What Books Are You Reading in 2023? Part 3

Link to Part 2

Link to Part 1

I’ve started “No Dominion” today, the third book in an apocalyptic trilogy by Louise Welsh. Each has been better than the last and I love the premise, in which the world has been plagued by a virus which killed off the vast majority of the population. It paints a very vivid picture of what that might lead to.

Where's the link to part 3?

The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo.

Silly question, but is Nino Strachey a descendant of Lytton?

Nino Strachey is a relative. Also, a woman.

I'm about to read Cathleen Schine's The Three Weissmans of Westport. Any other fans of this writer? I enjoyed her Rameau's Niece and The Love Letter many years ago.

I know John Boyne has been discussed a lot in these threads but has anyone read A LADDER TO THE SKY? I might be one of the few who didn't like THE HEART'S INVISBLE FURIES but I've heard this other book is unlike most of his other work and, therefore, I thought I might try it. Any fans?

Speaking of John Boyne, I liked This House is Haunted

An interesting contemporaneous history of the pandemic through a uniquely personal lens. (And the author is a gay man).

I'm surprised there haven't been more novels recently written about Covid and The Pandemic. Does it just seem now like it was a passing fad?

Maybe it's too soon.....

Louise Erdrich’s THE SENTENCE has a whole Covid storyline. I didn’t like the book but it was novel for me since I don’t think I had seen it mentioned before that.

IIRC, Armistead Maupin’s BABYCAKES (1985) was the first novel to mention AIDS. I’m pretty sure that’s correct although I could be mistaken.

Check. out OUR COUNTRY FRIENDS by Gary Shteyngart.

Linwood Barclay IS Stephen King!

R9 i liked Heart Invible Furies, not a perfect book, but enjoyable. A Ladder To The Sky i did not like, derivative,etc, and the. I read his Echo Chamber, which was dire. So no John Boyne soon.

Am reading Romw by Robert Hughes, lots of homosexual painters.

^ crushing

I checked out OUR COUNTRY FRIENDS but couldn't finish it. Too silly for me.

I have listened to a few of the Myron Bolitar audiobooks by Harlan Coben via my local library. Steven Weber narrates them really well. And from a foreigner’s perspective it’s interesting. As someone whose primarily knowledge of New Jersey is Springsteen, The Sopranos and RHONJ, the books show how diverse (and expensive) the state is. There isn’t any Coben fandom online, no Reddit board or anything. It’s hard for me to gauge, but the character Win appears to be a fan favourite. He’s a snooty, old money psycho - Jack Reacher meets Jay Gatsby if they were from Main Line Philadelphia WASPS - and the hero’s best friend. Maybe it’s the way Weber reads him but I find him a total cheeseball pain the ass.

R19, you've just reminded me how much I love Harlan Coben's books. I just reserved the kindle version of Deal Breaker, the first Myron Bolitar book, at my local library. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

I enjoy them in particular among mystery series because I'm from New Jersey, one county over from Livingston, in the Irish/Italian/Jewish melting pot that was once so prevalent in Northern New Jersey.

Rushes by John Rechy

I'd love to hear some more recommendations of Harlan Coben mysteries. Never read him but I'm eager. He now has a home in a beachfront highrise in my town of Asbury Park.

r22, are you r19?

Either way, you can start the Myron Bolitar series. There's also a lot of standalone contract. I've mostly read them all in order.

The Bible, again.

No, r23, I'm not r19.

Thanks for that link but I'm not looking for a comprehensive list of titles. I was hoping for some opinions and thoughts and recommendations for my first Coben read..

Hey, I’m r19. The first Coben book I read was Tell No One. It was made into a French thriller with François Cluzet and Kristin Scott Thomas. Although it’s a story has clues sent via new-fangled email, it stands up.

Run Away is another standalone that was released 18 years later in 2019. It deals with DNA databases and was inspired by Coben listening to a terrible busker next at Strawberry Fields and wondering what would happen if a fight he witnessed there went viral. Also! It features Myron Bolitar’s awesome lawyer Hester Crimstein. Think a young Judge Judy.

If you are interested in the Myron Bolitar books, the latest one, Home, will make little sense and the following standalone, Win, won’t be terribly interesting without reading at least the 11th book Live Wire.

I would start with the 8th, Promise Me, if you are unable to the find the first book in the series and go on from there (The 9th, Long Lost, is largely set in Europe, so you don’t get the same sense of place). It’s a story showing Myron as an agent who investigates and that signature affluent suburban Jersey flavour, without then the comparatively convoluted but exciting mysterious interconnections underpinning the books starting with Live Wire.

Then, after Live Wire, go to his YA* Mickey Bolitar series featuring Myron’s nephew, to make sense of Home and Win.

*(It’s only YA in the sense that’s there’s a high school kid investigating his family secrets - think a male Veronica Mars - and some the club where his friends go undercover to find trafficked girls doesn’t feature a sex dungeon but go-go dancing the writing level remains the same. A parental drug addiction is presented with few pulled).

In short, go for Tell No One, Promise Me or Run Away.

Thank you so much, r26. I really appreciate your response and I'll look into those books.

Halfway through the new Jessica Lange bio, which inspired me to purchase "Will There Really Be a Morning?" by Frances Farmer. Most secondhand copies are going for upwards of $50.00, but I managed to score one at half that price. Looking forward to it.

R28, I've always wanted to read that and never had the chance

R13. Facing It, a little known novel on its own terms, by Paul Reed, is considered the first novel to name and address AIDS.

Finished Molly Keane's "Time After Time" yesterday, a serious novel after the farcical "Good Behaviour" for me. I didn't so much get the only son Jasper as being gay, but vaguely not-straight, too subtle for me. Baby June seemed gay-er. Re-appearance of continental cousin Leida actually the gay-est aspect, no surprise to fellow thread readers that she turns out a bitch. Ending proved a payoff, after the final twist.

I loved GOOD BEHAVIOR, really a small masterpiece, and enjoyed TIME AFTER TIME but was disappointed in the ending of that one. I thought Keane created wonderfully indelible characters with fascinating back stories but then didn't really have a strong plot or story structure for those characters to flourish in their present time. The ending seemed predictable, blunt and hasty.

Marijane Meaker always insisted that her 1986 YA novel NIGHT KITES was the first novel to mention AIDS.

She was wrong, though hers may have been the first YA to do so.

I’m reading Nancy Drew and the Case of the Hidden Closet.

It’s a little complex, but I’m beginning to get to grips with it.

r35, is it about the coming out of George, dark-haired and boyish?

I just read an English novel, "The Custard Boys" by John Rae, published in 1960. It's about a gang of 12-14 year old boys in a coastal village during the early years of WW II. It's clearly influenced by "Lord of the Flies," and ends up, after several episodes of escalating violence, as a forceful allegory of pacificism. The relationship between the narrator, John, and another boy, a Jewish refugee from Vienna, quickly moves from friendship to a love that is complicated by the social mores and peer pressures that envelope them. Some of the disturbing gang violence reminded me of "A Clockwork Orange"; it was even more unsettling because the boys were much younger than the droogs. It's been adapted twice into movies that I haven't seen yet.

R37, that sounds interesting. I wasn’t familiar with that book.

What I read in June:

Dusk and Other Stories, The Hunters, and Solo Faces, all by James Salter

The Neon Rain and Black Cherry Blues by James Lee Burke

Devotion by Howard Norman

The Devil Aspect by Craig Russell

Bleak House by Charles Dickens

What are Devotion and The Devil Aspect about, r39?

R39 I am so envious. I am SO SLOW now when I read. I always was, but as I grow older I am slower. I have a friend that just buzzes through 4-5 books a week. I don't understand how.

I haven't read "Bleak House," but a novel that size usually takes me a month to read, unless I'm on vacation.

Read demon copperhead . Started out great , ended with a wimper.

Five. Decembers by. James. Kestrel. Hard to put down..

r44, I bought that but haven't gotten to read it yet

Looks long, but zooms by.

Can't remember but I must have recommended a nifty thriller called NOVEMBER ROAD by Lou Berney upthread. A truly fun smart summer read about a handsome young fixer working for the New Orleans Mafia in 1963 who becomes embroiled in the JFK assassination and has to disappear. In his escape he meets up with a young wife who is on the run from a bad marriage with her 2 kids and the family dog. Wonderful plotting and the the author beautifully captures the very disparate worlds and voices of the 2 main characters.

PS: I did not care at all for an earlier book by Berney called THE LONG AND FARAWAY GONE so please skip that one.

I liked "The Long and Faraway Gone", R47. Interesting premise of a fictional resolution to a historical mystery that can never be resolved.

I re-read Bleak House a few months ago. Since I recalled almost no details it was essentially a new read for me. Unabridged audiobooks the way to go with classic tomes for me.

