Currently reading
Gay L. A.: A History of Sexual Outlaws, Power Politics, and Lipstick Lesbians
The Burning Plain
The World Turned: Essays on Gay History, Politics, and Culture
Man's World
Sexual Politics, Sexual Communities
Making Trouble: Essays on Gay History, Politics, and the University
Flesh and the Word: 2an Anthology
Created Equal: Why Gay Rights Matter to America
Created Equal: Why Gay Rights Matter to America
In 2013, it seems a little dated, until you remember that one or two wrong turns in elections and all the gains are at risk. If you don't think a study and awareness of the reasons for gay rights is still necessary, look at all the years the government spent spying on gays and lesbians for no other reason than they were gays and lesbians. Knowledge, vigilance, and voting equals freedom.
Coming Home
Desperately needs a proofreader, wrong tense verbs, missing punctuation., equals hard to push on through.
2.75 Illogical tale of 35-year old barrista love god who spots a much younger barrister, someone who isn't out to himself and bullies him into the back room of a bar. The porny bits are okay, but the whole story, a teaser to rope one into the series, didn't reel me in.
The Hidden Law
Just when you think Henry Rios might finally be happy, Michael Nava has to leave him wobbly.Besides the stories, so evocative of their times [attention professors of LGBT classes substitute [book:Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes|72003] with The Hidden Law your students will appreciate it], Nava writes so beautifully.
"It was a mystery of my sexual nature that a body which was the mirror image of mine could be so compelling and feel so unfamiliar, as if it belonged to a separate gender. When I was younger, it had seemed urgent to unravel this mystery because I believed that if it could be explained, the haters would stop hating us. Now I believed they had no more right to an explanation about me then I did about them and, in any case, they would find other reasons to hate. Now I was simply grateful for his body beside me, known and unknown."
As a strange little aside, my university has two hardback copies and shelves both in 'Juvenile.'
Just go read it for yourself, you won't be sorry.
In the Blaze of His Hungers
Maybe readers are being set up for a sequel? Abrupt beginning and ending, otherwise, writing decent.
Hanging Loose
3.75 Beautiful young men, surfers, my hometown, what's not to like? Every time this story leads up to a plot twist, it shies away, it reads like a second draft that got published somehow.
Someday This Pain Will Be Useful to You: A Novel
I loved this book, discovered it while working on a project on Stephen Elliott. Someone recommended Someday to further understand Elliott's "Where I Slept" essay. I don't quite see the connection but I'll never be sorry for following up that lead and reading this book.One of my favorite bits: ""But I'd never spoken to her about that memory. I think I was afraid that if I talked about it, if I let the memory be articulated, it might vanish, or decompose, the way some fragile and precious ancient things turn to dust if they are unearthed."
It's going to be a book that loiters in my mind for a long time; I know a sequel is unlikely and why, but I'd really like to know what happens next.
The Little Death (Henry Rios Mystery)
Subtle and perfect, with all the basics of a film noir, so just like a Raymond Chandler novel, there's no happily ever after.
Rolling The R's
Read for class, probably wouldn't read again. Thirty-one of us and only me and one other person (a pidgin speaker) liked it. I wonder if Rolling was written contemporaneously, like from a journal or did Linmark research his extensive pop culture references? Heavy references to Farrah Fawcett aside, this is a tough read. Ultimately, I coped with reading this by suspending my awareness that the main characters were supposed to be in elementary school; as if they were X-rated Peanuts—sans Snoopy and Woodstock. If I could engage the athor, I’d want to know were the experiences of multiple instances of child molestation and abuse real within his circle or if he exaggerated. Because if this were anything close to truth, it’s too terrible to contemplate.
Frustrating poor editing: typos and formatting errors made for annoying distractions in an already challenging book.
The Gay Male Sleuth in Print and Film: A History and Annotated Bibliography
Fascinating, the organization takes some getting used to.
Infecting the Treatment: Being an HIV-Positive Analyst
Honestly, I didn't read the whole book, just the non-technical bits. Beautiful, dignified non-vitriolic prose written with honesty and disarming candor.
Dirty Pirate
Kyle Adams can always be counted on for a tale that leaves a smile on my face and wanting more. The narrator, Quinton, is a typical Adams protagonist: the sweet, clueless, nerd; Eric, the object of his desire, is a police officer, another familiar Adams choice. But Adams does not recycle previous efforts, Dirty Pirate is a little quirky and quite hot at the end. My only complaint is it wasn't long enough and it needed a proofreader.
The Hardest Thing: A Dan Stagg Mystery
Received free from M/M Romance Groups Love Has No Boundaries event.Dan Stagg, ex-Marine major, ran afoul of DADT after his lover is killed. Now he's in New York City, a doorman at a crappy club, when things go bad at that job he lands a bodyguard job, transporting the "secretary" of a rich man out of town.
Dan spent twelve years in the Marines, he's a graduate of Annapolis, he was a major, so he knows this deal is anything but innocuous. But thirty large will set him up nicely, and it doesn't hurt that the body he's guarding is like candy.
So Dan and his boy head for New England and a classic road trip with cheap motels and diners, Dan loses his heart for only the second time in his life and then the bad guys come after them. When the younger man is abducted, Dan does something I don't think I've ever read or seen an action hero do before, and then he goes to kick ass.
This is a gay action hero-adventure story, think Matt Helm without the suits, a big ex-Marine with shaved, bald head who likes his men to be men and not perfumed and waxed. And just like a James Bond, if sex with someone he happens upon happens, he enjoys himself and wonders afterwards, is he really falling in love?