Whether sexual in nature, or books that deal on subjects such as family, history, or the relationship between men and women, these are must-read books for any man, true treasures of information when it comes to a man’s place in today’s society.

It is almost impossible to read this short novel and not be moved by the life of G.G. Marquez’s main character. An old man wishing to feel alive, wishing to spend his 90th birthday in the company of a virgin woman, so full of life. How many have found love at a young age? How many have located it at 90? How many lived to be 90 years of age?

The day the old man meets his love, that’s when all fear of dying is obliterated. The simple act of contemplating a naked woman, without any sexual desires being involved, that’s what some of us might call love. Real love.

Memories of My Melancholy Whores need to be read at least once. Maybe more than once.

Released in 1971, Alberto Moravia’s novel is all about the cold war between a man and the lack of performance of his organ. So to speak. Yes, this might shock the faint of heart, but this novel deals on subjects that are all too relevant in today’s world. A lack of self-worth, the idea of finding one’s physical appearance disgusting, the obsessive nature of man.

The 120 Days of Sodom, or the School of Libertinage, was written by the Marquis in 37 days while imprisoned in the Bastille.  Considered the most perverse book ever written, a true encyclopedia of sexual excesses, a long time thought to be lost, it was finally published in 1904.

It is worth reading by those who believe that love-making is repetitive in nature, that one cannot imagine new pleasures (depends on how you defined them) into existence.

Eroticism as a concept, as a code, as ceremony, as art, as science.

“No one is born anything. One must learn. Our way of becoming men, of mutating into men, is to reject our ignorance and our myths, like a hermit crab casting off its old shell, and don the truth like a new garment. Thus we can be indefinitely born and reborn. With each ‘abrupt mutation,’ we’ll be more human and we’ll remake our world to suit out pleasure better. ‘Learning’ is learning to enjoy. Ovid already said it, as you’ll recall: ‘Ignoti nulla cupido!’” (you cannot desire what you do not know), Nihil volitum nisi praecognitum (Nothing is wanted that was not previously known.)”

As Oscar Wilde said, everything in life is about sex. Except for sex. Sex is about power.

Published just years before the French Revolution, Dangerous Liaisons is a novel of moral and emotional depravity is a disturbing and ultimately damning portrayal of a decadent society. The Marquise de Merteuil and the Vicomte de Valmont, two rivals (and ex-lovers) use seduction as a weapon to socially control and exploit others, all the while enjoying their cruel games and boasting about their manipulative talents. Merteuil challenges Valmont to seduce an innocent convent girl, all the while being occupied with the conquest of a virtuous married woman. Eventually, their human pawns respond, and the consequences prove to be more serious–and deadly–than the players could have ever predicted.

Often compared with Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment, Dangerous Liaisons has been adapted a number of times.

Or read some other of his novels. Tropic of Cancer or something. But you must read something by Henry Miller, if only to be dumbfounded as to how someone can be so pornographic, have such a disgusting way of describing certain depravities and such pitying views when it comes to certain characters, yet you cannot stop reading.

It is shocking, yet you must read more.

A brilliant writer, one of the most influential writers of the last century, Henry Miller deserves the most to be on this list.

Women
Charles Bukowski

“I was sentimental about many things: a woman’s shoes under the bed; one hairpin left behind on the dresser; the way they said, ‘I’m going to pee.’ hair ribbons; walking down the boulevard with them at 1:30 in the afternoon, just two people walking together; the long nights of drinking and smoking; talking; the arguments; thinking of suicide; eating together and feeling good; the jokes; the laughter out of nowhere; feeling miracles in the air; being in a parked car together; comparing past loves at 3am; being told you snore; hearing her snore; mothers, daughters, sons, cats, dogs; sometimes death and sometimes divorce; but always carrying on, always seeing it through; reading a newspaper alone in a sandwich joint and feeling nausea because she’s now married to a dentist with an I.Q. of 95; racetracks, parks, park picnics; even jails; her dull friends; your dull friends; your drinking, her dancing; your flirting, her flirting; her pills, your fucking on the side and her doing the same; sleeping together”