so Im suggesting a few things that I think might fit with what you said you liked. Also, I tried to keep in mind that the book needs to appeal to a male and a female at the same time and if you are reading something sexy you might appreciate lots of graphic sex scenes. Some of these have good plots but they are erotica at the end of the day.

First, I'm recommending some short stories. It occurred to me you might like short stories if you are reading together so here are a few to give you an idea of what kind of stuff is out there. Available on paperback and kindle.


Got a Minute? 60 second erotica


I want you bad: Obsessed erotic romance for women


Down and Dirty: 69 super sexy short shorts


Yes, Ma'am: erotic stories of male submission (heheheh you said kinky was ok)


Penthouse Variations on Submission

OK now to series:

Lorelei James has a series on shibari/bondage which is pretty steamy hot. Its called :

Bound: the Mastered Series Her stuff its not super crazy kinky. Its focus is more on bondage than full on BDSM. She also writes sexy cowboy romances. I havent tried her cowboy romances but she writes well. I dont doubt they're good.

Beg by CD Reiss is the first in a series. Its a kinky contemporary romance set in LA. Its got a plot, its decent writing and its got kinky sex. I'm recommending this one because it appeared in several "best of" lists the year it first came out. Its nine short novellas. I havent finished the entire series. I read the first six.

All of the following have the same type of storyline as Beg above. A handsome successful man and a smart feisty woman. Theres secrets and drama and after a while they bore you but if you want to start with something like that these are very popular.


Bared to you by Silvia Day. This is a super famous and popular romance. It also came out in "best of " lists the year it came out.

If you really liked Sylvia Day then the next series to read is this one:

Say my Name by J. Kenner

what do you think? Does any of this look good to you? I have other recommendations if none of this appeals to you. Let me know.

Edit:
I forgot to mention Julia Kent for funny sexy romances. Random Acts of crazyis a series. I've read all of them except the first one. The first is on my to-read list. The other is Olivia Cunning The Sinners on tour It's a rock and roll romance series about a band. It's silly funny and has tons of sex. (Both of these series have at least one book with MFM romances)

Most of these recommendations are sort of peripherally queer, so they may not be exactly what you're looking for, but I figured I'd throw them out there in case you're interested.

I admit I'm not a big fan of it, but Virginia Woolf's Orlando is definitely a queer text. The titular character changes from male to female, and the book itself is often read as a love letter to Vita Sackville-West, the woman with whom Woolf had a love affair. I had trouble getting engaged in it myself, but your mileage may vary.

Santa Olivia (and the sequel, Saints Astray) by Jacqueline Carey features a lesbian romance. Not super heavy, but they're fairly quick, fun reads. Carey's Kushiel series (beginning with Kushiel's Dart) might qualify as queer, in that it embraces and celebrates all types of relationships and sexualities (they are set in a society where the gods' most sacred precept is "Love as thou wilt," and bisexuality and open relationships are typical). The primary love stories are heterosexual, but the characters also often engage in same-sex relationships (both sexually and emotionally), and there are supporting characters of various sexual persuasions.

The Tamir Trilogy by Lynn Flewelling is about the rightful heir to the throne in a troubled kingdom. Born female, she was magically disguised as a boy in order to protect her (the usurper king has been making noblewomen disappear in order to protect the succession of his own son). It maybe doesn't explore the consequences of Tobin/Tamir being essentially transgendered as deeply as it could, but it's an interesting and enjoyable read.

The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin is a sci-fi classic that plays with gender and sexuality. The basic concept is that, on the planet of Winter, everyone is hermaphroditic. Le Guin's thoughtful exploration of this world was incredibly groundbreaking at the time it was written, and it remains a really enjoyable and thought-provoking read.

Octavia Butler's work also often embraces feminist and queer themes, playing with sexuality and gender. Fledgling and the Xenogenesis Trilogy are some you might find interesting.

The Female Man by Joanna Russ is an explicitly feminist book with some queer themes. It follows women from four alternate realities (one of which is a utopia populated entirely by women) as they cross over into each others' worlds. It's not always an easy read--it can be very fragmetary--but it's totally worth it.

I also just stumbled across this self-proclaimed Gay Fiction Booklist That Doesn't Suck. Some of the above books are listed, and there are a bunch more sci-fi/fantasy titles that might be of interest.

