The best of the best The hottest of the hot To mark its fifteenth anniversary, the top-selling erotica series achieves a scorching new climax with a special edition showcasing standout stories from the entire series as well as never before published pieces -- plus interviews with the authors and, for the first time, a hot and edgy piece from Susie Bright herself. In Susie Bright's own contribution, "Story of O Birthday Party," she recounts her lover's elaborately orchestrated birthday gift: a re-creation of Pauline Réage's classic S/M tale with Susie at the center of the action. Joe Maynard enters a love/hate relationship with a two-million-dollar sex toy in "Fleshlight." Greta Christina's "Are We Having Sex Now or What?" asks the provocative question of what defines authentic sexual connection and experience. Thoroughly electrifying -- and thrillingly eclectic -- the 2008 edition promises to open new doors with its exhilarating, equal-opportunity approach to erotic writing. Straight or gay, dominant or submissive, romantic or sadistic, Bright's selections run the gamut -- and push all the right buttons.

The Best American Erotica 1997 is the ideal collection for all lovers of first-rate erotic literature. Edited by Susie Bright, whom the Utne Reader calls "one of the leading thinkers and visionaries of our time," this fifth annual edition of a bestselling series brings together the most outstanding erotic writing of the year. CONTRIBUTORS - Lauren P. Burka, Ivy Topiary, Mark Stuertz, Thomas Roche, Rose White and Eric Albert, Bob Vickery, Tsaurah Litzky, loana dp valencia, Nancy Kilpatrick, Michael Lowenthal, Serena Moloch, Marcy Sheiner, Stephen Spotte, Simon Sheppard, Joe Maynard, Bill Brent, Ted Blumberg, Lucy Taylor, E. R. Stewart, Isobel Bird, Allegra Long, M. Christian

The reigning mistress of erotica, Susie Bright, has expertly chosen 40 of the hottest stories ever written: breathtaking new stories as well as the most sought-after stories from The Best American Erotica series. Luminaries like Carol Queen and Robert Olen Butler contribute to the stories about all kinds of lovers: heartbreakers, foxes, maniacs, romanticists, hell-raisers, and utter bandits. This delicious collection is certain to satisfy.

Erotic Reading That Satisfies Every Sexual Appetite In the fourteenth edition of this seductive series, erotica's veterans and up-and-coming new writers join forces to explore how tantalizing crossing the so-called Lolita gap between youth and middle age can be. Kathryn Harrison explores the story of a psychiatrist whose sexual affairs with a young client have an unexpected consequence; Dennis Cooper trails an extraordinary hustler working his older johns; and Jessica Cutler gives lessons on how a young woman can take down all the politicians in Washington with just the crook of her pretty little finger. Guided by the genius of editor Susie Bright, The Best American Erotica 2007 will bring an exciting new climax to readers discovering that they love erotica -- and to those already hooked.

A new collection of African-American fiction, "Black Silk" is filled with lush, sexy stories featuring heroines who are overwhelmingly in control of their sexual lives and unabashed about their appetites.

There is a deep tradition of eroticism in American poetry. Thoughtful, provocative, moving, and sometimes mirthful, the poems collected in The Best American Erotic Poems celebrate this exuberant sensuality. These poems range across the varied landscapes of love and sex and desire -- from the intimate parts of the body to the end of an affair, from passion to solitary self-pleasure. With candor and imagination, they capture the delights and torments of sex and sexuality, nudity, love, lust, and the secret life of fantasy. David Lehman, the distinguished editor of the celebrated Best American Poetry series, has culled a witty, titillating, and alluring collection that starts with Francis Scott Key, Emily Dickinson, Walt Whitman, and Hart Crane, encompasses Frank O'Hara, Anne Sexton, John Updike, Charles Simic, Billy Collins, Kevin Young, and Sharon Olds, and concludes with the rising stars of a whole new generation of versifiers, including Sarah Manguso, Ravi Shankar, and Brenda Shaughnessy. In a section of the book that is sure to prompt discussion and further reading, the living poets write about their favorite works of erotic writing. This book will delight, surprise, and inspire.