I’m really fond of saying things like “I love this book so much, I’d totally marry it if I could.” And then a friend of mine asked me for examples, so I started making lists. And you know what happens when Candy starts making lists. That’s right, motherfuckers—she has a distressing tendency to post them ON THE INTERNETS. (Also referring to herself in the third person.)
So!
Books I’d totally marry if I could, like, in a church and everything, and yes, you KNEW these perverse biblio-human unions were just on the horizon once those deviants and homo-sexxxuals wanted the right to get married
Sacred Hunger by Barry Unsworth
Towing Jehovah and Blameless in Abaddon by James Morrow
The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen
Regeneration, The Eye in the Door and The Ghost Road by Pat Barker
The Windflower by Laura London
To Love and to Cherish by Patricia Gaffney
Lord of Scoundrels by Loretta Chase
The Shadow and the Star by Laura Kinsale
Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes
Hyperion and Fall of Hyperion by Dan Simmons
To Say Nothing of the Dog by Connie Willis
A Primate’s Memoir by Robert M. Sapolski
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling (does this make me a pedophile because it’s a children’s book, or a geriatrophile because it’s over 100 years old?)
Books I’d make out with at a party, then call up occasionally so we can have hot sex on the couch or in the foyer or in the kitchen or whatever, sometimes with other books and people in tow because we’re slutty like that
His Majesty’s Dragon by Naomi Novik
Bet Me by Jennifer Crusie
Perfume by Patrick Suskind
Seize the Fire by Laura Kinsale
Midsummer Moon by Laura Kinsale
Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson
You’re an Animal, Viskovitz! by Alessandro Boffa
A Cook’s Tour by Anthony Bourdain
Moby Dick by Herman Melville
The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
Trainspotting by Irvine Welsh
To Have and to Hold by Patricia Gaffney
Only With Your Love by Lisa Kleypas
Books that I’d have hot, dirty, messy sex with once, probably while drunk, and leave first thing in the morning before they’d woken up, and then pretend I don’t recognize when I see them at the grocery store because those beer goggles were FIERCE
Anything written by Dara Joy, ever
Also Kit Garland
And Bertrice Small
Ditto anything Dragonlance
Morning Song by Karen Robards
What about you guys? Feel free to come up with categorizations of your own.
I don’t know if I’d marry
Lord of Scoundrels
, but I would totally have sex with it between other affairs.
Hmmm, books I’d marry:
Brothers in Arms
by Lois McMaster Bujold
Someplace to be Flying
by Charles de Lint
Books I should marry, but won’t because I’m waiting for a book with better chemistry:
Kushiel’s Dart
by Jacqueline Carey
Lover Eternal
by J. R. Ward
Books I would have a secret, sleazy one-night stand with and then not speak to in the morning:
I’m with Candy, anything by Dara Joy. Also Robin D. Owens, Mercedes Lackey, and Jude Deveraux.
I feel I should also mention the A Song of Ice and Fire series by George R. R. Martin in here somewhere. Maybe they’re the books I would marry, except the marrige would be violent, tempestuous, and probably involve lots of things getting broken, because that’s just the kind of series ASOIF is.
Books I would marry and have novella children with:
Franny and Zooey by JD Salinger
Wonder Boys by Michael Chabon
Feast of Love by Charles Baxter
The Hot Zone by Richard Preston
A Room of One’s Own by Virginia Woolf
Entire Harry Potter Series by JK Rowling
The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
Possession by AS Byatt
Welcome to Temptation by Jennifer Crusie
Nickel and Dimed by Barbara Ehrenreich
Books that I would totally take out for drinks, or a sober dinner:
Drinking: A Love Story by Caroline Knapp
Parched by Heather King
More, Now, Again by Elizabeth Wurtzel
Rolling Away by Lynne Marie Smith
Thing of Beauty: The Tragedy of Supermodel Gia by Stephen Fried
It Ain’t No Sin To Be Glad You’re Alive bio of Bruce Springsteen by Eric Alterman
Random Family: Love, Drugs, Trouble and Coming of Age in the Bronx by Adrian Nicole LeBlanc
Books that started out as charmingly sweet relationships until I fully committed myself to them and only then did they reveal their true crazyface natures which lead to me fleeing for my life(and a restrainting order)like the heroine of a bad boyfriend themed Lifetime Channel movie:
Anne Rice’s later Vampire Chronicles(after Tales of the Body Thief)and Lasher related titles
Laurell K. Hamilton-‘nuff said
Any of the Dune series written after Frank Herbert departed this earth(or God Emperor of Dune,pick your poison)
Books that I like “as a friend” but if I see them on my Caller ID,they can just leave a message:
Wuthering Heights/Emily Bronte
Atlas Shrugged/Ayn Rand
Most of Jackie Collins
The Exorcist/WP Blatty
Books that I have to be honest with and say”Sorry,hon,but the movie was just so much better!”