Happy reading!

I love this idea! This is really difficult to do, though.

I looked through my lists of books and didn't find any that started with these words, but I combed through Amazon and found some. Mind you, I haven't read these, so I can't recommend them or not.

Also, for "marry", it is really hard to find books that start with that word spelled like that unless they're called something like "Marry me" which might kind of give it away. Maybe go with "Mary" or "Merry" for the spelling? Just a thought.

Anyway, books! I selected a bunch, some might have funny titles. I didn't know what kind of a vibe you were going for, so I figured I'd throw out what I found, silly or not.

Will

Will the Real Martian Please Stand Up?

Will You Still Love Me in the Morning?

Will and Me: How Shakespeare Took Over My Life

Will You Marry Me? For obvious reasons, if you use this one, I'd recommend giving the books in reverse order (Me, Marry, You,Will)-- or if you want to sound like Yoda.


You

You Suck: A Love Story This one is by Christopher Moore, a hilarious author.

You Only Live Twice This is a James Bond novel

You Can't Go Home Again This is a classic, and is supposed to be amazing. I've never read it though. :/

You Shall Know Them This looks really philosophical and strange.

You Never Know With Women Harlequin cheap novel. Didn't know the sense of humor, could be funny. Har har.

You Get So Alone at Times That It Just Makes Sense Bukowski.


Mary

Mary Shelley's Frankenstein Warning! Linked book is abridged. Booo.
Mary Barton Never heard of it, but Amazon calls it a classic.
Mary This one is by Nabokov.


Merry

The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood

The Merry Wives of Windsor Shakespeare.


Marry

Marry Your Baby Daddy Tee hee.

Marry Anerley This is large print and has no reviews. :/

Marry Me This one is by John Updike. I've never read anything by him, but he is supposed to be pretty good.


Me

Me Talk Pretty One Day Someone else suggested this and I second it. If you haven't read it, it is a book of short bits by the author about struggling with his speech in Paris. It is really good.

Me Tanner, You Jane Suspense thriller? Never heard of it.

Me Again People with amnesia. This book has really good reviews.

Me and Emma This one also has really good reviews.

Me! Okay, this one is a kids' book, but depending on personalities, it could work, so I threw it in here.


I hope this helps and that someone has read some of these books and can tell you if they are any good. Either way, let us know what you end up doing!!

1.) Something that is blue.
"Something Blue" IS blue

2.) Something that says summer (literally or figuratively).
Summer Dress

3.) Something food related that is unusual.
Did not expect to find this food

4.) Something you want to gift to someone else, and tell me why.
Because Sloths I want to gift this to my friend because not only does she love sloths, she kinda is one:p

5.) A book I should read! I am an avid reader, so take your best shot and tell me why I need to read it!
THIS ONE Its gonna be good;p

6.) An item that is less than a dollar, including shipping... that is not jewelry, nail polish, and or hair related!
This cutie

7.) Something related to dogs. (Bonus point if it works for my GSD)
Make me fierce

8.) Something that is not useful, but so awesome you must have it.
I'm expensive, so I have to be cool right?

9.) A movie everyone should watch at least once in their life. Why?
We've got cows Because its amazing and bad and amazing.

10.) Something that would be useful when the zombies attack. Explain.
You can't go wrong with a name like this

11.) Something that would have a profound impact on your life and help you to achieve your current goals.
To keep my fun job organized I do special effects make up and this would help me be able to go more places and get more jobs!

12.) One of those pesky Add-On items.
Why can't I buy just this

13.) Something fandom related. (Sports fandoms are acceptable- bonus if someone figures out my favorite team)
A new fandom of mine

14.) Something ridiculously priced, more than $10,000. They exist, y’all. Too much money for a watch yall

15.) Something with sharks or unicorns.
Why not both?