Four or five books a week? Even rotating among Elin Hilderbrand, Jodi Picoult, etc. would be challenging for that rate!

Someday before I die I'd like to reread all of my favorite Dickens - Bleak House, David Copperfield, Great Expectations and Dombey & Son.

I started reading The Guest by Emma Cline. Fantastic summer read. I love her style.

House of Joy

Finally got around to starting THE BOOK THIEF. Any fans?

R47 Thanks for the "November Road" recommendation. I'll queue it up as a chaser for after I've read Don DeLilo's "Libra."

Really enjoying “the late Americans” by Brandon Taylor so far.

Very gay, very well written.

I read Fillthy Animals last month, r54, but though i enjoyed it was somewhat underwhelmed. Still have Real Life to read though.

R55, I never got into his other books but REALLY enjoying this one

Just finished the new Riley Sager thriller, "The Only One Left". Love his writing, and this one is a nerve-racking thriller about a lonely old woman living in a crumbling mansion on a cliff, accused of murdering her parents and sister 50 years before. Her new caretaker is determined to unravel the mystery of those murders. Very twisty, very surprising ending, and ready for its close-up. Love his books.

I'm a social history nerd, so I'm taking on all twenty of Zola's Rougan-Macquart novels as a summer project. Second empire was drama!

R58, oh, i intended to do that and bought the first volume bur the initial pages were off putting for my mood at the time. Do tell as you go along.

"Death Of A President" by William Manchester from 1967, which I scored for a couple of bucks at a local discount place, hardcover. Always heard about but had not yet got a chance to read it. Just occurred to me, can't believe Pres. Kennedy's assassination anniversary this upcoming November will be @ 60 years. Even if as many folks didn't like him as did, just an aside as an American history talking point I think remembering and reflecting on what happened to our Presidency that day should be important. Instead, unfortunately, just about no news outlets will mention it again and will be prioritizing their airing of pieces probably on Britney Spears, one or more of the Kardashians, or on Megasauraus and Harry.

I think I'm in the minority, at least among my friends, but I never liked John Boyne's The Heart's Invisible Furies but I finally thought I'd give him a second chance and so I just read A Ladder to the Sky because I'd been told it wasn't typical of his work.

Well, the first 2 parts were absolutely riveting and engaging and sexy, West Berlin in 1986 and then the brilliantly observed section at Gore Vidal's palazzo in Amalfi.....but then, with the protagonist's marriage, the book took a ghastly nosedive into trite mediocre trash from which it never recovered. One unbelievable event after another, unfathomable character motivations. I can't get over how a writer could run to such extremes within one novel.

Thoughts? Should I attempt a third book?

I finished The Guest. So good. Even better than The Girls.

Any recommendations for a current author, British or otherwise, that is writing psychological thrillers like Ruth Rendell?

I'm reading some of Karin Fossum's Norwegian mysteries featuring Inspector Sejer and I like her writing but wish it had a little more of the complexity of Rendell.

R63. Have you read her books written under the name Barbara Vine? I like those a lot.

Yes, I read most all of Rendell's Barbara Vine books when they were originally published. I'm old! I discovered Ruth Rendell in the early 1980s and continued to read most of her books until she died.

I'm hoping to discover a more current writer in the Rendell/Vine vein.

I'm rereading - possibly for the fourth time - all of George Whitmore's work. Finished "Confessions of Danny Slocum", and "Nebraska." About to start 'Someone Was Here: Profiles in the AIDS Epidemic."

(Youngsters might want to look him up; Whitmore's part of gay history.)

George Whitmore was a member of the Violet Quill and passed away from AIDS in 1989. Such a handsome man.

Looking up Whitmore now. Thank you.

Just saw Lawn Boy's Jonathan Evison interviewed on MSNBC. The book has been mentioned on these book threads, I think. Evison is not gay? I had no idea.

Authors, of course, can write about anything. I mean gay writers writing about straight people is a given. But I have this weird reaction to straight writers writing "gay" novels. Maybe a result of my distaste for Yanigahara's abomination, 800 pages of A Little Life.

R69, everybody’s a little bit gay.

I love Barbara Vine/Ruth Rendell

I taught Whitmore’s Someone’s Was Here in a seminar on AIDS in 1989! Students loved it. He died during the semester, which felt like a shock to them.

I can’t read. I only look at pictures.

For anybody who read Lawn Boy, can you say why Republicans wanted to ban the book without giving away spoilers?

To answer you, r74, would have to be a big spoiler.

There's Lawn Boy and Lawnboy. It's the first that was banned in FL,probably because it didn't give Ron D a boner.

Just finished THE EDEN TEST after seeing it recommended in the last thread. Had a GONE GIRL vibe but not as strong of a plot (you can see a lot of it coming from a mile away. It was enjoyable enough for a summer beach read.

I didn’t know that the author’s wife was Julia May Jonas which Infoujd put in the Acknowledgments. I had thought of Jonas’s VLADÍMÍR while reading her husband’s novel. Hers is the more superior book by far. There are similarities…

[quote] Any recommendations for a current author, British or otherwise, that is writing psychological thrillers like Ruth Rendell?

R63, have you tried any of Val McDermid’s work? It’s a bit too creepy and gruesome for me, but she writes the type of psychological stuff you seem to be looking for.

Looking for some good historical biographies. Any suggestions?

R65, i love Ruth Rendell/Barbara Vine too. It is difficult to find someone similar. Have you read Tana French? Some, not all, of her books have Vive streak.

There is also a new one I discovered, Lucy Atkins. Different from Rendell, but i increasingly enjoy her books is Catherine Ryan Howard.

You want a terrific British mystery author with a great imagination and plenty of skill? Try Gillian McAllister. I recommended her last book, "Wrong Place, Wrong Time", to a lot of my friends, every one of them loved it. Her next one, "Just Another Missing Person", comes out in 3 weeks.

Read my burning bush

[quote] Looking for some good historical biographies. Any suggestions?

Two of Lytton Strachey’s books, Eminent Victorians and Queen Victoria are great favourites of mine. He’s a little mocking, verging on bitchy, about his subjects, but he writes well and paints a good picture of the Victorian era.

I like Stink Hole. It’s the bio of Spain’s Queen Isabella. She only bathed twice in her entire life.

Denise Mina

I'm reading Hermione Lee's biography of Penelope Fitzgerald, one of my favorite novelists of the twentieth century.

What an amazing life she had! She was born into one of the great intellectual families of early 20th century England (the Knoxes--both her grandfathers were Anglican bishops), and she was the star woman student during her time at Oxford. She married a very handsome Irishman who was a fuck-up and eventually a drunkard, and finally was caught embezzling from his office as a solicitor. She had three kids with him, and had this incredibly checkered life after college: she worked for the BBC during WW2; she co-edited an important literary & political magazine in the 50s with her husband; they moved to the remote East Anglian coast where she worked in a bookshop (which was possessed by a poltergeist, according to her and other people who lived in the town); when she and her husband separated over his drinking and thieving, she and her three children moved into a houseboat on the Thames, which eventually sank; she worked as a teacher for decades at a posh girls' school and a "cramming" school for the college exams, where her students included Anna Wintour, Helena Bonham-Carter, Edward St. Aubyn (who adored her), and even Queen Camilla; and she worked at the British Museum. And then finally, in her sixties she started publishing her novels: she wrote nine of them and three biographies before she finally died in 2000. The third novel won the Booker, and made her famous. And most of her novels are considered masterpieces.

Hermione Lee is probably the greatest living literary biographer in the UK, and so it's a hard book to put down.

autobiography of farley granger, for the 2nd time...that queen knew ev one !!!! he fukd leonard bernstein, shelley winters, barbra stanwyck, arthur laurents, and hella lots others. he was a hottie when young.

R87, who didn’t fuck Shelley Winters?

Thanks for all the Ruth Rendell adjacent recommnedations!

[quote]Looking for some good historical biographies. Any suggestions?

I read "Nicholas and Alexandra: The Classic Account of the Fall of the Romanov Dynasty" by Robert K. Massie last year, and I just couldn't put it down.

Thanks for the historical biography suggestions!!

Love this book!

I am reading The Last of the Wine by Mary Renault.

Any fans of James Ellroy?

Never read him but I got AMERICAN TABLOID out of my library and I'm looking forward to digging in.

Renault is wonderful. If you haven't read it, don't miss PERSIAN BOY.

I'm thinking of starting [italic]The Truth About the Harry Quebert Affair[/italic] soon, but thought I'd ask for advice about realistic expectations here first. The audio narrator has one sexy voice!

Who is the narrator, r96? I saw the TV series. Which was watchable, with good acting, but odd.

Reading this is fabulous!

Not a book per se, but did anyone read this in the fiction issue of the New Yorker? WTF is this nonsense?