The Witches of Eastwick/Updike
Bridges of Madison County/Waller
The Hunger/Strieber
Books that I wish were real people that I could call up on the phone and dish about the latest current event with:
The Jane Austen Book Club/Fowler
Special Topics in Calamity Physics/Persl
Empire Falls/Russo
Anything by Jane Austen
Sheila’s Wedding/O’Flanagan
Rachel’s Holiday/Marian Keyes
Books that make me want to do the whole Wayne’s World”We’re not worthy!” bit:
The Crimson Petal and the White/Faber
End of the Affair/Graham Greene
Mammoth Cheese/Sheri Holman
Anything by Patricia Highsmith
Atonement/Ian McEwan
Amazing Adventures of Kavieler and Clay/Chabon
I’d have bebbies with Connie Brockway’s As You Desire, but everyone who knows me already know that.
Books I’d Pull the “It’s Not You, It’s Me” on:
All of the (late) Robert Jordans
Holly Black’s Modern Novels of Faerie
Patrick O’Brien’s stuff
(I’m sure they’re great books; just not to my taste.)
I would marry The Scarlet Pimpernel and have it’s cross dressing, secret agenty, sticking it to the French, flower named babies.
I’d eventually marry the younger Dark Angels by Karleen Koen.
I would then cheat on those two, because I’m totally an infidelicious h0r, with The Dream Thief by Shana Abe. But that is mostly because I would like to do really dirty things with Zane. (Overshare?)
I would go out and gossip with any of Jenny Crusie’s books. We’d drink, eat food that’s bad for us, talk and laugh a little too loudly causing other patrons to stare at us but we totally wouldn’t care.
Books I want to be my secret mistress, so I could keep them in lush apartments with velvet hangings and visit them when my other books think I’m working late:
Swordspoint, Ellen Kushner
Julian The Magician, Gwendolyn MacEwan
Autobiography of Red, Anne Carson
Stella, Anais Nin
Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell, Susannah Clarke
Books I’d pretend not to see if I passed them on the street:
Flowers In The Attic, VC Andrews
Shopaholic (and sequels), Sophie Kinsella
Little Girl Lost, Drew Barrymore
I would totally marry Don Quixote too. AND the Regeneration trilogy, though really I think I want to marry Rivers. Mmm, my favorite asexual literary boyfriend!
Books that I will always be in love with because they were my childhood sweethearts and our love was pure and true and all-encompassing (etc):
The Riddle Master of Hed, Heir of Sea and Fire, Harpist in the Wind by Patricia McKillip.
Flowers In The Attic, VC Andrews
Yes, I was a VC Andrews addict.
“The Riddle Master of Hed, Heir of Sea and Fire, Harpist in the Wind by Patricia McKillip.”
But only after a long torrid affair with The Dark Is Rising Series by Susan Cooper.
You know, the most amusing thing about this thread is the relationship descriptions.
re: To Say Nothing of the Dog I’m going to a con this weekend where Connie Willis is the Guest of Honor. I’m SO taking my copy of that book for her to sign. I guess that means I love it so much that I’d make it get tattooed with my name?
I’d marry Don Quixote, but only in the more recent translation that makes it clear it’s a very funny farce, not in the old Victorian-era translations that made it into a Man vs. Nature struggle, which it is not.
Hmmm…what does it say about me that I have shelves of books that I have intense, passionate affairs with for a time and I love the possibility of rekindling the relationship at my whim, but I’m not thinking of marrying any of them when THE ONE could still be out there???
Who am I stringing along?
La Nora (of course)
Stephen King’s Dark Tower books
Jane Austen
Anita Shreve (historicals)
John D. MacDonald’s Travis McGee (a guilty pleasure)
Right about now, I’d like to have an affair with the Time Quartet by Madeleine L’Engle (is it inappropriate to have sex with children’s books? Discuss.) and One Fine Day In The Middle of the Night by Christopher Brookmyre.
I would give longing gazes to Jude Deveraux’s books, but I don’t think I would actually want to go to bed with them, because they’ve been getting progressively worse. If I didn’t know them so well, they’d be attractive, but I’ve watched what they’ve done to other people and I don’t want in on that. 😀
Candy, you’d marry To Love and to Cherish but you’d only call To Have and to Hold for a hollaback? That’s so sweet.
