cover image The Naughty Bits: The Steamiest and Most Scandalous Sex Scenes from the World's Great Books

The Naughty Bits: The Steamiest and Most Scandalous Sex Scenes from the World's Great Books

Jack Murnighan. Three Rivers Press (CA), $14 (256pp) ISBN 978-0-609-80660-9

Jack Murnighan, former editor-in-chief of sex-friendly Web site Nerve.com, gathers short erotic excerpts from works by more than 70 authors from the Marquis de Sade to Thomas Pynchon, Sappho to Jeanette Winterson, Ovid to J.G. Ballard. Culled from his popular weekly online column, The Naughty Bits (also Brit slang for genitalia) is billed as ""the book that literary perverts have been waiting for."" One of several recent Nerve.com tie-ins, it's a great idea and one needn't be especially literary or perverted to enjoy it. Murnighan's thoroughly good-natured, erudite introductions add to the bawdy fun.