Welcome back to Worth the Read! If there’s one thing my colleagues and I love, it’s communicating through memes, especially when they relate to books, movies, and shows. Our Slackmojis are filled with Rylo Ken screaming for more, holding space for “Defying Gravity,” Kris Jenner calling for the FBI, and much more. 

So, you better believe that when a sexy wicker basket hit the interwebs last week, we were all in.

In case you’ve missed it, the very first trailer for Wicker, a new film based on the short story "The Wicker Husband" by Ursula Wills-Jones, came out July 30. (The short story is not currently available to read anywhere, but hopefully that changes soon!) The film stars Olivia Colman as a lonely fisherwoman who commissions a basket weaver (Peter Dinklage) to make her a husband. The magical result? A sexy, smoldering, wicker Alexander Skarsgård, woven nipples and all. The movie looks beautiful, funny, nuanced, romantic, and, yes, rather raunchy. I don’t want to write out what this trailer has done to the meme-making public, so I’m just going to direct you to this Hollywood Reporter article, “How to Ignite an Internet Frenzy? Give Alexander Skarsgard a Wicker Penis.”

As my colleagues and I cackled over all the early memes, I felt the need to point out that sentient object smut is an actual romance subgenre. And just like Wicker, they frequently serve a hefty dose of humor along with their spice. And then, of course, I fell down an NSFW rabbit hole.

So, in a twist I never saw coming, I’m going to dedicate this edition of Worth the Read to smut featuring inanimate objects that come to life. (No, I can’t believe I’m writing that, either.) While I must admit this isn’t a genre I read, I’ve done some research and feel pretty confident I’ve come up with a good list of five must-read authors.

While I never want to yuck someone’s yum, I’ll admit I went into this email feeling skeptical. And I’m still pretty skeptical. But, as you’ll see, all of these picks are about acknowledging the absurd and hilarious along with the spice. They encourage us to just be weird and like what we like, and never be too serious about any of it. They ask us to bend our imaginations until they break, then have a great time cleaning up the shards. I can get behind all of this!

So, if you want to learn about the sexiest door alive, an MRI machine with rizz, a hot and bothered library card, something called a Hallowpeen, and a wild tomato, keep reading. (Am I going to get fired for this email?) 

P.s. If you read last week’s edition, you’ll know that what I included as the rumored Reese’s Book Club pick was, indeed, correct. Huzzah!

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