Five Reads!

If you hadn't already guessed, we can be a little prudish here at FIVE.

And by prudish, I mean none of us are super into bondage.

Or masochism.

Or Twilight.

(At least, not that I know of.)

If those aren't really your thing either, we have some book suggestions for you.

If those are really your thing,  we have some book suggestions for you, too.

You can read them after your done with . . .

whatever.

Between the sheets of this spare little volume lies a sweeping tale of waging war (both political and personal) and making peace (with circumstances, others, and ourselves). Taut, disciplined prose strikes a sharp contrast to epic narrative and lush landscapes, as we follow a young silk farmer back and forth from Second Empire France (and his simply devoted wife) to Shogunate Japan (and the enigmatic woman with whom he is obsessed). Fevers of ambition and passion fuel his quest and keep the always elegant, occasionally erotic, pages turning quickly. The searing conclusion elevates this otherwise Good Read to something much more profound - an eloquent meditation on the heartbreaking sacrifices we leave on the oft-opposing altars of lust and love. 

Looking for a revolutionary book about sex? Look no further than The Feminine Mystique: a seminal and eminently readable work about the ladies. While I don't agree with everything Ms. Betty Friedan suggests, I don't think there is a woman on earth who won't be able to relate to some of the challenges of "the gentler sex" that she so thoroughly examines.  It makes me grateful that we live in a world where I was encouraged to pursue an education and that I have a husband who does as many chores as I do!... (PS. A note to the male readers of our blog: Men doing chores is the epitome of sexy. Really.) 



Where to begin, perhaps with the end. For those of you who do indeed take my advice and read this truly gorgeous piece of writing, the end is not why it's sexy. Okay, moving on.

Arundhati Roy is a shamen of words. There are sentences within these pages that are so beautiful you will read them five times and then weep silently for the next 25 seconds. There are paragraphs that slowly and sweetly swaddle your heart, before tightening around it with a python-grip. You'll sit transfixed by the words, grasping for breath, until they release you to the kind of euphoria that only comes with pain. It is a tale of love, yes, but it is equally a story of shame, and belonging, and suffering, and family, and flaws. It is a book that will force you to wince, to mourn, to feel. And while story itself is not one of romance, the craft behind their telling cannot be mistaken for anything short of true love. 

If you’ve ever read a Russian novel, you know that they usually have at least fifteen important characters - and that every character has at least three or four names. Just keeping track of everything seems like an accomplishment! I definitely felt that way for the first few chapters of Anna Karenina, but as I got into the story, things became more familiar. I saw parts of myself in each character. In Kitty I recognized my idealism and naiveté, in Anna my selfishness and hypocrisy, in Levin my sincerity and indecisiveness, in Alexei my pompous piety and emotional detachment, in Vronsky my shortsightedness, etc. I learned about traits I had never realized – or admitted – I possessed.   Through these characters, I really got to know myself. Anna Karenina is a sordid tale of doomed love; it’s rife with passion and intrigue, but that kind of goes without saying. What really sets it apart is Tolstoy’s incredible ability to humanize the repulsive— and make the foreign familiar. He illuminates some of the deepest questions about what makes us each human - and what makes life worth living. 

In the mood for a saucy book? Have I got a saucy book for you! Written by Nobel Prize-winning author Gabriel García Márquez, Love in the Time of Cholera is a wrenchingly beautiful story about different types of love and living. Exquisitely crafted to transport you seamlessly across memories, years, and continents, it wraps you in a heavy blanket of lyrical musk, out from under which it's difficult to escape. Oh yeah, there's also a lot of saucy, saucy, action -- oftentimes high-drama and disturbing saucy action!

Now that we've spilled, it's your turn! What are your favorite spicy, saucy books?