Greta Layne

Absalom! Absalom! - William Faulkner: Faulkner’s southern gothic masterpiece, Absalom! Absalom! is an allegory not just of Southern history, but that of mankind as a whole. Within the rise and fall of the South, we are presented with the unavoidable tragedy of the human condition. Faulkner’s haunting treatment of memory and the past, expose the reader to a world in which “truth” is forever unattainable and the past is always present and cannot be forgotten. In short, it is a novel about hatred, lust, miscegenation, fatalism, murder, memory, myth, destruction, and the human need to find an answer to that which unanswerable. Faulkner said that “to understand the world, you must first understand a place like Mississippi.” Absalom! Absalom! proves just why this statement is true. - Mina Méchante

MAN SEEKING MAN - All the universe is doomed by the laws of entropy eventually so we might as well dance! A charming and bohemian professor in his twenties seeks the company of an inquisitively minded, pink cheeked genius of noble upbringing. She should be a young lady who is light years ahead of her time interested primarily in science and art. I should like to have many long and lively conversations with her and eventually teach her the arts of a more mature nature…. Going very slowly of course and only if she wishes it. Primarily though I want to appreciate her uniqueness and to encourage the open exchange of ideas which may result in real breakthroughs of philosophical thought.

Arcadia - Tom Stoppards: Time-travel, inappropriate sexual liasons, science, math, comedy, the myth and legend of Lord Byron, and the details of the history of English landscaping all take prominent roles in playwright-rockstar Tom Stoppard's Arcadia. But it's less jumbled than it sounds, never letting it's intellectual ambitions get in the way of its consistently funny dialogue or it's cute, instantly relatable characters. Stoppard was knighted for a reason, and Hollywood's been knocking down his door for a decade for a reason, and that reason is self-evident by the end of this play.

What I love about this play is that you can see pick it apart and get as much out of it as you want – or you can just take it at face value and enjoy it for what it is, a good English romp. - Mimi First

MAN SEEKING WOMAN - Wanted: A scandalous free-spirited tease, jilted & broken by former lovers. Do you have: excessive baggage, high-maintenance tendencies, and a proclivity for causing drama? No worries! I’m fine with putting up with your “eccentricities” so long as you are REALLY HOT! So hot in fact that you could have both me and my father salivating with lust for you simultaneously. I’m looking for a woman who is as proud, fiery and headstrong as I am and who enjoys having a good time. I’m insanely loyal if I fall for you, I’d die for you, I’d kill for you, I’d carve your name in the moon – anything for love! I’m looking for a woman who will shake me to my very core, who’ll rock my foundations, defy my expectations and stand by me to very end. Yeah baby! lets burn this town to the ground!

The Brothers Karamazov - Fyodor Dostoevsky: This book has stuck with me over the years. The pity and compassion of Russian writing just always sucker punches me in the ticker. In my opinion this book should be made into a Quentin Tarantino movie. If you read it we can discuss our casting choices. The B.K. is about a dysfunctional family (the Karamozovs) with an excess of testosterone resulting in some serious issues. The book is sweeping, sordid, raw, full of humor and emblazoned on every page with juicy tension. Both the narrator and the characters are always groping towards the realization of an ideal of brotherhood/fraternity that can exist in a world full of human weakness and sinfulness. So yeah, It’s an ambitions frickin book to say the least!

The fact that there once lived a mad Russian genius crazy enough to write this epic makes me feel like a complete wuss for ever being afraid to read it! I was nearly scared away by the difficulty of keeping the characters strait (Russians like long names and nicknames) In retrospect though, the reading part was easy – what’s hard for me to fathom is the mind that created this masterpiece and it’s not just the mind – the heart this excess of insight where the hell did it come from what a marvelous deep, deep well! So fall in and keep falling – experience your Karamozovian nature!

“I'm a Karamazov... when I fall into the abyss, I go straight into it, head down and heels up, and I'm even pleased that I'm falling in such a humiliating position, and for me I find it beautiful. And so in that very shame I suddenly begin a hymn. Let me be cursed, let me be base and vile, but let me also kiss the hem of that garment in which my God is clothed; let me be following the devil at the same time, but still I am also your son, Lord, and I love you, and I feel a joy without which the world cannot stand and be."
 - Mimi First

The Captain's Verses - Pablo Neruda: Ethereal, luscious, and sensual.
If I were to sum this book up in three words, well…there you have it. This short but powerful book of poetry will set you adrift in a sea of romanticism. Pablo Neruda wrote simply and directly but with incredible passion and mastery of language. Each poem being so poignant and honest speaks of love in all its glories, pains, frustrations, and ecstasies.