16.) Something that smells wonderful.
No regrets

17.) A toy that you wanted or had when you were a child that was the best ever, or (if it’s not on amazon) a toy that you think is pretty cool now (Funko Pops, etc., will count.)
I just really wanted one and never got one

18.) Something that would be helpful for writers.
This would be helpful for writers who may not "write"

19.) Something related to your current obsession, whatever that may be.
My current rewatch

20.) Something that is just so random and weird that it makes you laugh.
Since I own pigeons this is amazingly funny

I’m an INFJ (25F) and I haven’t ever been good at casual sex. My first long term partner was a male and our sex life was never good. He just wasn’t too interested in having sex or making sure it was good for me. He was my first sexual partner and I tried to convince myself that our relationship was decent enough in other ways to sustain me throughout my life, but the passion that lacked in the bedroom lacked other places as well and eventually the relationship ended. And I’m so glad it did. I went on to have a same-sex relationship that was mainly built on sex and friendship. We laughed together, stayed up all night talking on the phone, and had sex pretty much every time we were together. I fell hard and fast for her but there wasn’t a foundation of honesty and the relationship basically exploded in on itself and left both of us deeply hurting. Then I found my current partner. Our relationship is built on respect, honesty, and love for each other. And he is extremely passionate and loving both physically and emotionally.

I once read in a book that love is like fire. There are different kinds of fires: a hearth fire (safe, warm, kinda boring), a bonfire (contained but barely, warm, exciting), a wildfire (absolutely passionate and destructive, burns down everything in its path), a sparkler (one night stand), etc. I think every person needs to figure out what fire is the best kind for their life. I don’t know how much of that has to do with personality typing versus life experiences, but I do know that when I had to really work to convince myself to focus on sex every single time, that that relationship wasn’t right for me.

Of course, there are still moments with my current partner where I get distracted or want to change course, but I just tell him and he adjusts and we move forward together.

Hello! It's nearly Thanksgiving...that warm, fuzzy time of year when I love to curl up inside where it's warm. My guilty pleasure is watching Hallmark movies from about now until the new year. I've just written a Hallmark-style, feel good romance novel. If anyone is interested in checking it out, it's free on Amazon today, November 27, 2019. I hope you enjoy, and Happy Thanksgiving!

_____________________________________________________________________________________________

Ava

Ambitious and creative, Ava Parker has visions of transforming Sweetlove, North Dakota into a vacation paradise. One problem: she's an outsider. Can she win over the residents of Sweetlove and earn her workaholic father's approval, or will she always struggle to fit in?

​

Nick

Hard-working and stubborn, Nick Anderson hates change. He's been fighting to save his parents' beloved pumpkin patch for years - and it's cost him dearly. Can he open his mind - and his heart - to new possibilities?

​

This is a standalone, Hallmark-style romance novel with no cliffhangers. There is no cheating, no foul language, and the book has a "happily ever after" ending.

_____________________________________________________________________________________________

Free today, November 27, 2019.

Download here: http://amazon.com/dp/B081QQTJ2C

#sweetromance #cleanromance #wholesomeromance

This is a fantastic and really compelling topic—thanks for posting!

> Do you think people associate being well-dressed/fashionable with being thin?

I really think a lot of people do, and it's something that we feel guilty about but can't help having internalized, after years of seeing associations of "fashionable people" as having specific kinds of "fashionable bodies". A lot of traditional "dressing for your body type" advice focuses on slenderizing and making someone appear thinner. I think that, for a lot of people (although less so on FFA—I think we're really good about this) the go-to compliment when someone is dressed in a super flattering way is, "Wow, you look so thin in that!"

I think also that people tend to be very critical of their own bodies and much kinder to others…I've personally had the experience of thinking, "I'm probably a much bigger size than this friend!" and then realizing when we swap clothes that we're about the same size. It's easy to get a distorted sense of what you look like.

Another thought—specifically on FFA, I sometimes see people complain that we don't have a great diversity of bodies posting in WAYWT (sorry for the awkward wording with that), and I really think that part of it is that we tend to have this illusion that well-dressed people are probably thinner and have more traditionally beautiful bodies. Particularly online, it's super hard to tell what size someone is, and I think when someone is very well-dressed, you'll notice how suited the outfit is to the person and how that person is expressing herself in a confident way. And you compare that to how you view yourself, which is hyperaware of your own body weirdness and perceived flaws…

I think I—and probably other FFAers—kind of recognize that we need to deprogram ourselves from what we understand as "fashionable bodies" (for our own self-confidence and also when viewing others), but it's hard to break years of internalized stereotypes.

> Do you identify with a size or try to think more about the range of sizes you wear?

