Best Lesbian Erotica, ed. by Tristan Taormino, with Amber Hollibaugh
Here's the thing: you may not find this particularly "lesbian," if soft sweet femininity is your bag. This excellent literary fiction collection has stories that evoke as much cock- consciousness as they do clit power. The masculine personas in this book may offend some purists, but the stories themselves will leave you in awe. Crack writing by highly original authors.

The Camera My Mother Gave Me, by Susanna Kaysen
If you're a woman who has ever had even a speck of probems "down there," this book will curl its web around your womb and never let go. The short novella is about a woman whose vagina starts hurting one day- and it then won't stop, no matter how many treatments she tries and diagnoses she receives.

Kaysen's work is a fine example of a new kind of fiction coming from authors who want to approach sex intimately, but necessarily for erotic or shock value.

Lovers' Discourse, by Roland Barthes
Finally, someone took getting dumped to the meta level. Barthes, the French master of Semiotics, wrote this book when he himself was suffering from love's betrayal. It is heartbreak at its most brilliant and sensitive- a daily reading will get you through the any breakup, no matter how far gone. This book is out of print, but worth crawling on the ground to get a copy. Since you're down there already...

Choke, by Chuck Palahniuk
Remember in the "Fight Club" movie, when the anti-hero starts cruising the "Sex and Love Anonymous" meetings for a good lay? Palahniuk has returned to this very scene for his newest novel, and yes, it is quite sick... and very funny. Fine Twisted Kicks for those who appreciate them.

Tropic of Capricorn, by Henry Miller
"This is all simply by way of leading up to the general sexual confusion which prevailed at this time. It was like taking a flat in the Land of Fuck."

Miller is outrageous, abrasive, and bigoted, but he is also the best erotic poet who ever hit the keys. In the end, you will have to lift your glass, and admit that no one has since reached this level of libido and language.

Story of O, by Pauline Reage
This novel has informed so many lovers' fantasies around the world that not it has become more than itself- an icon of desire and surrender.

The Erotic Mind, by Jack Morin
This book is one of the most thoughtful and perceptive books ever written about the human mind and sexual desire.... why we want, what we want, when we want it!