The Top Five Sexiest Writers

The Nobel Prize in Literature was given out today to German novelist Herta Müller, which is garnering her a good deal of press. Which made me think about how we can know an author incredibly well through her work but have no idea what she looks like - sort of an inverse of movie stardom. With that in mind, I'm going to give you a rundown of the top five sexiest (modern - paintings lie!) writers. Because literary talent is all well and good, but we all know that it's what's on the outside that counts!

5. Langston Hughes

A giant of the Harlem Renaissance, Hughes was famous for his powerful and political works dealing with the black condition in early 20th-century America. In his poem  My People, Hughes wrote:

The night is beautiful,
So the faces of my people.

And he was certainly not wrong in his case. (Using lines from a poem championing the inherent worth of an entire people to describe one guy's handsomeness is clearly totally appropriate.) Little known fact: maybe gay.

4. Anais Nin

Nin was well known for her erotic writing in such books as Delta of Venus, and one can only imagine that she lived by that old axiom, write what you know, based on this quotation: "I only believe in intoxication, in ecstasy, and when ordinary life shackles me, I escape, one way or another." Golly.

3. Zadie Smith

Zadie Smith's third novel, On Beauty, was all about the difference in standards of beauty between one culture and another, which sounds very deep and considerate. Allow me to illustrate the exact opposite of that: she is very pretty. Smith also wrote herself into the book (for a brief moment) as a novelist who skipped boring meetings (hee).

2. Jack Kerouac

He may be the go-to icon for every college guy who wants to seem deep and artistic and free-spirited, but don't hold that against him. He was a bit of a misogynist and eventually got all gung-ho for the Vietnam War, which you can hold against him. But you must admit, the man has a kind of rogueish charm. Fun fact: maybe bisexual.

1. Sylvia Plath

You might be thinking, "James, Sylvia Plath was a tortured writer who eventually committed suicide when she could not overcome her depression, this is inappropriate." And you would probably be all too right, but I've never been known for behaving well. And look at Plath in that bathing suit! She's positively Marilyn Monroe-esque.

As they say, readers, there's no accounting for taste, and these are simply my picks. So tell me, what writer am I an illiterate fool to have left out?