Vicki D, I wonder if anything could make you leave As You Desire. You and that book need counseling.
I would have a long-term life partnership with the entire Gabaldon ouvre.
Candy, I will have YOUR babies just because you want to have sex with Moby Dick. Hmm, that sentence ended rather badly, didn’t it? I’m not sure what “moby” really means but I think it might be a good idea to stay away from a moby dick!
But the book? LOVE it.
This having been the Summer of Suzanne Brockmann for me, I would have to say that, although I wouldn’t marry any of her books I would definitely do a menage a onze with her entire SEAL Team 16. The BOOKS, I mean. Not the SEALs.
Okay, the SEALs, too…
Candy, I will have YOUR babies just because you want to have sex with Moby
Dick. Hmm, that sentence ended rather badly, didn’t it?
I’m not sure there was any way for that sentence not to end badly.
ALL the smart bitches should read To Say Nothing of the Dog! It’s not romance (though it has romance in it), but still. Also, Connie Willis’ collection of short stories, including ‘Even the Queen’. All of you! Go to your libraries and bookstores right now!
Hee – going33
Book I’d like to tie up in a chair and tease:
All Through the Night by Connie Brockway.
I’m not sure that *I* would marry any of them, but I’d like to see a hook-up between Terry Pratchett’s Sam Vimes and La Nora’s Eve Dallas.
I’d probably want to marry Pratchett’s Hogfather, though. And I have at least a long-term relationship with most of Pratchett’s other novels.
Candy, I’ll marry YOU just for bringing up the James Morrow books.
Right now I’d like a trial separation from every book I own, just so I can walk through the family room without tripping.
Mr. Darcy takes a wife by Linda Berdoll. I would totally smack that.
Yes, it has alot of gratuitous physical congress in it – but I like it 🙂
Would have a sneak out of bed 1-night stands with the V.C. Andrews books
I love Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials books so much I want to take them behind the middle school and get them pregnant. Does that make me a pedophile, a polygamist, or just a hooor?
“try14” HAAAAA
Hmmm…what does it say that I’m more into “Same Time Next Year” relationships and cheap one-night stands than marriage?
I totally have the former with The Dark is Rising series by Susan Cooper and pretty much anything by Jenny Crusie and Katie MacAlister. Also the Three Sisters Trilogy by Nora.
Cheap One-Night stands are many and plentiful: Jude Devereau, Julie Garwood, Jo Beverley.
And then there’s the whole sordid, sneaking off for a quickie on the wrong side of town and hoping no one you know sees you aspect of my continuing relationship with LKH. I *know*. But it’s like a trainwreck! I can’t look away. And with the Merry Gentry books? Where else can you read about the heroine having sex with no fewer than 2 dozen men in something like a 30 hour time period? How can you *not* watch? I am so embarassed.
*MK whispering*
Deb, I’m totally with you on the Merry Gentry novels. I like the Hot! Fey! Sex!
I feel so dirty admitting it though.
lol @ sara
I feel the same way about cornbread.
Thank you, MK. I feel much better about my dirty little shameful secret, knowing I’m not alone.
I would totally marry Foucoult’s Pendulum, all of Katherine Neville, The Vampire Lestat, Le Jasper Fforde. Seriously, I’m talking polygamy here.
Early high school sweethearts are Anne Rice and Andre Norton. I would totally not give them a chance now, but back when I was that nerdy junior high girl, I loved them like no other.
Sleazy back alley one night stands would be Juliet, by the Marquis de Sade. Just a lot of spanking and loss of innocence, but I’ll take him in the alley. And Rosemary Rogers.
best buddies with benefits are La Nora (oh, sweet sweet Nora), Jacqueline Carey, Shakespeare, JK Rowling, and George McDonald.
Marriage proposals to: Stephen Hawking and Brian Green. Sorry, I know that’s pretty cerebral, but…what can I say?
Just to clarify: marriage proposal is NOT married. Really, I’m just stringing Brian and Steve along; hoping they will stay with me indefinitely while I marry someone else, and have dirty back alley sex with de Sade.
issue54: no shit, sherlock.
Brilliant and hilarious.
The Blue Sword & The Hero and the Crown by Robin McKinley
The Stand by Stephen King (the original version, not the “author’s cut†version)
Ender’s Game & all the Bean sequels by Orson Scott Card
The Lost Boys by Orson Scott Card (not to be confused with the movie starring Kiefer Sutherland et al.)