Your wording of this is really interesting, because I think it gets at how I feel about size discussions—we've been socialized into identifying strongly with size as a marker for beauty/health/acceptance into the fashion world. Even body-positive messages tend to fixate on 'reclaiming' a certain size and re-pitching it as beautiful—e.g. Size 12 Is Not Fat. I really think the best way to talk about size is to realize that it's an arbitrary industry convenience, and you are not intrinsically a size 4, say, and being a size 4 instead of a 6 isn't better, and identifying as size is futile when there are so many different ways of measuring clothing size.

I largely think that it's not malicious when retailers have incredibly varying sizes, or their size range changes over time, or that things like 00s exist. It's a manufacturing convenience. They need to label their clothing. They need to make assumptions about what women are shaped as—and sometimes those assumptions feel unfair, yes, but I think the best way to go about it is to realize that those sizes aren't meant to say anything about beauty or health or women's bodies. They're just labels. (Things like having a limited size range—e.g. designer labels not going up to what's traditionally considered plus sizing—is another thing entirely, though.)

I’m a self-publishing author and I’m offering my latest eBook, Will-O'-the-Wisp Point, for FREE in the hopes of getting reviews in return. Will-O'-the-Wisp Point is my fourth novel and this time I’m focused on reviews. If a free book interests you, then please download my eBook within the next 5 days, Oct. 1st - Oct 5th.

https://www.amazon.com/Will-Wisp-Point-Xann-shapella-Smith-ebook/dp/B07WJ7KC1N/ref=sr_1_1?crid=14WDDBH2HOVRM&keywords=xann-shapella+smith&qid=1569943860&sprefix=xann-shap%2Caps%2C214&sr=8-1

If you would be so kind to write a review and give a girl a helping hand, I would be very grateful. When I graduated from college many years ago, my goal was to be a screenwriter and director. Family obligations took my life in a different direction. I’m still trying to accomplish my life-long dream, beginning with Will-O'-the-Wisp Point as my first film. This is why reviews are so important. Over the years, I have continued to write and have amassed an impressive amount of screenplays, including the story behind Will-O’-the-Wisp Point. Two years ago, I entered the world of self-publishing as an author. Adding novelist to my resume has been an exciting journey. I hope you enjoy my latest book and would truly appreciate a review on Amazon. I’m also featured on Goodreads, so sharing your review there would be amazing as well. Thank you so much, Xann

It's real! Didn't take me long to find the actual title on Amazon: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Jemima-J-Jane-Green/dp/0140276904/ref=sr_1_9?ie=UTF8&qid=1493499972&sr=8-9&keywords=jane+green

Flap synopsis:

"Jemima Jones is overweight. About one hundred pounds overweight. Treated like a maid by her thin and social-climbing roommates, and lorded over by the beautiful Geraldine (less talented but better paid) at the "Kilburn Herald, Jemima finds that her only consolation is food. Add to this her passion for her charming, sexy, and unobtainable colleague Ben, and Jemima knows her life is in need of a serious change. When she meets Brad, an eligible California hunk, over the Internet, she has the perfect opportunity to reinvent herself-as JJ, the slim, beautiful, gym-obsessed glamour girl. But when her long-distance Romeo demands that they meet, she must conquer her food addiction to become the bone-thin model of her e-mails-no small feat.
With a fast-paced plot that never quits and a surprise ending no reader will see coming, "Jemima J is the chronicle of one woman's quest to become the woman she's always wanted to be, learning along the way a host of lessons about attraction, addiction, the meaning of true love, and, ultimately, who she really is. "

Ctrl + F: Reading - brought up a lot of self-help and therapy books, which are amazing, and we should all read the good ones.

 

Might I suggest a different kind of reading, if you're into beach books? I hated my body with a fiery passion when I entered college. I dressed to hide it, and kept my hair long, and boring. My body was banging, I'd just learned to hide it because I felt so much fatter than my skinny friends who got all the attention.

 

Then I read Jemima J and it was like turning on a dim light, I started feeling a very tiny little bit better about my body and insecurities. Then I read Bet Me and felt massively better, like that dim light dialed up to about 60%. These books are not amazing works of literature. But they're written by and for women who have been talked down to, and who talk down to themselves, their entire lives. And something about realizing, ".............Holy shit, I'm not the only one who hates myself? And I don't have to hate myself for hating myself?" It wasn't an overnight fix, I'm still a headcase much of the time (32 year old lonely virgin) but it was like a little switch that gave me such a different perspective on life and my place in life. I don't resent the space I take up anymore.

