Explicitly Literary: Sex in Books • Episode #175

Hello dear Substackers. A hot episode for all this hot weather, ad-free for subscribers.

A few months back I was asked to contribute to a Stylist magazine article about 'hot books', as in fiction with sexually explicit scenes. (Here's the link, but I'm afraid it's paywalled.) Anyway, having sent the journalist in question a list of about ten titles, I realised I had more to say on the subject, and pitched it to my friend Elizabeth (Crib Notes) who was similarly enthusiastic. As it happened she had just finished Alex Allison's book, Greatest of All Time, was meeting him for lunch, and before he knew it, he was lined up to appear as our third guest.

I've been working on this episode for a while – slightly carried away by our subject matter we ended up recording way longer than I needed and I've worked hard to cut it back to what I hope is now a reasonably crisp edit. It's running a little longer than the shows used to – this is because I'm including more elements in them now, like clips f…