And I liked the extended Secretary piece she did recently, but this reads like some bad journal entry.

Pierce Cravens, R97, although I suspect it's an alias; some readers go by more than one nom-de-mic. It's free to listen to the sample at Audible. My library has the book via Libby (Overdrive).

Thanks, R86, I also love Penelope Fitzgerald, and this is good encouragement to finally crack that biography.

I've been quickly reading through "The Best Boy in the World," by Andrew Tobias. It's clear to see why it was a big deal when it came out. He's roughly my parents' age, and it's led me to think a lot about how an earlier generation dealt with being gay, at least those at the very upper middle class of the spectrum. And interesting theories, very much of their time, about just what makes someone turn gay.

Isn't it "The Best Little Boy In The World"? Did Tobias change the title? The first book about coming out I read. Still quote from it.

Tobias has written two fiction books: The Best Little Boy in the World' and 'The Best Little Boy in the World Grows Up.'

I’m reading two new books right now. The great Sally Bedell Smith’s biography of George VI and Elizabeth, & Richard Norton Smith’s biography of Gerald Ford. Not only do these biographers share the same surname, but they profile two accidents of history, unassuming individuals never destined for leadership but for the scandalous abdication/resignation of their principals.

I don't read as many novels as some others, but I've started the very quirky Polish story [italic]Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead[/italic]. Anyone else familiar with it?

R105, yes, I was a few years late to it but I really liked it.

Is it a Jeremy Renner biography, r105?

I only know the name Jeremy Renner from comments about him here, R107. So, no.

A rather obscure but delightful book by David Daube: Civil Disobedience in Antiquity. (Oh, and if anyone has reading recommendations around the topic of civil disobedience, I welcome new suggestions!)

Recommended!

The Dawn of Everything by David Graeber and David Wengrow which neatly turns a lot of the narratives of Western Civ on their heads.

Sailing to Sarantium by Guy Gavriel Kay - an alternate universe magic realism early Byzantine empire of Justinian and Theodora.

Can't wait for this!

08/08/23

I just finished HAWK MOUNTAIN by Conner Habib. Took me awhile to get into it, but I did eventually and ended up liking it (as much as one can "like" something so bleak and depressing).

For a complete change of pace, I've now started THE DECAGON HOUSE MURDERS by Yukito Ayatsuji, which is a throwback to classic Golden Age/Agatha Christie-style mysteries.

Just finished "The Devil's Playground" by Craig Russell. Fascinating horror/mystery/thriller about a lost film of the same name set in 1897, 1927, and 1967. Clever novel mixing Hollywood fact and fiction.

I just finished The Bishop Brothers, from Bart Yates. I bought it from some recommendations here. I understand people were in earnest here but god, I haven’t hated a book like this in a ling time.

The narrator is over indulgent, one of those types that seems like fan fiction, a hot tempered foull gay who inexplicably everyone love who meets him, though he treats everyone awfully. It is pver the top while the majority of the characters are cyphers. Also, its themes of incest, being gay predators and sex with teenagers pander to the worse cliches of our enimies. And it, the worse of sins, it was so overwritten.

I loved The Librarianist by Patrick deWitt. I had also loved his previous novel French Exit.

I loved the craziness of French Exit, r116, will look it up

"The Humble Lover" by Edmund White and "Big Gay Wedding" by Byron Lane (husband of Stephen Crowley of "The Guncle" fame).

Found French Exit disappointing to be honest

Stink Hole

Crowley's "The Celebrants" is built on a flimsy premise, but really delivers in the end. "Big Gay Wedding" is a big surprise. I don't think I've cried so much over an ending in a long time, and not for the reasons you'd assume, given the title.

I'm thoroughly enjoying Caroline O'Donoghue's THE RACHEL INCIDENT, a new comic novel about a young straight woman's relationship with her gay roommate in Cork, Ireland. If you loved the Brit series FLEABAG you might love this.

Reading THE DICTIONARY OF LOST WORDS by Pip Williams, a well-reviewed fictionalized account of the creation of the Oxford English Dictionary and the young women that were brought in as advisors in "women's words" in early 20th century Oxford. Some great writing but I wish there was a little more plot, a little more tension.

Reading the new Colton Whitehead.

I loved HARLEM SHUFFLE, r124. Please come back and give us a review of the new one when you're finished.

Just read Casino Royale and Breakfast at Tiffany’s.

Very surprised by both.

In CR, Bond isn’t some gadget-using superhero. He’s good but also vulnerable and even falls in love. He even questions simple notions of right and wrong. It’s very interesting how Fleming started the character.

BAT was even more of a surprise. So very different from the schmaltzy romance. It’s pretty clear the narrator is gay and Holly is fag-hagging it up with him. I also love the setting, 1943. I love picturing Holly G in wartime nyc couture. And of course the ending couldn’t be more different. Greatly prefer Truman’s novella.

And bonus points for not having to cringe at Rooney.

Be my baby the Ronnie Spector memoir

The Sybil in Her Grave by Sarah Caudwell. So happy her four Hilary Tamar mysteries are being reissued.

I read Tango by Justin Vivian Bond last night. A terrific short memoir.

My Phatoms, Gwendoline Riley, a gruseome resd but i have not recently read a so completely realized character. Well, characters, both the farher and mother are horrible in unique and very recognizable ways.

And SPQR from Mary Beard. A wonder.

Yeah, SPQR and her Vesuvius book met with my approval.

Im reading a book on why most advertising/tv commercials these days is filled with only black people. fascinating.

Did r132 wander in from one of the racist right-wing threads?

A book of stories by Carson McCullers. Terribly overrated. I guess she knew how to edit so that nobody could make sense of what she wrote, which appealed to a certain type of literary critic years ago.

I want to read that ad/black book, it is very odd how many negros are in ads.

The Beautiful Side of Evil by Johanna Michaelson

Murdered Heiress: Living Witness by Dr. Pettie Wagner

Lovely book.

A Gentleman in Moscow. Very pleasant read.

Say you're a white supremacist without saying you're a white supremacist: negros (not even negroes).

R135 might be Rep Eli Crane

[quote]colored people can serve in the military

I'm halfway through Michael Koryta's "An Honest Man". He's terrific storyteller and top-notch writer. An ex-con spots a yacht drifting near his family boathouse somewhere in Maine and investigates. He finds seven bodies of prominent men. Then becomes the prime suspect.

Wondering if anyone has read the mysteries of Sunjata Massey? The NY Times gave a great blurb to her latest in a series which features a woman attorney in early 1920s India. Sounded fascinating.

I've read most that series, R142. The first few were okay, but later ones didn't hold my interest as much.

What I read in June:

“The Dolphin Letters” ed. Hamilton

“Shadows on the Rock” - Cather

“Westerly” - Schutt

“Hollywood The Oral History” - Basinger, Wasson

“The Décline and Fall of the Roman Empire: The Turn of the Tide” - Gibbon

“The Handmaid’s Tale” - Atwood

“Jesus’ Son” - Johnson

“Romantic Comedy” - Sittenfield

“The Trackers” - Frazier

Spider-Man.

Did ypu like Rmantic Comedy, r114? I love Curtis but found this one underwhelming.

The Ministry for the Future

R114, it’s not great but it’s diverting. I really liked her American Wife. I thought the story inspired by Laura Bush was incredibly sad and tragic. It’s one of the best novels I’ve ever read. It’s repetitive but it adds to the power of it at the same time.

R141, I’ve reserved this at my public library!

When will Stephen McCauley published again? It’s been five years!

R150, in January. Can’t wait!

My Sweet, Tasty Hole

Gibbon, r144? I'm impressed.

[quote] Wondering if anyone has read the mysteries of Sunjata Massey? The NY Times gave a great blurb to her latest in a series which features a woman attorney in early 1920s India. Sounded fascinating.

Her first name is actually "Sujata" (no "n"), and I went to high school with her in suburban Minneapolis/St. Paul back in the 1980s (back when she was Sujata Banerjee). I've never read her books, I am ashamed to say.

She wanted to be a novelist even back then--she was a very bright young woman.

My Fair Clit

Mother, May I Sleep with Danger?: The Novelization of the Meh TV Movie

Mother, May I take a shit?: The novelization of the bathroom bowel movement

I am reading my first Shirley Jackson work, The Lottery.

Reading Tim Murphy's SPEECH TEAM. Think it must be intended as a YA. Pleasant, so far, but not more than that.

My husband was very excited to read Tim Murphy's book, too, but was appalled by the shallowness of it. Also, wondered if it was intended as YA. Sad, because his CHRISTODORA was so brilliant. I read his second book earlier this year CORRESPONDENTS and was very disappointed. Maybe Tim is a one hit wonder.