 

I don't know if you have any issues that are in sync with me or the characters in this book, but I think women like you and I need better female role models, even if they aren't real ones. We can work on that later. Right now, you just need some modeling of women who aren't perfect and perky, but manage to keep their head above water. And it might help if you can take some time to enjoy moments here and there.

 

The type of therapy that best help me heal a lot of pain from my childhood (not as bad as yours, but did have a parent tell all the parents in 5th grade to not let me or by brother come play, because we were too outspoken, so we got uninvited from birthday parties, or at least, I did), the therapy was called Internal Family Systems and it was pretty life-changing it teaching me how to de-escalate my anxieties and self-loathing.

 

I'm sending good vibes and good heart feelings in your direction, and a little bit of love that you can hold on to until you start finding your own :)

I just moved some things around on my wishlists yesterday. I am really bad about reorganizing my wishlists all the time :P

fear cuts deeper than swords

1. Something that is grey OPI Silver Nailpolish Added July 17 to $5 and Under Wishlist Silver..Grey..Close Enough?
   
   
2. Something reminiscent of rain Ancient Aliens Season 3 Added July 28 to DVD Wishlist This is a stretch - it has a storm on the cover :P
   
   
3. Something food related that is unusual - Black Truffle Sea Salt Added July 15 to The Hubby Wishlist He loves to cook and likes to experiment with different spices.
   
   
4. Something on my list that is for someone else - Game of Thrones Season 1 Added July 15 to The Hubby Wishlist. I got my husband the eBook version of the Game of Thrones series and he has been wanting to watch the show. We don't have HBO so we haven't had a chance to see the show.
   
   
5. A book to read - More Plums in One Added May 17 to Book Wishlist The Step Plum series is a great series and I really recommend it.
   
   
6. Less than 99 cents MP3 Added July 17 to MP3 Wishlist
   
   
7. Something related to cats - Petco Giftcard Added May 20 to My Furbaby Minnie Wishlist
   
   
8. Something so beautiful but not useful - Thomas Kinkade Cinderella Castle Cross Stitch Added August 9 to Crafting Wishlist I think this cross stitch kit is very beautiful. I have always been a big fan of Disney and love the colors in this piece. It is crazy expensive though!
   
   
9. Movie everyone should see - Evil Dead 2 Added June 13 to DVD Wishlist Why? Campy horror and Bruce Campbell!
   
   
10. Zombie attack - Swiss Army Knife Added July 15 to The Hubby Wishlist It would be good for a zombie attack as it is a tool that has many purpose. It would be very helpful for survival. Maybe not necessarily this version but a Swiss Army Knife in general :P
    
    
11. Profound Impact - Bed of Nails Neck Pillow Added July 29 to Migraine Wishlist. It is suppose to really help with neck pain. I suffer from migraines and a lot of the time I have horrible neck pain with it. It is something I would like to try sometime. My current goal is to try to find new ways to deal with pain.
    
    
12. Add On - Waste Canvas Added July 22 to $5 and Under Wishlist. This item is used to add cross stitch to other types of fabric. When I am done stitching the canvas will "melt" away with water.
    
    
13. My Dream Item - Nintendo Wii Added August 10 to Household Wishlist. We use to have one before it died a year and a half ago. I would love to get another one as hubby and I love to play video games.
    
    
14. Bigger than a breadbox - Small Dog Evacuation Kit Added May 20. This just seems like a good item to have in case of any disaster.
    
    
15. Smaller than a goftball - Snowflake Necklace Added August 10 to Things to Wear Wishlist. My husband and I got married Jan 9. Our reception theme was snowflakes so these reminds me of our wedding :)
    
    
16. Something that smells wonderful - Eco Clean Set Added August 9 to Beauty Wishlist.
    
    
17. SFW Toy - Merida Funko July 16 to $5 to $10 Wishlist. My husband got me the special edition Merida Funko for my birthday so I want to get the regular version as well.
    
    
18. Helpful for back to school - Sharpies July 17 to $5 to $10 Wishlist. Sharpies are so versatile and can be used for all sorts of things! The ones I linked are metallic colors and so pretty.
    
