Could Be Time for Smut

She is too fond of books, and it has turned her brain.

Louisa May Alcott

I used to read one to two books a week. Since taking this job of reading 200 essays a day on a computer screen, I don't have the energy at night to pick up a book. If I do, my mind (not to mention my eyes) only has the strength to read three paragraphs at a time. With the brain fry I experience at night, I now understand why people watch reality TV - and drink.

I’ve always read with such passion, rarely not finishing a book. Now, I’m fickle. The other night a friend saw Journal of a Solitude on my counter and said, “Don’t you find that book depressing?” Yes, I thought to myself. Might be why after a month I'm only on page 10. Her comment gave me license to take that one off my list. Maybe I'll return to it another time, another place in life. Maybe not.

Perhaps because my time is more limited now, I'm forced to become choosier as to how I spend it. Out of necessity, as we do need clean laundry and food to eat every now and then (and there is that garden of mine I want to tend) not many productive hours remain for my own private pursuits. But I definitely need something easier on the mind and eyes while I sink into my chair at night. Staring at the television is not fulfilling my creative needs. Perhaps this is where smut might edge its way onto my shelves.

I’ve always been rather a snob with my choices of reading material, often chastising my friend the history curriculum leader of our state, former editor, and great writer in her own right, for reading garbage. I often trip over boxes and boxes of bodice rippers in the far recesses of her kitchen or next to her easy chair. Her defense – that she works hard and reads such loaded material all the time, that the last thing she wants to read about are people’s troubles and screwed up lives. That she just wants to race through the words and get to the good stuff.

Hmmm. Although it is words put together well that attracts me to a good book, along with a good story and characters I see sitting next to me, at this point in time, smut just might be my ticket as well. But for me, it will still have to be well-written smut. In the past couple years I have re-read Lolita (scumbag Humbert Humbert) and Lady Chatterley's Lover. I enjoyed the romp in the Outlander series (or perhaps that main male character that I would like to bed about 5000 times.) But I don’t do Nora Roberts, vampires or paranormal, and I’m not a mystery fan. Any suggestions for quality bodice rippers with an actual story line and good character development? Big print a plus!