Sidney Sheldon, 89, author of steamy novels.

Keep the shades drawn, put "60 Minutes of Uninterrupted Beach" on the videocassette recorder and read a steamy novel.

Last week, a steamy novel came out that was written partly by a computer named Hal - surely a cousin of the "2001" star.

The line is from "The Postman Always Rings Twice," James M. Cain's steamy novel of the 1930's that became a movie four times over.

Before relaxing with the latest steamy novel, or baiting a hook for a little fishing off the rocks to catch a blue or striper, you have got to set up house.

And Chicago is the home of the Rev. Andrew Greeley, the priest and writer of some relatively steamy novels.

Under the pen name Anne Rampling, she has written two barely noticed steamy novels.

It is not that people are particularly rebellious: what they yearn for is not so much to read about human rights as to read steamy novels.

This is something that happens in steamy novels, not in real life.

Such things are not talked about here, much less acknowledged as fact, outside of a few steamy novels.