Best written sex scene

Fight scenes are dangerous territory for writers. On the surface, they seem as if they're guaranteed to keep the reader glued to the action in the same way as they often do at the movies. In reality, though, readers tend to skip over fight scenes - skimming the long, tedious, blow-by-blow descriptions in favour of getting back to the dialogue and character-driven drama that truly engages them in the story. This means having to ensure that every piece of action is vital and engaging; it means that every duel must draw the reader in and not let them go until the end. So how do you keep the pacing, flow, and more importantly, the drama moving forward with so many fights?

What makes for a great literary death scene? This is the question I and the other four judges of the Wellcome Trust book prize for medicine in literature have been pondering in advance of an event at the Cheltenham festival. I find many famous death scenes more ludicrous than lachrymose. As with Oscar Wilde's comment on the death of Dickens's Little Nell, you would have to have a heart of stone not to laugh at the passing of the awful Tullivers in Mill on the Floss, dragged down clutching one another as the river deliciously finishes them off.

Do you remember the first time you were sexually excited by an image on a screen? We do! It might've been a music video to a teen-pop bop, or a particularly mushy episode of Buffy. Most likely, it was a movie of the PG persuasion, which you snuck a viewing of far from the eyes of your parents when you were nowhere near the age of

Indisputable fact: everyone — yes, even your something-year-old mother — loves a juicy book scene. I fully support a solid TV or movie sex scene , but there's something even better about the descriptive language authors use to set the mood to make whatever's happening in the steamy passage really come. We've gathered up the sexiest excerpts from literature — you may want to have access to a cold shower before getting started on these. The best part is that these books also have truly compelling plotlines book-lovers will appreciate.