Yesterday, I started [italic]The Fine Art of Invisible Detection[/italic] by Robert Goddard. Totally hooked at 90 minutes into the 12 hour audiobook!

Is that fiction or a How-to book, r161?

Reading breakfast at Tiffany’s because of a poster up thread.

So different from the movie wow.

It is a novel, R162. A Japanese secretary in a detective agency is sent to London on case needing a female agent; a fellow in London receives a phone call from an acquaintance hinting he has answers to questions regarding that guy's unknown past. Each of the two have a meeting set up with the Mystery Man on seemingly different matters.

When I left off, he had stood up the woman; Mystery Man's call with the other guy was furtive, hinting he might not make their appointment (was in danger). Goddard does this genre well if you like thrillers and have never read him before.

I revisited a bunch of gay books from the '80s this past month:

The Family of Max Desir (Robert Ferro)

Eight Days a Week (Larry Duplechan)

Confessions of a Rock Lobster (Aaron Fricke)

Next I'm on to a couple of months of short stories to read from my various collections. I'm starting with:

"Aliens" (David Leavitt)

"Sir Edmond Orme" (Henry James)

"My Uncle Jules" (Guy de Maupassant)

"The Assignation" (Poe)

"The Model Millionaire" (Wilde)

"The Green Door" (O. Henry)

I'm reminded now that I read one of Robert Goddard's novels last year because of recommendations here. Can't remember the title but it was mystery about a middle aged frumpy Englishman living in Greece who tries to track down a beautiful young woman he knew who disappeared but left a trail of photos in her camera that he uses to try to find her. Interesting enough to hold my attention but in the end rather over-written and not really worth the effort, IMHO.

Your description of his other book does sound intriguing though, r164. Thanks.

Were the Wid Thing Are.

R158 and R167 - be sure and reserve your evenings for several weeks to complete those tomes

None of your fuckin’ business!!!

Lytton Strachey had no descendants, r6. He had lots of cousins, however, and Nino Strachey appears to be a descendant of one of those. Her grandmother was a Strachey although her father appears to have chosen to keep the Strachey name, even though his surname is really Townely-O'Hagan (he is the Baron O'Hagan).

That's Out of the Blue, r166. I enjoy Robert Goddard's novels, but they can get a bit samey and too fast-paced.

I read Out of the Blue a long time ago, recalling that I liked it. More recently,

I recall having liked Out of the Blue when I read it years ago. However, I'm going to agree that Caught in the Light, which I read relatively recently, had that samey-ness about it. There's a sequel to this one featuring the Japanese lady, a great character to use for a series.

For those of you who like "focused" nonfiction, such as Mark Kurlansky's* [italic]Cod, Salt, etc.[/italic], I can recommend [italic]Jewels[/italic] by Victoria Finlay, which has a solid travel narrative aspect as well.

*his [italic]Ready for a Brand New Beat[/italic] gets a recommendation from me for those interested in the Motown story (era).

Reading Thomas Mallon's "Fellow Travelers", which I've owned for a few years. I was between new titles and picked it up to give it another try. Now I'm hooked. Great story, very well done. And the miniseries with Matt Bomer is coming soon.

I really liked Fellow Travelers. I remember thinking "This would make a good movie!" when I first read it, so I was glad to hear about the TV adaptation

THE GUEST by Emma Cline is phenomenal. I really love the prose and this main character is so fun to follow. Great rec!!

Except in the novel, the two male leads are of different generations, aren't they, unlike Bomer and Jonathan Bailey in the mini-series?

I hope they don't fuck it up. I remember liking the novel a lot though feeling a bit too unknowledgeable about the DC politics of the time, which Mallon takes for granted in the reader. No doubt the mini-series will dumb it down enough for me.

"Except in the novel, the two male leads are of different generations, aren't they, unlike Bomer and Jonathan Bailey in the mini-series?"

I believe the two leads were supposed to be about 7-8 years apart in age

I read Two Girls, Fat And Thin by Mary Gaitskill mainly for the title but it’s pretty good, set in NYC of the past, about a sex addict young writer (thin) who meets a woman (fat) who used to be part of a community of weirdos devoted to a wacko author based on Ayn Rand. Very funny and wry.

The Guncle. So many raves from gay reviewers, but to me it's predictable and vapid.

Has anyone read Steven Rowley's latest novel THE CELEBRANTS? It's our gay book club choice and I'm dreading having to read it.

I found The Guncle utterly predictable but relatively well written. I'm not planning on wasting my time with The Celebrants.

Has anyone besides me read any of Alice Winters supernatural gay romance porn?

Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation by Kristin Kobes Du Mez

The latest Louise Penny Gamache mystery is one of the more harrowing in the series.

The Queen v. Louis Riel. Yikes.

As a cold- and large-handed humyn, I’m triggered by the colonial, racist and imperial literal-violence of OP’s dogmatic, systemic oppression.

Listening to the audio Guncle, read by the author. He's doing himself no favors. He's competent, but no more than that.

The Guncle feels almost like YA. It’s a poolside read.

The line between adult and YA is often very blurry. SPEECH TEAM seems YA to me, but don't know if it's being marketed that way.

R183 did you read the novel Louise Penny coauthored with Hillary Clinton?

The Celebrants is, for the most part, so fucking boring. Rowley is a very lucky man. His husband's book, Big Gay Wedding, is so much better. And funnier. Byron Lane, unlike Rowley, is the real deal.

Gave up on Guncle early on as the main character seemed unrealistic to me.

R178, I love TWO GIRLS, FAT & THIN. I’ve always remembered the names of those two characters - Justine Shade and Dorothy Never. They almost sound like drag names.

You might be interested in this sentence analysis from the novel.

I tried r189, but hated it and gave up. The authors seemed ill-at-ease in the genre.

Ultra Processed People by Chris Van Tulleken

Grandmother, May I Sleep with Danger?

R183 Have you seen the Gamache series on Amazon? I'd never read the books, and found it very underwhelming.

The books are underwhelming, too, r196. I truly don't get their popularity. Utterly lowbrow.

Recently finished OHIO by Stephen Markley based on recommendations here at DL. Very bleak and disturbing to the point where it feels like the author is piling on.

So I decided to read Paul Rudnick's new book FARRELL COVINGTON AND THE LIMITS OF STYLE just for something lighter. It's generally amusing but also incredibly silly.

I'll take Markley over Rudnick any day.

Well, I'd hardly compare the two, R199. Markley is a true writer while Rudnick is a quipster.

I think Markley succeeds in his goals far better than Rudnick in his, r200.

I loved The Rachel Incident by Caroline O’Donoghue.

How to Sell a Haunted House by Grady Hendrix. Just started it, came highly recommended.

Thank you, r202! I recommended it upthread. I love that book.

Also loving Rachel Incident. Thank you for the recommendation

Catching up by reading Harlem Shuffle. While I don’t like all of Whitehead’s books (Sag Harbor and Zone One did nothing for me, but The Nickel Boys is one of the greatest short novels I’ve ever read), he is consistently great at the level of sentences. And, even working within familiar genre tropes (as he is here), the writing is always a pleasure stylistically.

My Clit My Life

R197, I’ve worked in publishing for almost forty years and have learned that people who toss around terms like “utterly lowbrow” don’t really love books or understand reading.

Mary Kay Ash - beautiful

Based on guys here I've put Rachel Incident on my Audible wishlist.

I liked Colson's new book much better than its prequel, "Harlem Shuffle", especially in the second half of the novel, when the writing and the story takes on more urgency.

An Ordinary Man, Richard Norton Smith's bio of Jerry Ford. Not terribly critical, unsurprisingly as the author has been the director of both of Ford's Presidential Libraries, split into museum and archives.

He'll always be the President with the asterisk after his name but comes out looking like the last sane Republican.

Looking forward to the August Wilson biography, which arrives on the 15th!

I’m about halfway through Tom Lake, Ann Patchett’s new novel. I thought The Dutch House was terrific, but this one is extraordinarily frau-ey. With every page my testosterone level drops a little more.

Fox fire by Avon

Finished Speech Team. Some effective writing, but the premise is so contrived (as is its resolution) that it lost me. Still wonder if this is meant for the YA audience.

I've never understood the critical acclaim for Ann Patchett. As a lowbrow chick lit writer she's fine.

And such a GOOD friend! (Ask Lucy Grealy—oh, you can’t, as she’s dead. But read TRUTH AND BEAUTY, Patchett’s hatchet job disguised as a loving tribute to her “dear friend.” If she’s a friend, give me enemies I know are enemies).

A most inspiring book!

R217, have you read BEL CANTO? That might change your mind.

I thought her THE DUTCH HOUSE should have won the Pulitzer that year, although THE NICKEL BOYS is a worthy winner.

r220, I read BEL CANTO and that's where I formed my opinion on Patchett.

