Your store: Steamy Queensland nights

Bookseller and author Krissy Kneen has run the Good Sex Book Club at Avid Reader in Brisbane for the past two years. Once a month, between 10 and 15 people meet to discuss a work of classic erotic literature. Some of the recent titles include Cock and Bull (Will Self, Bloomsbury), I Love Dick (Chris Kraus, MIT Press), The Lover (Marguerite Duras, HarperCollins) and Blue is the Warmest Colour (Julie Maroh, Arsenal Pulp Press).

Kneen says she needed to research classic erotic literature to help her develop a new novel idea, which prompted her to start the club. ‘I knew there would be lots of other people who would want to explore this world with me,’ says Kneen. She says the members of the group—which includes literature and cultural studies academics and PhD students—are interested in erotic literature for different reasons. 

Besides the sex, there’s not much that makes the book club different from any other, said Kneen. ‘We all read the book, and then we meet and have a glass of wine and we talk about the book.’ However, Kneen concedes that perhaps the club makes a bit more noise than the average book club as the topic lends itself easily to laughter.

In a meta-twist, an erotic literature book club will feature in Kneen’s new novel, slated for a November release under the provisional title Holly’s Incredible Adventures in the Sex Machine (Text). Kneen says the group is thrilled. ‘I brought along the manuscript one month and we all worked through it, so they can’t wait for November,’ says Kneen.

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Category: Features