Are you over 50 Shades of Grey? While this “mommy porn” book may have capitalized on the intrigue and excitement to garner record sells, the writing and story line have left some readers a little, shall we say, unfulfilled.  If you are looking for an erotic reading experience that offers more than poorly written sex-ploits, check out these books to add to your bedside reading.

The Thornbirds by Colleen McCullough

Nothing is sexier or more forbidden than the illicit affair between a priest and a woman forbidden to express her desire for him. Although this book is was written decades ago, the story is timeless and raw with forbidden, erotic love, tragedy and betrayal.

Trouble by Kate Christensen

This is a coming-of-age novel about 3 middle-age women discovering their sexual identities. Latin lovers, exotic locales and a never-ending supply of alcohol equals exciting trouble for these three women.

How Should a Person Be by Sheila Heti

To describe this book, one needs to only read this line. “I don’t know why all of you are reading books when you could be getting reamed by Israel, spat on, beaten up against the headboard—with every jab, your head battered into the headboard. Why are you all reading? I don’t understand this reading business when there is so much f***ing to be done.”

Enough said?

The Vagina Monologues by Eve Ensler

Sometimes sexiness and eroticism do not have to be cloaked in fiction. To be human is to be sexy and to sexy means we open up about the act of sex. What began as a one-woman show that traveled the country, beckoning to female audiences to open up about their sexual lives, it eventually became a ground-breaking book that “gives voice to a chorus of lusty, outrageous, poignant, and thoroughly human stories . . .”

Voice your opinion. Have you read books sexier than 50 Shades of Grey? Do you think good erotic fiction is graphic or  simply suggestive?