I couldn't get through Bel Canto.

I rather like Patchett. It's Anne Tyler who bores me to distraction.

Reading Missing from the Village by Justin Ling.

So far so good.

Tried to read Ann Patchett and couldn't get into it.

R221 Interesting. The glowing reviews for Bel Canto made me get it... and I've tried to read it at least 3-4 times. Never get beyond about 40 pages. Just doesn't let me in. It sits there on the shelf of "books I need to read".... waiting....

Curious if anyone here has read TELL ME HOW TO BE by Neel Patel, a novel about a widowed Indian woman and her grown gay son, both living in Illinois? A friend recommended it to me and I'm wondering if it would be a good book for my gay book club.

Bel Canto is the only Patchett I’ve really liked. The others I’ve read are competently written, but hardly gripping.

I am finally reading Gore Vidal's seminal early novel THE CITY AND THE PILLAR. Not at all what I expected. Have most of you bitches already read it? Lots to unpack there.

R228, why do you always write the titles in block capitals? It's so irritating.

It's an excellent book and groundbreaking. It took courage to write as an openly gay man in that era.

I'm not 228, but formatting here is enough of a pain that titles in caps works for me, instead of italics.

To get your attention, r229. It seems to work.

R226: I put it in my Audible wishlist based on the audio sample. My ex was Gujarati.

Everyone else seems to manage to write their titles perfectly clearly without using caps, r231.

R232, it's a bit difficult to avoid you, since you've written at least 138 of the posts on this thread. That doesn't mean I notice the titles of the books you recommend, however, as the caps are so annoying I just whizz past them. So, kinda defeats the purpose for you.

I need a new book.

I tried Birnam Wood by Eleanor Catton but couldn't get into it.

Practical Solitary Magic by Nancy B. Watson. I'm confident I'll be able to fly by the end of the week.

SKIPPY DIES, anyone?

I loved SKIPPY DIES when I read it a few years ago. Read a couple earlier of books by Paul Murray but they were disappointing. But he has a new novel coming out this fall and I'm very much looking forward to it.

r235, well! If you've resorted to counting all my posts, I guess I really have gotten your attention, lol.

And I'm proud of my posts. Several recommendations, including THE RACHEL INCIDENT, have been very appreciated here. I enjoy keeping these book threads lively.

Rachel is on my TBR pile, but not completely convinced.

Interesting piece from Rachel Incident author.

I'm about 20% into SKIPPY, but still unsure of how I feel. Think I might move to the audio version. His new one is THE BEE STING, already longlisted for the Booker.

R192 Thank you for that! Most reviews talk about how Two Girls Fat And Thin is minor and flawed Mary Gaitskill but I loved it. I’m glad to see a bit of analysis of it out there.

[quote] Check. out OUR COUNTRY FRIENDS by Gary Shteyngart.

You need to tell us what it's about and why you think it's worth checking out.

Our Country Friends is boring.

Yes - I couldn't get through it either r246

Same for me. The premise was somewhat interesting, friends gathering at a country house during Covid, but it went nowhere fast and I gave up halfway through. I don' think Shteyngart is nearly as amusing as he thinks he is.

A writer in my writing group brought up Our Country Friends as an example of recent “pandemic fiction” that does *not* work.

I highly recommend “Shelter in Place” by David Leavitt.

Loved SHELTER IN PLACE and recommended it upthread or in the last thread. It really restored some of my faith in David Leavitt.

Our Country Friends is next in my library queue. I wonder if I'll like it. I did like Shelter in Place.

Will try Shelter in Place. Thank you.

Shelter in Place is Leavitt returning to what he knows. More the world of Lost Language of Cranes, Family Dancing and The Term Paper Writer (albeit an older wiser Leavitt) than The Indian Clerk, Two Hotels Frankfort and that Stephen Spender rip-off.

Rereading [italic]Agency[/italic] by Wm. Gibson

R173/r174 I searched the thread to see if anyone had read Fellow Travelers so I’m pleased to see your recs.

Has anyone read Cleopatra And Frankenstein by Coco Mellors?

R256 I tried it and it couldn’t stomach it. The author seems insufferable too

[quote]Has anyone read Cleopatra And Frankenstein by Coco Mellors?

[quote]I tried it and it couldn’t stomach it. The author seems insufferable too

But...it features "gender queerness."

When I want what I call my "airport" paperbacks, I usually go to police procedurals, and mystery thrillers, political whodunits, etc. So I started the latest Michael Connolly book with his favorite Detective, Harry Bosch, and I ended up staying awake half the night reading. Haven't done that in years. If you like those light detective novels, I highly recommend everything Connolly has written. He's that good. Harry Bosch and the Lincoln Lawyer series are my favorites. Bosch has a very good series on Prime too if you like watching detective shows.

After having AI bots recommend it to me for years, I'm finally reading "Ordinary Grace" by William Kent Krueger. Slow, pleasant, but nothing great so far, and a touch too religious for me.

Is anyone here familiar with the novels of Celia Dale? They sound intriguing but are not readily available in the US. I don't want to go through a lot of bother if they're not that good.

We had our gay book club last night in which we discussed the new Steven Rowley book THE CELEBRANTS. While none us loved the book, most liked it and through the connection of a friend of a friend, Rowley very generously had done a 15 minute zoom conversation with one of our members that we all watched. The book really sparked some great conversation. He also wrote THE EDITOR (about a young writer's relationship with his editor Jackie O.) and THE GUNCLE.

This one's about a group of 5 former college roommates, including 2 gays, 2 women and 1 straight guy, who make a pact upon their graduation in 1995 to meet up if ever any of them are in great distress and hold a "mock funeral" to celebrate and extoll the virtues of that person. It's less simplistic than I've just made it sound and quite entertaining.

Rowley’s writing a very “cheese” element.

Enjoying Shelter in Place - thank you for the recommendation

Palo Alto: A History of California, Capitalism, and the World by Malcolm Harris. How the Spanish, Mexicans, Anglos and eventually Americans set up capitalism in Alta California by first enslaving and killing the Ohlone, so little of whom is known because their extinction was so complete, and ultimately giving us Silicon Valley with brief stops for Leland Stanford, the Gianninis, the Golden Spike, and the Big Four.

The late Kevin Starr (who Arnold appointed State Historian when he was governor) was a great chronicler of the state's history but his generation was trained differently. Harris covers the path from the original land and claims thefts to those going on today with the technology industry. It's a different approach to writing history. Honestly.

Also loved Up With the Sun, my enthusiasm multiplied when I gave it the husband - who's not much of a reader - and he couldn't put it down. He lived in NYC when the murder happened and said the story was in the papers every day, with the Post and the Daily News fighting over the gruesome bits. He even went looking for the brownstone when he was in the neighborhood. He reminded me we'd seen Dolores in 42nd Street and that I'd apparently spent half the night, [italics]sotto voce,[/italics] saying, "Well, she's no Tammy Grimes."

A surprising number of old Californio families are still wealthy landlords in California.

Enjoying Skippy Dies, and am glad I alternate chapters between print and audio. The narrator helps to enjoy the Irishness of it all, and multiple voices for the other characters are also a plus. About 1/3 into it.

I'm getting ready to dive into American Prometheus. Oppenheimer biography. He seems like an interesting guy.

I"m reaeding about the Arizona Orphan kidnapping when the white people in a town got together and kidnapped some orphans shipped from New York to the Catholic Mexican families in their town.

Night Clit

You know, r269, your posts are singularly unfunny and pathetic.

Thx r270.

Fuckeress

R272 does remind me of an actual novel, albeit porn, which once referred to its heroine as “the indomitable fuckstress.”

[quote][R272] does remind me of an actual novel, albeit porn, which once referred to its heroine as “the indomitable fuckstress.”

[italic]Mansfield Park[/italic] by Jane Austen.

I've just started reading The Brothers by Stephen Kinzer. Non Fiction. Historical biography of the Dulles brothers. John FOster Dulles was Secretary of State and his brother Allen Dulles was director of the CIA. It's not a dry read. It's pretty easy, and it tells the story of how our foreign policy evolved and the whole "American Exceptionalism" theory was the dominant framework. We are still dealing with the fallout from their disastrous policies. If this is in your wheelhouse, I highly recommend it.

"and how the whole American Exceptionalism theory became the framework for all our foreign policy decisions even through to present day."

Any books out there about clits at night?

Here you go, r277

Didn't Carol Burnett become a TV star singing "I Made a Fool of Myself Over John Foster Dulles" on the old Garry Moore Show? Dulles was once a highly topical public figure.

Talk about topical humor that dates badly. But thanks for posting, r280!

The DUlles brothers didn't like the Kennedys, going back to Joe Kennedy fucking up with Great Britain.

