Naturist Fiction: an overview of my reading to date.

Since downloading and enjoying Naked Crow I have read lots of books with a naturist theme, downloading as many as I can find and reading most of them. My Kindle is filling up with them.

This post is an attempt to analyse my reactions to what I have read. Some are excellent and well written others are less good. I would like to emphasize that this only my feelings and opinions and I don't expect everybody to agree with me.

The books I will be talking about are as follows.
1. Naked Crow: P Walker (Paul Kater)
2. The Bare Necessities John David Harding
3. The Midnight Girls David Ellery
4. The Incredible Naked Adventure at Batsto Jayne Louise
5. Naturist Red in Tooth and Claw Stuart Pitsligo
6. The Au-Naturel Girls R Richard
7. Nude Town John D
8. The first nudist (short Story) Janice Daugharty

Most of the books seem to be 'light fiction' in one form or another and many of them seem to 'promote naturism in some way. They seem mostly to be aimed at a young audience. The majority on the characters are under thirty and a good proportion of them are teenagers. Some are sexually explicit whilst others are almost 'squeaky clean'.

Naked Crow I really liked, the naturist theme is set in a wholesome family nudist resort in the US and the plot of the story, where Sheila's friend and colleague disappears during a visit to the nudist resort, is a fantasy where people move into a different time reality. It is well plotted and well paced. My only criticism would be that some of the responses of Sheila and her friends to going naked, which they all do eventually, seem the be taken directly from a naturist flyer and rather artificially grafted on to the plot.

The Bare Necessities is a music romp which is a great laugh and once I suspended disbelief in the plot I greatly enjoyed this too. Not all the characters were right-on goodies and some responses to the nudist rock group were suitably salacious. Again the wholesome family naturist resorts were perhaps slightly over emphasised and the descriptions were rather like a brochure.

The Midnight Girls must surely be aimed at younger teenagers and is set in a fantasy village in the west of England or Ireland, the location is never made clear. The sub plot this time is teenagers and pre‑teens growing developing interest in sex. Some of the description of close investigation of each others genitals was overworked and seems to show a little too much interest on the part of the (male) author in young girls anatomy, whilst the responses of the young boy in the story are almost non‑existent, he observes with great interest but shows no signs of arousal, unlike the girls. Liberal attitudes to all forms of sexual interest are rather overworked as if the author was trying too hard to be inclusive and 'PC'. As a teen fantasy however the book was great fun.

The Incredible Naked Adventure at Batsto is a naktive romp which has three girls and a boat in an adventure which could have been written by Enid Blyton, except that they were naked most of the time. Good light fun for actual or aspiring naturist girls and boys. My only criticism is that there were no naked boys to balance things.

Naturist Red in Tooth and Claw is totally different in that it is a blood spattered Zombie story with a naturist, perhaps I should call it a 'Naktive', theme. One of the main characters' conversion to naturism from being excessively inhibited is a trifle laboured and then abandoned as the main plot gets going. The criminally horrific cold war science seemed artificial and lacked credibility, this was the least successful part of the story. As it is the only zombie book I have ever read all else I can say is it was an enjoyable and usually well written substantial read without being really my kind of thing.

The Au-Naturel Girls is something different. Definitely aimed at adults it has explicit sex scenes and characters who have issues with racism and violence as well as nudism. The sexual activity is not however directly linked to the girls choice the be home nudists; more that they are typical modern young adults who are also naturist. The main male character starts off with 'normal' laddish assumptions but these slowly change. The story is set in a rugged northern (UK) working class environment. In many ways the book is far more realistic than any of the others. It is also well written with believable characters and a good pace. It is more 'literature' and less of a popular 'light read' than many of the others. I recommend it providing you like things a bit earthy.

These last characteristics are unfortunately not present in Nude Town which is a novella length story about a town which declares itself nude friendly and swinger friendly in order to avoid bankrupcy. Most of the citizens agree to go nude and persaude each other to do so. There are several odd or unpleasant assumptions in this book. For example that children should never be allowed to go nude and that becoming a naked town would result in general swinging and licentiousness. (These two ideas are presumably linked). The whole idea of a town declaring itself to be a 'clothes free zone' is a nice one and there are a few good scenes but the characterisation is pretty thin. I didn't like this book.

To end on a lighter note The First Nudist is a delightful short story set it the southern 'Bible Belt' of the US where naturism is definitely taboo. Until………….. I won't spoil it for you.

Richard Jannaway