5) House of Holes by Nicholson Baker


 

    House of Holes
  • Price: $12.00
  • ISBN-10: 1439189528
  • ISBN-13: 978-1439189528

Shandee finds a friendly arm at a granite quarry. Ned drops down a hole in a golf course. So begins Nicholson Baker�s fuse-blowing sexual escapade�a modern-day Hieronymus Boschian bacchanal set in a pleasure resort where normal rules don�t apply. House of Holes, one of the most talked-about books in recent memory, is a gleefully provocative novel sure to surprise, amuse, and arouse. From the looks of its inconspicuous cover, it�s hard to tell what this book is about save the fine print that reads (very honestly), �book of raunch.� Baker, author of such previous works as The Fermata and Vox -- the book that Monica Lewinsky gave Bill Clinton which recounts a single, highly inventive phone sex conversation -- is becoming a talked about novelist so you can blame the Book Review for your indulgence in a little�okay, a whole lotta erotica. Some are calling this 262 page romp Baker�s dirtiest work yet (which is funny because the author looks a little like Santa). House of Holes is a series of loosely linked stories set in a sexual theme park where rides include �Masturboats� and characters can visit the �Porndecahedron,� a 12-screen planetarium showing nonstop adult films. And those are just the tame attractions at this twisted �happiest place on earth.� Warning: Guests with heart, neck or back problems should not ride!


Visit the House of Holes, where the motto is PLEASURE FIRST, and discover a solution to every sexual problem, insight into every sexual intrigue, or play out your greatest sexual fantasy. Men can begin with a 'good, friendly penis scrub', take the magic sperm sniff test, or visit the Porndecahedron.


Greedy women can visit the Hall of the Penises, shy women can order a partner with a 'voluntary head detachment', curious couples can investigate each other further with a 'cross crotchal interplasmic transfer'.


But ladies, watch out for the Pearloiner, who might just steal from you what you cherish most �

Reviews

�Truly uproarious . . . Baker is one of the most consistently enticing writers of our time.� �Sam Lipsyte, front cover of The New York Times Book Review

�Wild and hallucinatory . . . Full of fearlessness, cheerfulness, wit, and brio.� �Meg Wolitzer, The Washington Post

�House of Holes is as funny as it is filthy. . . . When he is not writing about sex (and also when he is), Baker is one of the most beautiful, original, ingenious prose stylists to have come along in decades.� �Charles McGrath, The New York Times Magazine

�A sexy, disturbing, funny book: It may also challenge the usual reader of literary novels with its sheer dazzling excess of imagination.� �Kate Roiphe, Slate

�Awe-inducing . . . A joyful, almost Chaucerian book . . . Had Dr. Seuss been a slightly insane pornographer, he might have written a book like this.� �Tom Bissell, GQ

�A funny, frisky novel that brings sexy back in a way that Justin Timberlake never dreamed . . . Reminds us that books can be fun and sexy, that literature can have just as much raw energy and liberating chaos as a good f*ck.� �Mark Haskell Smith, Los Angeles Review of Books


�Brilliant, absurd, puerile, depraved, and completely enthralling.� �Steve Almond, The Boston Globe

�A world of universal arousal is common enough in pornography, but Baker has fully realized its comic possibilities . . . He can conjure fantastical sexual scenarios and unspool yards of charmingly filthy dialogue.� �Elaine Blair, The New York Review of Books

�Amazing and indispensable.� �Jeff Simon, The Buffalo News


Back

Dated 26  October 2013