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Reading lists

Must-read books by women, as chosen by our readers

The Veiled Woman

'What did she expect of him? What was her quest? Did she have an unfulfilled desire?' 
 
Transgressive desires and sexual encounters are recounted in these four pieces from one of the greatest writers of erotic fiction. 
 
Penguin Modern: fifty new books celebrating the pioneering spirit of the iconic Penguin Modern Classics series, with each one offering a concentrated hit of its contemporary, international flavour. Here are authors ranging from Kathy Acker to James Baldwin, Truman Capote to Stanislaw Lem and George Orwell to Shirley Jackson; essays radical and inspiring; poems moving and disturbing; stories surreal and fabulous; taking us from the deep South to modern Japan, New York's underground scene to the farthest reaches of outer space.

Anais Nin (1903-1977) was a French-born author of Catalan, Cuban and Danish descent. She became famous for her erotica, as well as for her published diaries, which span more than sixty years, beginning when she was eleven years old and ending shortly before her death.

Eros Unbound

A na&iuml;ve model slowly discovering her sexuality; an erotic moonlight encounter on a beach; a man teaching the art of passion in a gypsy caravan; and a woman in love with a scent from Fez &ndash; Ana&iuml;s Nin&rsquo;s stories explore the nature of sex and the awakening of desire. 
 
United by the theme of love, the writings in the Great Loves series span over two thousand years and vastly different worlds. Readers will be introduced to love&rsquo;s endlessly fascinating possibilities and extremities: romantic love, platonic love, erotic love, gay love, virginal love, adulterous love, parental love, filial love, nostalgic love, unrequited love, illicit love, not to mention lost love, twisted and obsessional love&hellip;

Little Birds

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Anaïs Nin's Little Birds is published in Penguin Modern Classics. 
 
Anaïs Nin's second volume of erotic short stories after Delta of Venus, Little Birds is broader in scope, encompassing the entire breadth of human sensuality. Each of the 13 stories captures a moment of pure desire, in all its complexity and paradoxical simplicity. 
 
Anaïs Nin (1903-77), born in Paris, was the daughter of a Franco-Danish singer and a Cuban pianist. Her first book - a defence of D. H. Lawrence - was published in the 1930s. Her prose poem, House of Incest (1936) was followed by the collection of three novellas, collected as Winter of Artifice (1939). In the 1940s she began to write erotica for an anonymous client, and these pieces are collected in Delta of Venus and Little Birds (both published posthumously). During her later years Anaïs Nin lectured frequently at universities throughout the USA, in 1974 and was elected to the United States National Institute of Arts and Letters. 
 
If you enjoyed Little Birds, you might like Nin's Delta of Venus, also available in Penguin Modern Classics. 
 
'One of the most extraordinary and unconventional writers of this century' 
The New York Times Book Review

Combining startling lyricism with what often seems like the entire breadth of human sensuality, Little Birds is Anais Nin's masterwork. Each of the volume's thirteen stories builds on the other, embracing desire in all its variety, its complexity, its paradoxical simplicity. 
 
Anais Nin's Little Birds is now a major series on Sky Atlantic.

Henry and June

The brilliant tale of Anais Nin's true love affair with Henry Miller, and her ambiguous, charged relationship with his wife, June. Drawn from the journals of a single momentous year in Paris, Henry and June provides a wildly lyrical account of a woman's sexual awakening and the disillusion of idealized marriage.

Delta of Venus

As influential and revelatory in its day as Fifty Shades of Grey is now, Anaïs Nin's Delta of Venus is a groundbreaking anthology of erotic short stories, published in Penguin Modern Classics 
 
In Delta of Venus Anaïs Nin conjures up a glittering cascade of sexual encounters. Creating her own 'language of the senses', she explores an area that was previously the domain of male writers and brings to it her own unique perceptions. Her vibrant and impassioned prose evokes the essence of female sexuality in a world where only love has meaning. 
 
This edition includes a preface adapted from Anaïs Nin's diary that establishes a context for the work's gestation, and a postscript to her diary entries in which she explains her desire to use 'women's language, seeing sexual experience from a woman's point of view'. 
 
Anaïs Nin (1903-1977), born in Paris, was the daughter of a Franco-Danish singer and a Cuban pianist. Her first book - a defence of D. H. Lawrence - was published in the 1930s. Her prose poem, House of Incest (1936) was followed by the collection of three novellas, collected as Winter of Artifice (1939). In the 1940s she began to write erotica for an anonymous client, and these pieces are collected in Delta of Venus and Little Birds (both published posthumously). During her later years Anaïs Nin lectured frequently at universities throughout the USA, in 1974 and was elected to the United States National Institute of Arts and Letters. 
 
If you enjoyed Delta of Venus, you might like Stephen Vizinczey's In Praise of Older Women, also available in Penguin Modern Classics. 
 
'Anaïs Nin excites male readers and incites female readers ... and she comes against life with a vital artistry and boldness' 
The New York Times Book Review

Anais Nin (1903-1977) was a French-born author of Catalan, Cuban and Danish descent. She became famous for her erotica, as well as for her published diaries, which span more than sixty years, beginning when she was eleven years old and ending shortly before her death.

In Delta of Venus Anaïs Nin conjures up a glittering cascade of sexual encounters. Creating her own 'language of the senses', she explores an area that was previously the domain of male writers and brings to it her own unique perceptions. Her vibrant and impassioned prose evokes the essence of female sexuality in a world where only love has meaning. 
 
Her second volume of erotic writings, Little Birds, is also published by Penguin.

Anaïs Nin

Beautiful, bored and bourgeoise, Sabina leads a double life inspired by her relentless desire for fleeting romance. But when the secrecy of her affairs becomes too much to bear, Sabina makes a late night phone-call to a stranger from a bar, and begins a confession that captivates the unknown man and soon inspires him to seek her out...

Anaïs Nin

A Spy In The House Of Love

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