    
19. Current Obsession - Cross Stitch Owl Ornaments Added July 17 to Crafting Wishlist My current obsession is getting ready for the holidays. I want to start doing some Xmas projects so I have all I want done before Xmas.
    
    
20. Amazing and Grand - Art of Disney Princesses Book Added August 6 to Book Wishlist. I think this is so awesome! I love Disney especially the Princesses. This book shows the Princesses in all sorts of artistic ways, not just how we normally see them drawn.
    
    Bonus
    
    Made in Oregon Lip Balm Gift Set Added August 11 to Beauty Wishlist :P I did a search for this contest and found something that goes with one of my obsessions - lip gloss!

I really like romantic comedies but it's so difficult to find good ones because they tend to get lost amongst the serious stuff on kindle. But recently I've stumbled on enough that Kindle's gotten better at recommending them to me, which is great.

I'd recommend the following:

• Wallbanger, a rom-com about two neighbours.
  
• The Island, a steamy drama about two a shipwrecked teacher & student.
  
• The Wishes, more of a general chick-lit comedy, but good none-the-less.
  
• Can You Keep a Secret?, a rom-com about a girl who tells her life story to a stranger when their plane appears to be crashing.
  
• Anything by Nicholas Sparks.
  
• Anything by Marian Keyes, I'm a particular fan of Sushi For Beginners.
  
• Twenty Eight and a Half Wishes. I really rooted for the main character (who predicts her own death).
  
• Eversea, oh my god sooo trashy. It's one of those "small town girl falls in love with famous guy" books but I got way sucked in!
  
• Baby & Bump, sappy new single mother + new love type of book but still a good read
  
  
  The good thing about the Kindle Store is that you can download and read the first few chapters before committing to buying the rest.

Santa Olivia by Jacqueline Carey: think Hunger Games meets military conspiracy meets cute lesbian boxers. Quick, interesting, fluffy read.

Strangers In Paradise by Terry Moore: an awesome graphic novel series about a gay lady and her not quite gay best friend who she also has a crush on. Lots of twists and drama. This was one of the defining books of my high school experience. There's a complete collection coming out in August, if you want to wait on that.

Tropical Storm by Melissa Good: Set in Miami, this one deals with the politics, romance and intrigue in the corporate/tech world. It's old, so some of the tech references are a little dated, but the plot still stands up. Good if you like the tough, bossy, hard-femme archetype. There's also some interesting history with this author and the Xena series.

Jericho by Ann McMan: It's set in a small town in West Virginia and revolves around opening a library and a new romance. Sounds boring, I know, but it's totally not. This is probably the most organically funny book I've ever read (as in, there's no hilariously wacky scenarios a la Christopher Moore, just classic, funny writing). There are also a ton of gay characters and very little "coming out angst." I've read it at least 3 times, check it out.

And Playing the Role of Herself by K.E. Lane: Its primarily a romance between two stars on a "Law and Order" type TV show in LA. I'm not a romance fan but the characters are just so damn relatable. The writing is also witty and really captures the essence of a new relationship. It's not angsty, not cliche, and not too smutty.

--- Also, if you do a little Google-fu, you can find the original, free publications of some of these books that the authors posted way back when. But if you can afford them, support the authors :)

I love reading and I can honestly say that Howl's Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones is my favorite book of all time. I love the character. I love the magic. I love the relationship and the subtle romance.

If I win I would love any book from my books and comics wishlist. I would really love this one though :)

I just finished reading Roberto Bolaño's 2666 This book is massive, it is broken up in 5 parts which are in turn narrated by: John Lee, Armando Durán, G. Valmont Thomas, Scott Brick, and Grover Gardner ( my favorite of the 5 ). Structure of the book is strange, the style of the first part is one of serial narration where a narrator tells you the story serially to the beginning of the second part, in the second portion the style shifts to more conventional interweaving of multiple view points, the third portion undergoes a third style change as does the fourth and the fifth. The story is disjointed but is brought together at the end. It is a large complex work with many appealing passages but also with passages that are at times unbearable. The work is split among 5 narrators, up until I read this book I could not understand the animosity expressed by other audiobook readers towards Scott Brick. Having read several books on which he is the main Narrator, his style never bothered me. However upon hearing his declamatory style in the midst of other narrators, his section, begun to grate on me but this soon subsided. His section is the longest and the most difficult to traverse (due to the subject matter) but after he does an adequate job. Of the five my least favorite narrator was Armando Durán. Perhaps because I felt that he was trying too hard. The book is interesting and massive but unlike other large massive books (Gravity's Rainbow, Ulysses, Infinite Jest ) I am not in a hurry to re-read this one. Bolaño, in an (perhaps unconscious) homage to Joyce regales the reader with a variety of styles and each separate world he paints out of the separate parts of the story, he stays above the story being very meticulous to keep lines of demarcation well defined. Obviously a great work, by a great talent.

