This Year's Bad-Sex Winners

Ten authors have joined the distinguished ranks of such literary luminaries as Norman Mailer and Tom Wolfe—as nominees for the annual Literary Review Bad Sex in Fiction award. The dubious honor singles out “otherwise sound literary” fiction that includes “unconvincing, perfunctory, embarrassing or redundant passages of a sexual nature,” reports the Guardian. Among the candidates: John Updike, Russell Banks, and former Tony Blair Communications Director Alastair Campbell.

Printable samples: Paulo Coehlo, in Brida, describes sex as "the moment when Eve was reabsorbed into Adam's body and the two halves became Creation." Ann Allestree's Triptych of a Young Wolf, comes complete with wolf and "hybrid" sex. And sex and soup? "He was bringing her to a pitch of ecstasy when she heard Madame Veuve, on the landing, put down the supper tray. Whiffs of onion soup strayed over them as he engulfed her. 'Don't stop,' she clamoured; she was nearly there, it was in the bag."

(More John Updike stories.)