“Next to the water of winter
she and I raised
a red bonfire
wearing out our lips
from kissing each other’s souls,
casting all into the fire,
burning our lives.” - Greta Layne

The Collected Poems of Frank O'Hara - Frank O'Hara:
The Collected Poems of Frank O’Hara is, I believe, an essential book for all lovers of poetry. O’Hara was unique in the sense that he makes the vacuous profound in the most humorous and heartbreaking way. His poetry is contradiction itself. There is always pain beneath the joy and laughter through the tears.

O’Hara’s poetry shows in immense love for both the esoteric and the quotidian. His poetry is personal, intense, strange, playful, and agonizingly tragic. Frank O’Hara introduced a valuable new voice to American poetry.
- Mina Méchante

The Death of Bunny Munro - Nick Cave: This book whipped my ass. It depicts a very sad man named Bunny Munro. His wife commits suicide, leaving him to take care of his young son. Thus begins a road trip straight out of hell. Originally conceived as a script for John Hillcoat, it was put on hold when Hillcoat was tapped to direct Cormac McCarthy's "The Road" (also one of my favorite books, and one of the scariest I've ever read..) Cave opted to adapt the script into a novel. I don't know which film would have ended up more horrifying, however, Nick Cave is scoring "The Road".

Bunny Monro is one of the sickest bastards you'll ever meet. He makes a living by selling beauty creams and unctions . In an utterly unctuous manner. (Help, editor- I couldn't resist!) He drives a beat up car door to door, and often fucks or tries to fuck the ladies of the house (he always has some sort of memorable encounter) while leaving his son in the car to wait. Bunny is beyond lewd, sort of like Humbert Humbert without the love. He is perpetually fondling his own member. He creates outrageous fantasies and commits crude sexual acts. He drinks himself into oblivion on a daily basis. He is haunted by his wife and his misdeeds. This book, however, is written with a stunningly hilarious vocabulary and descriptives that had me laughing out loud. Often.

The book is also gruesome and surreal. David Lynch's world came to mind a bit at the end of the book, but I think Nick Cave's ability to craft this novel and create this world speaks volumes about his talent for combining some of the most tripped out vantage points I've encountered in a while, all wrapped up in a book that ultimately brought me to tears with its themes of father-son dynamics, and heartbreak and love. - Dominique Trixx

Delta of Venus - Anais Nin:
This is a collection of short erotic stories that are so mature and intellectual, it actually makes erotic literature a respectable genre. Nin is so understanding of both men and women in her stories that you can not help but include yourself in the story and relate to the characters. Of course, some stories are better than others, as we all have different tastes, but not one story is written in haste. I don't think there is one 'throbbing member' in this book. I highly recommend this to be read aloud to a partner of your choosing.
- Michelle L'amour

Henry and June - Anais Nin:

In the early 1930’s, Anais Nin found a catalyst for her sensual awakening in the then struggling writer, Henry Miller. Her affair with Miller and obsession with his wife June is the basis of her journal titled, Henry and June. Nin brilliantly describes in sensuous and lyrical passages female sexuality and the artist’s desire to create a world of beauty and live harmoniously within chaos. Henry and June is provocative and liberating in that it unabashedly presents sexuality as a means to identity.
- Mina Méchante

Jamaica Inn - Daphne du Maurier: “It was a cold, grey day in late November. The weather had changed overnight, when a backing wind brought a granite sky and a mizzling rain with it, and although it was now only a little after two o’clock in the afternoon, the pallour of a winter evening seemed to have closed upon the hills, cloaking them in mist.”

Jamaica Inn is a beautifully written gothic novel that draws you in from the very first page. It’s vivid and descript writing enables you to clearly visualize the places and characters. The story takes place on the Cornish Coast, in the early nineteenth century, as seen through the eyes of young and ignorant Mary Yellan. She is sent to live at Jamaica Inn, an infamous place that most people have long deserted. She soon discovers the truth about what takes place there. - Greta Layne

MAN SEEKING WOMAN - Just a freak looking for another freak? Crooked pot seeks crooked lid for a serious once in a life-time nearly spiritual romantic encounter. I am a well-off, distinguished, mystery man seeking a youthful and refreshing female presence in my life. Must have a love of children, especially bastards and orphans. Should have some interest in exploring and entertaining sado-masochistic tendencies as she’ll have to put up with my imposing brutishness and walk a fine line between submission and self-assertion. If you are a pyro or mentally unstable please do not respond to this posting.

Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte: Written by a women with an immense imagination, Charlotte Bronte. As a girl she grew up on the moors of the English country side in an estate that was actually (no really) surrounded on all sides by graveyards. Her own mother died young, and her father was a crackpot hardly fit to raise five children, so the Bronte kids took care of themselves. This meant that a very young Charlotte was responsible for nursing her terminally ill sister Maria until she died. Talk about a twisted childhood. Oprah eat your heart out!

