Stories, passages, essays, and books to read aloud to lovers
December 17, 2014 1:43 PM   Subscribe

Turns out reading aloud to lovers in bed is hot, but I’m close to exhausting my library of things that work for me. I’m looking for stuff that…

- is short enough to be finished in under 15 minutes (chapters of a book are ok)
- has a good read-aloud “flow” and is a literary fit
- is interesting but not too dry
- may have an element of dark or absurd humor (a self-deprecating narrator works well for me!)
- is not erotic, per se
- is not poetry (read-aloud flow is tricky)
- is not bitter or ranty

Things I’ve grabbed from my shelves that hit all the right notes are Zen and Sufi teaching stories, articles by David Sedaris and John McPhee (some may find issue with my “not too dry” request above, I know), How to Be Alone by Jonathan Franzen, E.M. Forster’s Aspects of the Novel, and Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events.
posted by cocoagirl to Writing & Language (22 answers total) 34 users marked this as a favorite
 
Try dipping into this book. It is an anthology of short prose - essays, prose poems, passages from longer works, and the like, from throughout history and world literature (so you've got some translations of Edo period Japanese mixed in with Baudelaire and then later on you've got Bukowski, etc.).

Not everything will hit the right notes, but with as many things and with the range of writers and works they've got, something is sure to. Plus it's just generally nifty.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 1:48 PM on December 17, 2014 [1 favorite]


I like Dorothy Parker, some find her bitter, I am more inclined to say acerbic.
posted by InkaLomax at 1:48 PM on December 17, 2014


You might try Donald Barthelme, he's gotten me laid at least once.
posted by stinkfoot at 1:49 PM on December 17, 2014 [4 favorites]


If you are going to work your way thru the book over time, I'd suggest a much-,loved novel familiar two both partners. For me, it would be Jane Austen or Dorothy Sayers.
posted by SemiSalt at 1:53 PM on December 17, 2014 [3 favorites]


Barthelme is my go-to for this stuff (Amateurs is the best short collection) but there are also some great short (like very short) stories from Brautigan's Revenge of the Lawn that can work for this. I had a friend who always swore In Watermelon Sugar was perfect but I think it may be too poetry-like for you.
posted by jessamyn at 1:56 PM on December 17, 2014 [3 favorites]


For some reason James Joyce's Ulysses springs to mind.
posted by Ruthless Bunny at 2:00 PM on December 17, 2014


Borges' short stories were made for reading in bed.
posted by mermaidcafe at 2:04 PM on December 17, 2014 [2 favorites]


On Seeing the 100% Perfect Girl One Beautiful April Morning, by Haruki Murakami.
posted by Dragonness at 2:39 PM on December 17, 2014 [4 favorites]


Awareness is broken into one- or two-page snippets, so you can read lots or a little at a time.

(Having read it, I still pick it up and read random bits, most of which I wish I were reading with someone I love.)

Also, the description makes it seem dry, but I find it fun and inspiring.
posted by whoiam at 3:04 PM on December 17, 2014


The opening to Under Milk Wood is sexy as hell, yet not in any way erotic.
posted by fearnothing at 3:27 PM on December 17, 2014


the short stories of Boris Vian.
posted by jayder at 3:49 PM on December 17, 2014


Baudelaire, Paris Spleen

the edition I have is titled The Parisian Prowler.

some of these prose poems certainly fit your interests.
posted by jayder at 3:54 PM on December 17, 2014


The Oxford Book of Dreams

John Aubrey, Brief Lives

Lytton Strachey, Biographical Essays

The Journals of Thoreau
posted by jayder at 4:05 PM on December 17, 2014


Definitely Calvino! Invisible Cities and If On a Winter's Night a Traveler are the ones I'm familiar with, and both would work very well.
posted by you're a kitty! at 4:16 PM on December 17, 2014 [2 favorites]


I have really enjoyed the short stories I've read by Gabriel Garcia Marquez.
posted by triggerfinger at 5:43 PM on December 17, 2014


PG Wodehouse when he avoids being racist.
posted by aesop at 6:04 PM on December 17, 2014


Oh, come on folks! e.e. cummings. Even when he isn't talking about love, his works are the most sensuous in the English language, chocolate-covered strawberries, every one of them.

i like my body when it is with your
body. It is so quite new a thing.
Muscles better and nerves more.
i like your body. i like what it does,
i like its hows. i like to feel the spine
of your body and its bones, and the trembling
-firm-smooth ness and which i will
again and again and again
kiss, i like kissing this and that of your,
i like, slowly stroking the, shocking fuzz
of your electric fur, and what-is-it comes
over parting flesh….And eyes big love-crumbs,
and possibly i like the thrill
of under me you so quite new.
posted by dances_with_sneetches at 6:37 PM on December 17, 2014 [2 favorites]


Walt Whitman's poetry, Nicholson Baker's Vox (kinda smutty, but not erotica per se), Violette Leduc.
posted by ifjuly at 7:18 PM on December 17, 2014


I'll second Invisible Cities by Calvino.

Also, Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez.
posted by litera scripta manet at 9:53 PM on December 17, 2014


The Little Prince, Chapter 21.
posted by Dragonness at 6:45 AM on December 18, 2014


The best book to meet your needs is Singular Pleasures by Harry Mathews:
From Kirkus Reviews
The singular pleasures of Mathews's (Cigarettes, 1987, etc.) title are in fact only one pleasure, and that one is the--well, the pleasure of masturbation. Here are sixty-odd (publisher's count) tiny pieces, one or two almost a page long, most only a paragraph or just a few lines, describing various people--well, doing it. Those various people are very various, from kids to old fogies, of all sexes, nations, places, needs, and callings, some alone, some with like-minded company. Some of the vignettes are silly, some exotic, some satiric, some erotic, most poetic, some neutral, and some--a few--touchingly lovely. The point seems to be--well, let that be determined by those who choose to ponder it. The illustrations by Francesco Clemente aren't lubricous at all, but (usually) slight, charming, and as ephemeral as a--well, as, say, a falling leaf.
posted by OmieWise at 7:26 AM on December 18, 2014


Along the lines of Calvino/Borges: Einstein's Dreams, by Alan Lightman.
posted by the_blizz at 9:34 AM on December 18, 2014 [1 favorite]


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