A N Y T H I N G (and I mean ANYTHING) by Amanda Quick (but nothing by Jayne Castle or Jane Krantz)
Interview With the Vampire & The Vampire Lestat by Anne Rice
Sorry, no clever words tying these all together.
Yummies (those that I’ve read more than twice):
Winter’s Orphans (The Shadow Fae Trilogy), Elaine Corvidae
The Fifth Ring, Mitchell Graham
Four & Twenty Blackbirds, Mercedes Lackey
The Belgariad (yup, the entire series), David Eddings
Almost Yummies (read twice):
All of the Stephanie Plum novels
Pride & Prejudice
Potentials (read it one time – so far):
His Majesty’s Dragon/Throne of Jade, Naomi Novik (haven’t gotten to Black Powder War yet)
Path of Fate/Path of Honor/Path of Blood, Diana Pharoah Francis
Southern Vampire Mysteries, Charlaine Harris
The Dresden Files, Jim Butcher (haven’t read them all yet, but they’ve all been very good)
Neverwhere, Neil Gaiman
Most surprising one I liked: Smoke Thief, Shana Abe
Most surprising one I didn’t like: American Gods, Neil Gaiman
Best book/worst film in Harry Potter series: Goblet of Fire
Worst book/best film in Harry Potter series (so far): Order of the Phoenix
Ones that bored me:
Ender’s Game, Orson Scott Card
His Dark Materials trilogy, Philip Pullman
Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell, Susannah Clarke
Made me go, “WTF was I thinking when I bought this?”
Recluce novels, L. E. Modesitt (really, just the first one. I mean, when you have a horse or something going “Wheeeeeeee!” it makes you go all squicky, and not want to continue reading)
Cast in Shadow, Michelle Sagara (the idea was intriguing – Kaylin runs from crime-riddled Nightshade, knowing that something was after her. Kids are being murdered, and there are these odd markings all over her body as well as on the dead kids’ bodies. The writing, to me, was so stilted and choppy, I could barely finish the book.
Children were being murdered—and all had the same odd markings that mysteriously appeared on her own skin
Oofah…forgot to delete the Amazon wording at the end of my loooong post.
Oh well.
Marry? You are so limited! I would set up my own book harem! They would be in a big room, knowing at any moment I might appear at the door and crook my finger to summon one of them for a night’s pleasure!
Contained within would be:
The Harry Dresden Novels by Jim Butcher (Heck, I wouldn’t mind Harry, either, but Bob would have to stay in his skull… I’m not one for being watched by disembodied air elementals… or anyone else for that matter!)
Anything by Andre Norton
The entire Kushiel series by Carey
Laurell K. Hamilton’s books (who would, apparently, be getting it on with the other books while I wasn’t there, starting multi-book orgies. But as they can’t get pregnant, that’s okay. They’d just keep accumulating awesome bookly powers every time they had sex with another book.)
All the Saint-Germain books by Chelsea Quinn Yarbro (The Spider Glass remains one of my favorite stories ever!)
Just about every Mercedes Lackey novel ever written
Simon Green’s Hawk and Fisher series and also his “Tales from the Nightside” series.
The Dexter series by Jeff Lindsay- I’d want to bear this series babies, because it rocks! Just finished book 3, Dexter in the Dark, and it was more awesome than words can say.
Bimbos of the Death Sun by Sharyn McCrumb, which did to a Harlan Ellison pastiche what many wish to do to him in real life…
The entire “Dream Park” series by Larry Noven and Steven Barnes
The Judge Dee Mysteries by Robert Van Gulik
The Honor Harrington series by David Weber
And others too innumerable to name.
i’m so excited you mentioned to say nothing of the dog…. its one of my all time favorites. would totally marry it – and i feel very few people have ever heard of it!
I would totally sneak out on my husband and bigamously marry:
Beauty and Sunshine by Robin McKinley (Best book-addicted Beast ever! Baking and vampires!)
Swordspoint by Kushner (Swoony gay lovers! Great outfits!)
These Old Shades by Georgette Heyer
Howl’s Moving Castle and Dark Lord of Derkholm by Diana Wynne Jones
I would hang up on close friends and or family members, cancel engagements, and call in sick to work for:
Doubt by Jennifer Michael Hecht
Strangers in Paradise by Terry Moore
I would follow around and offer caffeinated beverages and chocolate to:
anything by Emma Holly
Tea with the Black Dragon by R. A. MacAvoy (Romance between a 50+ yr old fiddle player and someone who may or may not be a Chinese 5-toed dragon! With 1980s era computer geek goodness.)