Sex Joy

The Kennedys didn't like Allen Dulles (John Foster was dead before Kennedy was elected) because he, Ike, and the CIA foisted the Bay of Pigs fiasco on him.

R275 Several years ago I read "The Limits of Power: End of American Exceptionalism" by Andrew Bacevich - a military officer in the first Gulf War before he became a respected academic. It was mostly about the disastrous mindset of the Bush W. gang.... and how Americans' ideas of their "exceptional" superiority destroy so much of the planet...it was an interesting perspective; not Right v Left rather reality v delusion.

Sounds interesting r285

The Late Americans by Brandon Taylor. He’s become one of my favorite contemporary writers.

R287 me too. I posted upthread about him. Such a great writer - I read his 3 books so quickly.

"Whalefall, surprisingly, is riveting. And very emotional. And triggering.

I finished Shelter in Place. I was very engaged throughout the book (almost read like a play), but was sort of "meh" at the end. For those of you who really liked it, what did you like about it? Just curious.

r290, I always seem to enjoy satiric novels with unlikeable though recognizably real characters and Shelter in Place had that in spades. I agree that the book is kind of plotless and teetered off a bit at the end, but I found it an intelligent and witty beach read.

Any fans here of Robertson Davies? I can't remember his name ever coming up.

A friend of mine who knows I love to read was shocked that I'd never read him and more or less shamed me into getting a hold of Fifth Business, which is the first novel of The Deptford Trilogy. I'm only about 30 pages in but just loving it! What a great old-fashioned story-teller he is, in the best sense.

Read Davies religiously years ago. The Deptford Trilogy was on the reading list of most literary fiction fans in the 70s, and they led a lot of us to the Salterton Trilogy, which I found totally charming and keep planning to reread. Kind of pulled up short with his last books, but still remember him fondly. Read Fifth Business for the second time last year. But he seems to have fallen way off the radar since his death. Not sure why.

The Clitford Trilogy

R287. He writes good sentences, but, my God, such a grievance queen! I’m sure it was tough being a black gay man in STEM at Madison and I’m sure the Poetry Workshop at Iowa is a nest of vipers, but try writing about something other than how poorly elite academia has treated you. Of the gay Black fiction writers I much prefer Bryan Washington

Oh I’ve never read him r295 - I’ll check him out. Which book would you start with?

And then there’s twat!

Not, r295, but I would recommend his novel MEMORIAL. Have read only a couple of his stories.

What other current, new-ish gay writers would you recommend?

I’ll check out Bryan Washington.

I just read "Candidate without a Prayer" by Herb Silverman. He ran for governor of South Carolina in 1990 as a declared atheist to challenge the provision in the state constitution that states, "No person shall be eligible to the office of Governor who denies the existence of the Supreme Being." He lost the election, but eventually the state supreme court ruled that the article violated the U.S. constitution. The book starts as a straightforward memoir of his childhood in a conservative, working class Jewish family in Philadelphia, then veers off into self-contained chapters about aspects of his work in the "secular humanist" community and his career as a professor of mathematics, then concludes with an account of his (happy) late-in-life marriage and the deaths of his parents. He is a good (not great), funny (not hilarious) writer, and he deserves a lot of credit for the work he has done to mitigate religious control of public institutions, particularly (but not only) in the bible belt. My favorite quote is advice he shared with students: "It is better to ask a dumb question than to remain dumb."

After a number of attempts and abandonments, I finally just finished "The Brothers Karamazov". One of the things that stopped me previously was the relationship between the father and sons, but this time I realized that Fyodor Karamazov is exactly like Donald Trump- a gross, old corrupt lech who plays the fool specifically to advance his own interests (and he also thinks it's fun). He flatters himself that by transgressing society's norms openly, he is smarter than everyone else- and in reality he a lot of times does actually get what he wants this way.

I'm glad I persevered- before I was put off by the complexity of Dostoyevski's characters but this is actually the great thing about him- he acknowledges people's crossing urges and thoughts. The Father Zosima sections are wonderful and have given me ideas about what it means to be a good person, what is real happiness.

I also tried to read The Bros K last year but gave up after about 50 pages. You make me want to give it another go, r301.

Speaking of gay authors, has anyone here read any of Alexander Chee's novels? The Queen of the Night and Edinburgh both sound very interesting.

[Quote]The Queen of the Night

r303

r299, try Tom Crewe's The New Life. And if you haven't already, Douglas Stuart's Shuggie Bain and Young Mungo.

I liked Edinburgh, haven’t read Queen of the Night. His auto fiction, How to Write an Autobiographical Novel is worth reading too.

R305 I read Shuggie Bain a couple of months ago; now in the middle of Young Mungo. Stuart's very good at capturing culture, class, period.

Is Garth Greenwell new/young enough to qualify for this question? Cleanness - his last novel not as good as the first What Belongs to You - in my opinion.

Caleb Crain - kind of Greenwell lite. Been around 10 years though... so not so new.

Andrew Duxbury's 'The Accidental Plague Diaries' - the effect of the pandemic on health care and society through the eyes of a gay physician.

Blood and ink by Joe Pompeo about the Hall-Mills murder case in 1922.

Louis Bayard is a wonderful gay novelist who often writes historical fiction with a gay slant. JACKIE & ME about young Jackie Bouvier's friendship with JFK's bff Lem Billings and COURTING MR. LINCOLN about the love triangle of Abe, Mary Todd and Joshua Speed.

Bayard's writing is very elegant and smart and well-researched- but if you're looking for explicit sex scenes, he's not your man.

He also wrote THE PALE BLUE EYE, a murder mystery with young Edgar Allan Poe as a student at West Point (with no gay slant) but I liked it much less. It was made into a film last year with Christian Bale (as the detective character). And MR. TIMOTHY in which he imagines Tiny Tim in his later years. An interesting novelist, for sure.

I second the enthusiasm for Bayard.

I'm currently studying the book "Street Walker"

The Gift of Asher Lev, Chaim Potok's second novel about his wildly successful artist character, Asher Lev. It picks up sometime in the 1980s. I was so charmed by the first book, My Name Is Asher Lev, which someone recommended here, I couldn't wait to dig into the second volume.

Currently reading Arthur Laurents' memoir [bold]Original Story By[/bold]. Many names are dropped and he certainly doesn't mince words; it's quite dishy. I'm also really surprised by how much he talks about gay life and his own sexuality. (10 servicemen in one WWII-era weekend? Mary!)

IIRC Arthur Laurents' second memoir MAINLY ON DIRECTING is even dishier and meaner on colleagues and ex-friends. like he knew he was dying and had to get it all out.

Les Miserables by Victor Hugo, it really is massive and filled with rambling digressions, but it's all so good! The musical seems less than worthless after getting acquainted with Hugo's narrative voice. That man could write about anything and make it engaging and powerful.

Fart Starter

"The Girl Who Fell Down: A Biography of Joan McCracken" by Lisa Jo Sagolla. It's a very well researched book, published 20 years ago, when many of McCracken's friends and colleagues were still alive and available to be interviewed, including her last boyfriend and a close friend and neighbor who share very personal perspectives. McCracken died when she was 43, but her life and career were packed with drama and make for compelling reading. Her love of dance and being part of the creative process herself (as well as being a strong supportive force for other artists, including her husbands Jack Dunphy and Bob Fosse) was her driving passion from a very early age. Her success in "Oklahoma" brought offers from Hollywood, but her time there was brief and disappointing and she happily returned to the theater to dance and act. Diabetes and related heart problems were obstacles that she overcame until the last few years of her life, when she had to stop dancing and slow down. Just before she died, she spent 18 months with her boyfriend in her isolated cabin on Fire Island, where she painted, visited with friends, appreciated the beauty of nature, and enjoyed her last love affair; the chapter covering this period ("Fire Island Finale") is lovely and could serve as the basis for a self-contained movie.

Don't leave out that her husband Jack Dunphy went on to be the lover of Truman Capote.

McCracken had a long affair with the French composer Rudi Revil while Dunphy was overseas during the war, and Dunphy said when he came back to New York he knew immediately that McCracken had been unfaithful. Later, he wrote that it was physically impossible for him to have sex with someone who had betrayed him, and "I would never have become homosexual if Joan had stayed with me." But he and McCracken and Capote remained friends until she died, although she said that Capote stopped giving her a Christmas gift after he found out that she had exchanged a clear crystal Steuben ashtray he had given her for a colored crystal piece she preferred.

Mary Rodgers is very funny regarding Arthur Laurents in her memoir SHY. She refers to him very early in the book after the first time she mentions him as "that little shit," but she won't be specific about what he did that was so horrible--which is very much in keeping with Rodgers's tone (she tries to be very honest about people, but she also doesn't like recounting grievances except in the case of her parents).