Each of the Bronte’s was insanely intelligent and gifted but also just a titch insane. The siblings all agreed to try their hand at writing novels as part of a dare, and partly because they were bored. What else are you going to do on the creepy English moors in the middle of nowhere? Charlotte, Emily and Anne all wrote novels and then all died young of TB within just years of one-another. It was said that the Emily was seen haunting Charlotte’s funeral. It’s not surprising then that the novels they wrote were in the high gothic style and full of a very realistic kind of suffering. I mean these girls were street legit – they lived the life and barely lived long enough to tell about it. This should in theory, make this book hard to stomach and depressing as hell but surprisingly it’s a page turner and not at all a painful read. In fact we almost find ourselves getting into the gory details. - Mimi First

Kafka on the Shore - Haruki Murakami: This book set me on fire. It contains mysteries, it combines comedy and grotesque elements that caused me to laugh out loud and then gasp audibly as well. It contains beautiful day to day images with details that are at once mundane and ultimately soothing.

Once you've read the book let me know what you think as I hate to spoil the unexpected imagery I encountered by describing my favourite scenes, images, sections of the book. There is one that is beyond outrageous in both comedy and sheer horror.

Murakami deals with many themes and many characters in this book. He includes the mad and confusing ache, the transient abilities, and the eternal realms of love and sex. He creates a confusion of time and place.

I enjoyed translation from the Japanese by Philip Gabriel, and I held on to every word. Murakami is extremely prolific, and a joy to read. In "Kafka on the Shore", he creates labyrinthine ideas and dreams, then manages to settle the mysteries and come to terms with the metaphysics he creates and the seemingly impossible voyage. - Dominique Trixx

Lady Chatterly's Lover - D.H. Lawrence: This was the first book selection for the Dirty Book Club, a book club started by myself and the Chicago Starlets. I really didn't know much about the book going into it, except that it was scandalous back in the day. Once I began my reading, I was so surprised at how accurately DH Lawrence captured the intricacies of being a woman. To me, a man who was that in tune with women in that time was the scandalous part. I quickly became a DH Lawrence fan. If you haven't read this classic, please do. The themes have aged well in the book, and I know you will relate to the feeling of Lady Chatterly.
- Michelle L'amour

Les Liaisons Dangereuses - Pierre Choderlos De Laclos: Dangerous Liaisons, published in 1782, was noted to be one of the most scandalous and controversial novels in European literature. It was written in epistolary form allowing it to maintain a voyeuristic quality. The Vicomte de Valmonte and the Marquise de Merteuil, the two central characters in this deceitful tale, fascinate and repel you with their wickedness as they make a bet on an innocent girl’s reputation. It is the ultimate book in the battle of the sexes where manipulation replaces fair dealing, sex is power and love a form of weakness. The film, Dangerous Liaisons, starring John Malkovich and Glenn Close is a pleasing adaptation of the novel. Although very modernized, you will also recognize this story in the movie Cruel Intentions. - Greta Layne

The Plot Against America - Philip Roth: Among Philip Roth's canon, among so many of his themes, among titles such as The Breast, The Professor of Desire, and Portnoy's Complaint, among books that have hilarious, hedonistic, and erotic themes, I decided I had to indulge my propensity for historical fiction when thinking of some of my favourite books.

Philip Roth received the Society of American Historians Award for "the outstanding historical novel on an American theme for 2003-2004" with this book. That got me.

The writing is spectacular. The Plot Against America is a speculative history. It imagines what might have happened if Lindbergh had been elected president instead of FDR in 1940. Roth includes a postscript containing the actual historical facts for the reader to reference. The book is chilling and ominous, but those tones don't make it difficult to read. It has sad and desperate scenes that cut to the core of human awareness. The themes of fear, paranoia, and speculation create a platform that is truly universal. All the power of Philip Roth's best writing is filtered through a boy living in New Jersey, who tells his story and takes us with him in this invented history with poignancy and a straightforward narrative. The storytelling is brilliant, and if you are interested in conspiracy and eerie speculation, you've come to the right place. I couldn't put this book down. - Dominique Trixx

Tipping the Velvet - Sarah Waters: Despite being really disappointed in the ending of the book, this is still one of my favorite books. It is so lush and sensual in the descriptions. Just beautiful. It is set in an old vaudeville theater, and I'm a sucker for anything having to do with old theaters. Nan is an oyster girl and she discovers the theater one day and begins to dream about the star, a masher named Kitty. So wrong for a girl to have feelings for another girl, even though she is dressed in a man's suit. Nan visits the theater everyday in hopes that Kitty will meet her eye and sing only to her. One day, her dreams come true and the life of an oyster girl is changed forever. - Michelle L'amour