I also read "The Girl with Curious Hair" written by David Foster Wallace and read by David Petkoff. And excellent book by Wallace containing several separate stories in a variety of styles. From A Jeopardy genius, To a conservative yuppie psychopath, to rides on a Ronald MacDonald stand-in home made car, everything goes. Great fun for DFW fans and those who need an introduction to his work.

I am presently re-reading a classic series I first read about 15 years ago, The many Colored Land by Julian May, and narrated by: Bernardette Dunne. It is amazing how enthralling this book is, although a bit syrupy in small places, sci-fi at its finest. Nice depth of knowledge from the author. My only worry is that I did not see other volumes in the series having made it to Audio yet and I am afraid, I will end up dusting off my old collection of paper backs to satisfy my Jones for the Tanu and torks after I finish the volume.

>What would be different in this case is that they are very similar to each other, and that they do not only imagine what might be going on in the other person’s head at the time, as we do when we talk with someone, but they are actually are in the other person’s head. So what difference does this make?

And that's the scenario that makes my head spin - LOL. Let's face it: you know they'd arrange that experiment; they would want to know what happens. Not sure if that makes them good scientists or bad ones - LOL.

> These fictional texts have shaped in their own small ways how I react to and in this world. The experiences these texts narrate are not “my” experiences, but they shape my experience. The feelings are mine, even if they are based on something I “merely” read, on something that happened in a different, fictional universe.

nods Yes, very true. In this particular fic, the Primes are observing, yes, but they're also experiencing everything firsthand. One of the reasons why the other universes linger is because for those 5 seconds in Prime!Universe, they are no longer the Primes, but their counterparts. When they return to the Prime!Universe, they once again have their own identities/emotions/memories along with the identities/emotions/memories of the others.

Guh. So many interesting ethical/moral dilemmas with this scenario - LOL!!

>I’d love to read that expanded reworking of the story. Would you mind linking me to your non-fan-fiction books?

It's gonna be awhile before I get to revising All the Roads are Winding - :( . Right now, I only have one self-published book,
and it's a light and fluffy-ish chick lit novel. My second novel is FINALLY finished (cue ugly sobbing of relief) and it's another light and fluffyish chick lit novel. I'm tentatively aiming for Dec. 1st as the release date. I don't really have an author website (I had a Wordpress blog but I haven't done anything with it for the last few years) but that will need to be changed since I'm hoping to speed up my publishing rate - LOL.

I really need to set up a web presence but trying to figure out where/how and then making the time to maintain a presence...ugh. Ah, well, I'll figure things out eventually. :)

> ...their were so many people who will list that they're willing to pay $10-25/hr, then at the end of the interview drop the bomb that it's half that...And then they'll try to talk your rate down and negotiate and guilt people into watching their kids. Like, well $6/hr for 40 hours a week still comes to $960 a month, which is plenty enough for a college student to live on. Sure, it's technically enough money, but why would I take that when I have a family willing to pay more than double that?… Then when I say, I'm sorry, I can't take much, I get a slew of, "Oh, you should be grateful, it's a job" and "we really can't afford more, but we want the best for our baby". Having a budget isn't something to be ashamed of, but you can't get a Lexus on a Honda budget. Also, half the people telling me they can't afford to pay more than $250/week for childcare are living in half a million dollar homes!

I am vividly reminded of the book (which I'm sure you've read) The Nanny Diaries. A good portion of the book gets into how the 1%-ers in Manhattan absolutely want the best childcare their precious snowflakes can get, but utterly refuse to pay what that care is worth, and then treat the nannies like shit on top of it.

It was a great book, but it made me so outraged on behalf of those poor nannies.