Queereaders discussion

Tell us what you are reading this month.

I've read two books so far, The Warrior's Path & A Journey of the Heart by Catherine M. Wilson, and they were amazing. They're bronze age fantasy with a lot of lesbians, or open-minded/bisexual/pansexual characters, but they don't call themselves "gay" or anything. No-one actually cares if they sleep with women or not, and it seems at least somewhat common for a woman to have a female lover as well as a husband.

Absolutely amazing books, though, thoroughly enjoyed them.

So whilst I wait to get the third, I'm going back to Ciaphas Cain: Defender of the Imperium by Sandy Mitchell, 'cos Cain rocks.

I'm still working my way through "Across" by Blue Dawson. It goes relatively fast when I am reading it, but I'm working on a novel right now, so reading is when my brain can't play with my own characters anymore for the day... After that, I intend to pick up "The Dove Keepers" by Alice Hoffman - if my own characters will allow it...

Happy New Year everyone!

I started the year with The Angel's Game which just like Ruiz Zafón's The Shadow of the Wind is incredible so far. Also, trying to learn how to cook so cracked open The Vegetarian Meat and Potatoes Cookbook.

Working towards meeting my book challenge for 2012. Are others doing that too?

I'm doing the challenge. I did it for 2011 and sabotaged myself by saying I'd read 75 books. Of course, I started in march and read only 24 books the whole year. So I'm going to give it another crack and be kinder to myself with everything going on real life...if I do more than 50, I'm a winner! :)

Happy New Year everyone!

I'm currently reading three books this January. One fiction, the other is a memoir and another is an advice-to-writers kind of book.

1. Fiction: The Stranger's Child
2. Memoir: Double Life: A Love Story from Broadway to Hollywood
3. Advice to Writers: The Forest for the Trees (Revised and Updated): An Editor's Advice to Writers

I alternate between the three depending on my mood. :)

struggling with the last book of The Strain trilogy by del Toro. I'm not a fan of vampire books, but I have read the first two, so I just can't drop the trilogy at this point :)

So I recently started reading books via a Kindle and loving it. (actually find myself reading more)

The Last Werewolf - Glenn Duncan (loved it, not your run of the mill werewolf story)

I, Lucifer -Glenn Duncan (After reading Last Werewolf I decided to read another by this author and so glad I did. Great read)

The Breath of God - Jeffery Small. Fun thriller.

Fall to Grace - Jay Bakker. Good read, especially if you come from a fundi Christian background like myself.

I've finished three books so far this year. Fate's Edge, which is an fine popcorn- style UF.
Wild Seed is amazing.
Down These Strange Streets is an anthology of urban fantasies with PIs/ detectives. Now I'm reading Akata Witch, which if you're comparing book descriptions sounds a lot like Wild Seed, but I don't think it is.

I finished The Ordinary and started the next in the series, The Last Green Tree. From Kirith Kirin these have moved from high fantasy to Science Fiction, all with Gay characters in the happen-to-be sense. They remind me a bit of Ursula Le Guin. In a sense they explore magic vs science.

From there I think I'll read McCarthy's The Road, though I may read Edmund White's A Boy's Own Story first which came on friday.

I've a bunch of reviews to do, but work has been so busy it's been hard to find the time to read more than an hour or so a day. I almost feel like I'm a resident again.

Picked up Blasphemy at a library sale (love to support my local branch) after a quick glance. It has really started to pick up and is becoming a page turner!

Finished this in a hurry and reading Beyond NATO: Staying Out of Europe's Wars for my historical fix!

Couldn't find The Road quickly last nite, so started A Boy's Own Story by Edmund White whom I've neglected.

Kernos wrote: "Couldn't find The Road quickly last nite"
That's why I picked it up super-cheap alongside No Country for Old Men - I knew I wanted to read them, but I got them to put aside until I felt ready for them.