But she basically must assume you've read his memoirs and know why she would think him such an awful person (he seems to be the person she most dislikes whom she's ever known well). He comes across as completely insufferable in them--a mean, self-important man who nursed his grudges his entire life.

So Dunphy was not gay before he met McCracken? Doubtful.

Are they ever, R322?

A friend of mine went on a Sebastian Barry tear and then loaned me several of his books. Christ and His nails, those Irish stories are so sad. So many characters end up in an insane asylum or shot due to sectarian violence or world war. "Annie Dunne" was my favorite because of its simplicity, language, locale and surprising tension.

Cocks!

Picked up a historical fiction about Mary Todd Lincoln at a neighborhood used book sale. It's surprisingly well written, but portrays Mary as quite the little horndog, which is really not something I ever wanted to contemplate.

Loved “Best Men” by Sidney Karger. Light read (and quite a fantasy) but well done and lovely.

Hope they make it into a movie,

I'm still hoping Merchant-Ivory Productions rises from the grave and films Tom Crewe's "The New Life," preferably as five- or six-part miniseries.

Well, Ivory is still around at 95!

Well, I hope whoever brings THE NEW LIFE to the screen, infuses a little more emotion and compassion in it than the book offers.

I bought The Dollhouse by Fiona Davis on Kindle. It’s a historical fiction set in two time periods which typically screams “Women’s Fiction”, but I thought I’d try this because the setting is the hotel that Sylvia Plath lived in while writing for Mademoiselle.

Recently read Anthony Horowitz' Magpie Murders and Moonflower Murders. Rather fun deconstructions of the classic British whodunnit.

I liked Magpie Murders

I enjoyed Magpie Murders but have found all of Horowitz's succeeding novels to be very facile and disappointing, including the Sherlocks. Sometimes I can't believe this is the same fellow who was responsible for Foyle's War, one of my most favorite tv series ever.

I enjoyed reading The Night Clit Murders.

Reading “Summer House with Swimming Pool” by Herman Koch. Enjoying it.

I happily just banned r335 from my life.

I tried reading “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep,” the inspiration for Blade Runner. Didn’t age well — it has a corny Jetsons vibe to it.

Now reading Neuromancer and enjoying it a lot more.

I love Gibson’s Pattern Recognition. Not science fiction but feels like it.

R337 LMFAO!!

This is extraordinary reading!

^ Gym Jordan

Gym, you can lend that to Denny Hastert when you're done

Gym Bag Jordan!

I just finished "The Lookback Window" by Kyle Dillon Hertz. It's angry, sad, beautiful, funny and daring. About a man who was sexually abused and prostituted as a teen, who tries to climb back to normalcy as an adult, despite his CPTSD and monumental anger issues. It is raw and sexually explicit, and beautifully written.

I've read several non fiction books, so I switched it up with non fiction. Since I am passionate about history, and politics,etc. I started The Brothers about John Foster Dulles and his brother Allen Dulles. Foster was Secretary of State and his brother was Director of the CIA. It was written by Stephen Kinzer. Excellent easy reading. Fascinating. And IMO a must read if you are remotely interested in how we got to this point. Those two motherfuckers were poison.

New book.

"Speech Team" by Tim Murphy is a complete surprise. Not your usual "secrets we hid when we were teens" crap, but an honest look at the lasting damage mentors can cause and being adult enough to grow out of it.

Anyone read The Sweetness of Water?

In September, I'll start reading the Seth books by Jane Roberts. Has anyone here read them?

R350 Yes to the first question, not to the second.

I am LOVING Paul Murray's The Bee Sting. Only 1/4 of the way through its 640 pages and I know there is apparently a "difficult" patch of writing in the middle somewhere, but for now, WOW! Can't put it down.

R350. My husband met Jane Roberts decades ago. (We live in Ithaca, she lived in Elmira, and he did research on parapsychology). A bit of a loon, I gather (her, not my husband.)

Silhouettes and Shadows

I'm listening to the gay YA classic "I'll get there. It better be worth the trip." by John Donovan. One of those "voices" of an adult looking back rather than a teen relating real-time events, unless extremely precocious.

Enjoying the new Andrew Ridker book “Hope”

Bee Sting is getting high praise in a lot of corners. Think it might be the Booker front runner.

New novels coming out soon from Nathan Hill and Tim O'Brien!

I enjoyed The Nix, but can't remember a thing about it.

I know Meryl was all set to do the movie of "The Nix".

R355 I read the book when it was posted—O was in middle school. Formative..

I'll get off. You better be hung.

Tuesdays With My Pussy

Oh yeah!

"George, Nicholas, and Wilhelm: Three Royal Cousins and the Road to World War I" by Miranda Carter, another used book sale find. I have to say all three come off like dull, fatuous twats.

The wrinkled old prune ass by the datalounge

Just finishing up Olive Kitteridge. I know I'm behind the times...

I just read "Blue Pages," a novel by Eleanor Perry. She and her first husband co-wrote suspense novels under a pseudonym, then she became a playwright, and, finally, a screenwriter, often working with her second husband, Frank Perry (who directed "Mommie Dearest"). Their first collaboration ("David and Lisa") was a sleeper hit and they were both nominated for Oscars. "Blue Pages" is a tell all (barely fictionalized) story about her and Frank's marriage and divorce and her career in Hollywood. The novel was published in 1979, eight years after she and Frank divorced and two years before she died. She is a smart and funny writer (although the New Yorker's satiric view of California was a cliche even in 1979), and she is also pretty scathing about Lucia's (the character based on her) what would now be called (desperate) "codependence" on a series of men who act like spoiled babies and her desire to placate, rather than confront, them. That helps counterbalance the absolutely brutal portrait of the overweight and status-seeking Vincent, the character based on Frank. There are also less than flattering sketches of characters based on Sarah Miles, Sam Spiegel, and, most viciously, Truman Capote, among many others. Lots of pointlessly bitchy gossip makes it an easy read, but the last couple chapters include a misguided fantasy about her husband's mistress that should have been edited out and the jokes throughout are hit and miss.

That sounds quite fascinating and fun, r368. But how the fuck did you happen on such an obscure book?

I loved Eleanor Perry. A guy I was dating knew I was interested in screenwriting and Hollywood worked in a bookstore and brought me home a copy of Blue Pages. Loved it. Wish I still had it.

Was it she who first quipped “Writers are the women of Hollywood”?

One of the epigraphs is:

Writers are the women of the film industry.

-Overheard in the Beverly Hills hotel

Re-reading Jamie O'Neill's "At Swim Two Boys," one of my favorite novels. Would it kill someone to film it as a miniseries? Where are Merchant-Ivory when you need them? (Yes, I know Mr. Ivory is still with us.) It would probably cost a fortune -- the cast needn't be particularly large (and good luck finding the right two actors to play the boys), but it's a period piece (Dublin 1915). Sigh...

OMG, r372, I was just telling a friend last night that I want to start a campaign to get more visibility for AT SWIM as a major gay novel of the modern era. This well-read gay friend had never heard of it, and I think it's a masterpiece. I know it offers some stylistic challenges to the reader, but it's so worth the challenge. Maybe part of the reason it's overlooked is that O'Neill hasn't published anything of consequence since then.

There was talk years ago that At Swim Two Boys was going to be made into a movie but I guess that never came to fruition

I finished "I'll get there. It Better Be Worth the Trip" today. Some reviewers were annoyed that the fooling around is off-screen, by reference. The kids are 13 years old - who wants details of that?

One of the few who was fine with the ending. Audio voice of the other kid, Doug, sounded a lot older. I couldn't shake the feeling that he seemed less naive, more the aggressor ... especially the shower scene.

My biggest issue was suspending disbelief that he would go to live with his mother when Grandmother (his guardian) died. She was clearly unfit for that to happen, and no better when he moved in. She seemed to be more interested in padding as much child support from his father than really wanting him there.

I’ll Get There… was published for 12-year-olds more than fifty years ago. Who expects a sex scene? Besides, there’s no reason to think the boys even HAD sex, they were rolling around on the floor and got aroused. That’s it.

Why didn't you like the Seth books R351?

Because, R377, a friend who was convinced they (to the exclusion of just about every other source) held the key to the meaning of life sent me a bunch of them after I almost lost mine. At the time, my efforts were focused on the illness and how to treat it, not to read some woo-woo New Age tripe about how Seth was an "energy personality essence no longer focused in physical matter" when I was very much focused on remaining as physical matter.

Here’s a Barbie poem I found on Twitter from the author of “At Danceteria” a book that has been mentioned in past threads. I didn’t know he wrote poetry.

Just finished Neuromancer. I enjoyed it quite a bit but a lot of it is trying to describe the hacker’s mind as it interfaced with cyberspace (a term Gibson actually coined) and that actually fell a bit flat with me.

