What did you recently finish reading?

Nothing ;P

What are you currently reading?

I am still reading Mind Fuck and Sex at Dawn, except I also started reading two other books.

One is the Pantheon Collection of Japanese Tales, which has an excellent 50 page intro that goes over the historical context for Japanese mythology. It is endlessly informative and I am surprised by how much I already know just from various second-hand exposure to Japanese culture, and how much I don't know too. For example, I am somewhat familiar with Heian aristocracy and this one custom still amuses me -- "both men and women seem to have wept freely and often in response to emotion. Courtship always involved tears. When you wept you dried your eyes with your sleeves, and if your grief was deep enough your sleeves got pretty wet. A man with conspicuously dry sleeves might appear insincere." I also know that women in that time period stayed hidden behind curtains during all encounters with men, but I didn't realize just how far it went. "Courtship took place largely in the dark" and "tendency to avoid face-to-face contact also encouraged conversation conducted not directly but through servants", so much so that "with so many servants, people were seldom, if ever alone in our sense of the word" and "no one of the slightest standing went anywhere alone", not even lowly monks. I am nowhere near the actual fairy tales portion of the book, but I am looking forward to it.

Second book I started is Be Careful What You Wish For, which is a het erotica/romance novella written by a fellow f-lister. Het erotica! I know. I don't think I ever read het erotica in my life? No, seriously. This is such an eye-opening experience. Since I am not well-versed in the erotica genre at all, I am probably not a good authority to comment but I am rather enjoying it. It has all the charm and wit of the author's usual writing style and it's face-paced and sexy. However, it still hasn't turned me into het erotica fan, and if good writing can't do that, I think it's time to abandon all hope. I might potentially be interested in BDSM het erotica...but even then. I don't know. I remember reading a really good longish BDSM het fanfic and the whole time I kept thinking how much hotter it would have been if the sub was a guy instead of a girl. Sub!women in general don't make me feel very comfortable, although what difference should it make? There is a difference though, I think. I read this essay (which I won't be able to find now for the life of me) on why women prefer M/M erotica and it basically suggests that gay erotica separates a woman's identity/sexuality/body image from the act of sex and thus makes them feel more immersed in the fantasy. Basically, women are able to relate to the lust/emotions but without the baggage of physicality and realism that their bodies impose on their reading experiences.

What do you think you'll read next?

I just want to finish the four books I am involved with now but after that...I was going to give Sabriel a chance but I am not feeling it now, to be honest. I also got this ebook on a sale, because the cover is really, really nice. And it's a dystopian/cyberpunk mystery. Want to read it RIGHT NOW but shall resist.  I also need to read a classic with really heavy prose because it's been ages since I've done that and now I am looking at my to-read list...Maybe, The Monk? 

What did you recently finish reading?

I haven't been reading books lately because apparently "no reading challenge = yay! I don't have to read books". But in my defense, I've been reading a ton of fanfiction instead?

The last "real" book though was Last Exit to Brooklyn by Hubert Selby. It's a very memorable book; the kind after which you don't really want to submerge in any other writing. Days after finishing it, I still think about a particular scene. It is a very graphic scene, or at least the subject matter of it is, but the language is incredible; a mixture of stream-of-consciousness (in Brooklyn vernacular no less), poetry, grittiness, eroticism and pathos. The best comparison would be William S. Burroughs, a fellow Beat Generation writer, although Selby's writing is not quite as psychedelic.

What are you currently reading?

Mind Fuck (The Administration #1) by Francis Manna. This book, as the title aptly suggests, all about mind fucking. Val Toreth fucks mind for a living as a Para Investigator & Interrogator working for the Administration, and then he meets Keir Warrick, a founder of a company involved in one of Toreth's investigations and together they fuck each others minds and then some. The dynamics between Toreth and Warrick are beyond hot; sub/dom at its best, where both parties who are control freaks relish the thrill of being dominated just as much as they love dominating. The world-building in this book is incredible too. I am genuinely fascinated by all the sci-fi elements (the mindfuck machine, virtual reality), the politics (corporations & the Administration power plays) and the ongoing investigation. *sigh* Where have you been all my life, book? 

I am also reading Sex at Dawn, a non-fiction book on sexuality. I have this curse with non-fiction books, where even if I like them, I somehow end up dropping them half-way through. Hopefully this book won't meet the same dismal fate.

What do you think you'll read next?

I am not very far into either book so I imagine that will keep me occupied. I will probably do a second book in The Administration series soon after. If by some chance I am not driven to continue on with the series, I will probably start onSabriel. I got the hardcover on sale a couple of weeks ago and it's been staring pitifully at me from the bookshelf ever since.