My copy is on a 5 x 5 x 4 foot clump of books. I didn't want to look for it at 11 PM ;-)

Kernos wrote: "My copy is on a 5 x 5 x 4 foot clump of books. I didn't want to look for it at 11 PM ;-)"
Lazy :p

Kernos,

I think you made the right choice avoiding The Road.

Did you not like The Road, Julia? I just did a compare books with you and we certainly seem to have similar reading tastes.

Kathryn wrote: "Kernos wrote: "My copy is on a 5 x 5 x 4 foot clump of books. I didn't want to look for it at 11 PM ;-)"
Lazy :p"

Heh! Tired actually. Will find it this weekend. Work's been a bitch.

Kernos,

I not only didn't like The Road, I actively despise it. It is unremmittingly bleak, without characters who are more than titles, in a hopeless yet undefined world; yet I somehow finished it, so I gave it two stars instead of one.

If you're looking for literary fiction/ science fiction that is dystopian yet not as bleak and hopeless and with real characters try instead Parable of the Sower.

Kernos,

I not only don't like The RoadI actively despise it. (Yet, weirdly I'd sorta like to see the movie. Hello, Viggo Mortenson! As long as I don't have to get it from Netflix or whatever. I have a feeling may be a rare movie that is better than the book.) There aren't characters in the book, there are titles. It's unremittingly bleak and hopeless.

Try instead Parable of the Sower. Maybe it's in your pile, too. For one, its author didn't mind it being called science fiction. It's dystopian, but it's full of complicated complex characters. And while many horrible things happen, it's not bleak and hopeless.

Finished Terentia, Tullia and Publilia a book about women in the Late Roman Republic which I didn't find hugely engaging or informative.
I'm reading Gabriel's Gift by Hanif Kureishi about 15 year old Gabriel a budding artist whose parents are splitting up and who is trying to remotivate his former rock star Dad who has gone to seed in a bedsit.
I'm not organised enough, I'm afraid to have planned what other books I'll be reading this month. I tend to pick and nibble. Lots of books on Roman literature and society probably.

I'm currently reading Elizabeth Noble's Together Bound.

Julia wrote: "Kernos,

I not only don't like The Road I actively despise it. (Yet, weirdly I'd sorta like to see the movie. Hello, Viggo Mortenson! As long as I don't have to get it from Netflix or ..."

I liked the movie from a Viggo point of view, but the plot seemed trivial and the ending sentimental. From what I've read, the magic of The Road is in its prose and not plot or characters. I love great prose so will probably read it.

In a sense the book I'm reading now, A Boy's Own Story is also trivial as a coming out/of age novel, but it's prose, puns and allusions are superb. It is also superior as a reminiscence of adolescence novel.

I'm making my way through Alan Hollinghurst's The Stranger's child; and although I loved The Line of Beauty, which perfectly, almost eerily equated to my ideal of writing, and although this new work has sumptuous prose and extraordinary characterization, I'm struggling to connect with it at a basic, visceral level. he's still the master though.
Nicholas Shapiro's The War for Cole's Sexual Orientation is a interesting work about queer culture; and I'm re-reading Andrew Millar's Casanova, which is always a laugh.

Julia wrote: "Kernos,

I not only don't like The RoadI actively despise it. (Yet, weirdly I'd sorta like to see the movie. Hello, Viggo Mortenson! As long as I don't have to get it from Netflix or ..."

You're the first person I've encountered outside myself and my immediate household who hates this book. Glad to meet you!

I read Duma Key by Steven King, Ursula Under by Ingrid Hill, I am currently reading Angle Time by Ann Rice and Rougarou by Judith Ann McDowell.

By the way how do you get the neat underline links set up?

I am reading Winter's Bone by Daniel Woodrell




It's easy, Stephanie. Just go to the add book/author link at the top of the comment box. You can choose to add a link to the title or a photo.

Nancy wrote:
It's easy, Stephanie. Just go to the add book/author link at the top of the comment b..."