Next I’m going back to Kershaw’s Hitler bio, the second volume, “Nemesis.” It’s enormous and I suspect I’ll be reading it until well into the fall. Am thinking of reading more Gibson after that though. The leaves will likely be off the trees by then!

Just finished EXPENSIVE PEOPLE by Joyce Carol Oates. It was published in 1968 but felt so modern to me in so much of its sensibility, particularly the darker sides of American suburbia and the hallmarks of American “success.” Oates definitely had a pulse on where things were headed.

This book (and main character) are also very much pre-Columbine massacre indicators.

Gripping and immediate opening lines of the novel too: “I was a child murderer. I don’t mean child-murderer, though that’s an idea. I mean child murderer, that is, a murderer who happens to be a child, or a child who happens to be a murderer. You can take your choice.”

Wow, r381!

Please Help Me!

Yes!

Just started Stephen King's "Holly".

You Make Me Feel Like A Shell-shocked Veteran

I'm reading Burn it Down, by Maureen Ryan. It's a nonfiction book about how Hollywood is run by by abusive assholes and everyone not rich or powerful is screwed by the system. There's some good behind the scenes stuff, but it's mostly chapter after chapter of people making themselves victims.

Oh that sounds just delightful, r387!

I finished Paul Murray's THE BEE STING last week, a thrilling read! Definitely not for everyone, as any book over 640 pages is going to require a little patience. But well worth it.

It's the story of a once prosperous if highly dysfunctional contemporary Irish family suffering through post-recession financial problems with a working class history that takes you back to the father's and mother's difficult childhoods and how this mismatched couple came to marry. As well as hilarious and poignant chapters on their two teenaged kids. The high school daughter applying for college was my favorite character.

Each character's point of view is brilliantly captured in their own literary style and the mom's is in first person stream of consciousness with no punctuation, which may sound challenging but was not at all for me. I did have some issues with the father's back story but the whole thing comes together to a smashing climax which will have book groups drooling - so many interpretations possible. Well, actually the wife was another favorite character - I think Murray's women are better written and more truthful than his men.

Anyway, highly recommend this one for readers looking for a cozy fall page turner.

Really looking forward now to Zadie Smith's new one FRAUD and Ann Patchett's TOM LAKE (not a fan but all my friends are loving it).

R389, I’m about halfway through The Bee Sting and I’m loving it. It reminds me of Jonathan Franzen at his best.

I’m also looking forward to The Fraud. I didn’t like Tom Lake as much as I was expecting to (it wasn’t in the same league as The Dutch House).

Skippy Dies is also a great read, if a tad overlong.

I just finished [bold]Gays on Broadway[/bold] by Ethan Mordden. Very disappointing, especially considering how much I've enjoyed other books of his. Though parts of it were good/interesting, it was really all over the place. Half the time it seemed like Mordden wasn't even trying.

I don't think he is trying. Some of his later books are self-published and filled with errors. Hear he is always in need of money.

Your Feet Make Me Cum

A book called Gays On Broadway with a publicity still from an off-Broadway play on the cover should have been your first red flag.

Thoughts on The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami? Bought it on a friends rec and I kind of like it but not sure it's ever going to leave that odd dream state and really get going. Anyone read it?

Also, are there any Patrick Gale fans here? Another friend gave me his latest novel Mother's Boy and while I used to be a huge fan (way back in the 80s and 90s when he was young and subversive), most of his latest efforts have been a bit sentimental for my tastes. I guess I should just try it, it's free, right?

R396, I don’t remember all the details of The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, as I read it about 25 years ago, but I know that I loved it. I ended up reading several other Murakami books.

You encourage me, r397. Thanks!

I do like the writing and there is something very compelling about it, Just wondering how it can sustain itself for 600 pages.

Gale's early books were darkly funny. Haven't read him in years, but they recent ones seem family saga historic epics.

Any fans of Orhan Pamuk? I absolutely loved The Museum of Innocence and also really liked The Red-Haired Woman.

[QUOTE] I do like the writing and there is something very compelling about it, Just wondering how it can sustain itself for 600 pages.

Just keep going. There is a huge payoff. One of my favorite books of all time.

Norwegian Wood is very different but it’s classic Murakami and I recommend it as well.

So great to see gorgeous Juanita Tolliver in the studio with Ari! And sitting next to Common!! I wonder which one gets to take her out to dinner?

OOPs! Wrong thread ^^^^^

Tuesdays With My Colostomy

R404, do you actually think that you’re funny? Way too many stupid comments like this in these threads. Get a life.

R405 you really know how to hurt people

Reading Simple Passion by Annie ernaux. Very quick read (90 pages or so).

If you’re the type who’s ever been obsessed with a man - check this out. The way she described her obsession with a guy she had a brief affair with is very embarrassing and highly relatable. If you’re the quietly obsessive type 😳

I just had the joy of blocking the anti-book reading asshole coming up with the not funny fake titles. Bye Felicia!

The joy of farting in public

R408 you keep that nose in your book now. Don’t you put that nose in an ass.

Same here. R396. Recall liking it, but not details.

The joy of double anal with a big piss finish

Shy by Mary Rodgers with Jesse Green. Funny and dishy.

I've just started the new Stephen King, HOLLY. 30 pages in and very engaging! I'm a voracious reader but it's my first King believe it or not.

And I gave up on HOLLY last night around 70 pages in. Just too silly for me. Maybe this is what Stephen King is like, I don't know. A waste of $20.

Luckily, nabbed Zadie Smith's THE FRAUD at my library this morning. We'll see. Loved her WHITE TEETH and ON BEAUTY but found SWING TIME a little disappointing. But she's always an intelligent writer.

Just finished WESTLAKE SOUL by Rio Youers.

Simply one of the best books I've read in years.

I’m enjoying Paul Rudnick’s new novel. Old school gay, still witty.

Started Disorderly Men by Edward Cahill. About 3 men in the 60s and the different ways they were affected by Stonewall. So far absorbing, but the writing is a bit labored.

“The Last” by Hanna Jamison is great.

"Dark Ride" by Lou Berney is a terrific thriller that goes down a dark rabbit hole.

"How to Hide an Empire" by Daniel Immerwahr. So interesting.

"Fortune's Children: The Fall of the House of Vanderbilt"

To say they were trash would be an insult to trash

Lou Berney's NOVEMBER ROAD is even better.

I've had November Road on request at the library for months now thanks to this thread. Still hasn't come in.

Having finished "George, Nicholas, and Wilhelm," I'm going back and dipping in to parts of Barbara Tuchman's classic, "The Proud Tower."

"November Road" is the book that introduced me to Lou Berney. He's an amazingly concise, gifted writer with a dark sense of humor.

Re: Lou Berney

Some readers disliked "The Long and Faraway Gone" which I thought terrific! Is he a homosexualist?

Well, r426, a differing opinion.

I loved November Road but was then very disappointed with The Long and Faraway Gone, which I think Berney wrote first. Why would you think he's a homosexualist? There's nothing in his writing that would indicate that to me. Quite the opposite, actually.

I finished "November Road" this afternoon. It's a disappointing piece of shit. No suspense. No thrills. No redeemable characters. Suck-ass ending. I would have suspected it was written by a first-time novelist. I think "November Road" was a fluke.

Sorry for the post above. I finished "Dark Ride" this afternoon, not "November Road". It's Dark Ride that's a piece of shit. I honestly don't know how got published.

He thinks I steal cars

I just read two books by Helen DeWitt: the novel "The Last Samurai" (2000) and the very short novella "The English Understand Wool" (2022). "The Last Samurai" is about an extremely precocious boy raised and educated by his extremely intelligent single American mother in London in the late 80s and 90s. Eventually the boy searches for his biological father and then, fantastically, for a more intelligent substitute. Part of the novel is told from the point of view of the mother, and part is told from the point of view of the boy, who reminded me strongly of a Salinger character. Both characters, and the novel itself, are immersed in a world of often obscure books, art, and languages, discussion and analysis of which (sometimes intense, sometimes funny) are a big component of the text. I found the novel compelling, although, eventually, it became too cute and sentimental for my taste. "The English Understand Wool" is a satire on the publishing industry, which has been, in various ways, the bane of DeWitt's career (she believes the editors of "The Last Samurai" wanted to "kill the mind that wrote the book"). The novella is a quick read and has some very funny bits and vivid descriptive writing, but the twist near the end fell flat for me. DeWitt has published one other novel and a collection of stories.

She sounds fascinating, r431! Thanks for bringing her to my attention. Off to London in a couple of day and will look for DeWitt's books in the book shops there.

Last Samurai is often listed as one of the great books of the 20th century. Doesn't sound very appealing to me, but I feel obliged to give it a try.

Reading "Wellness" by Nathan Hill. He's a superb writer. When I finish, I think I'll have to read "The Nix" again.