Thank you, Nancy I will have to play around with the site.

I just finished reading Lillian Faderman's memoir, Naked in the Promised Land. I love her writing style. Faderman doesn't shy away from the good, the bad, and the ugly of her life. A rich and inspiring human story that I highly recommend!

I finished The Road and am trying to figure out how to review it. I'm impressed. Sometimes simple is best. "The Shape of Things to Come"

I just started The Space Vampires a SF/Horror crossover upon which the '80's Brit SF B-movie "Lifeforce" was based.

I'm currently reading Before I Go to Sleep by S. J. Watson. It's both intriguing and suspenseful. I reckon I'll finish it by tomorrow.

Jumping ahead to March: I'm looking forward to Jeanette Winterson's memoir, Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal?

Opening sentence: “When my mother was angry with me, which was often, she said, ‘the Devil led us to the wrong crib.’ ”

I've recently finished Gore Vidal's The City and the Pillar. I think it's one of the best gay books I've ever read. Love the time period. Can't believe he was strong enough to write this in the 1940s.

I started Logan: A Trilogy last night, the novel upon which the movie Logan's Run was based and the 2 sequels. And, I discovered the authors had signed and did a cute little drawing on the title page. I love used book surprises!

Reading Supergods by Grant Morrison right now. Part history of superheroes, part pop-culture dissection, part autobiography. Good fun.

Just read With or Without You. It was an ALA honor book for the Stonewall award for LGTB fiction. It was hard to read, but good. Left my review for it!

Oh, I did like Before I Go to Sleep, Dollmatic!

I was in a rut and having a dry reading spell. Hope it passes.

Then I got stuck on Downton Abbey. Sigh.

Nicholas wrote: "I'm making my way through Alan Hollinghurst's The Stranger's child; and although I loved The Line of Beauty, which perfectly, almost eerily equated to my ideal of writing, and although this new wor..."

Hi, Nicholas.

I, too, am reading Stranger's Child (along with a few other books) but I'm also struggling with it, although I love the way he writes having read him as far back as his first novel.

I'm current reading The Road to Thebes: Niobe and Amphion, an historical or mythic fiction of ancient Greece and book 2 of The Niobe Trilogy by Victoria Grossack

These are the best self-published novels I have encountered, well written, edited and researched—great for lovers of Greek Mythology.

Back on my Graphic novel mode, reading A Zoo In Winter and Bad Island and Vietnamerica: A Family's Leavetakings and Homecomings

The Road to Thebes was an excellent historical/mythic fiction and the best self-published book I've read.

I've started The Nevérÿon [neh VER ee on] series by Samuel R. Delany and am trying to figure out how it relates to semiotics (and to figure out what that is). These are superficially Gay oriented fantasy stories.

These books have been called postmodern. I don't grok postmodern, ie, have an intuitive understanding of what it really means. Suggestions?

Kathryn wrote: "I've read two books so far, The Warrior's Path & A Journey of the Heart by Catherine M. Wilson, and they were amazing. They're bronze age fantasy with a lot of lesbian..."
Wow. I've joined this group moments ago, and these look like a terrific discovery. Hi, I'm Bryn.

Bryn wrote: "Kathryn wrote: "I've read two books so far, The Warrior's Path & A Journey of the Heart by Catherine M. Wilson, and they were amazing. They're bronze age fantasy with ..."
Awesome! They're good - but I was wrong. They're not fantasy, they're historical fiction with a slight spiritual bent. They're not like Pollack's Godmother Night in that they're little more than spiritual, but that aspect does come into play in the third book in particular.

That said, I wholly recommend them.

Tales of Nevérÿon was amazing. In the meantime I reams the Marsbound series by Joe Haldemon which was average. I did not really like the plot or characters, but there were things to think about which may change some's viewpoint, this its only sayin grace.

I just started The Charioteer by Mary Renault. I have read most of her books and cannot believe this gem escaped my notice. It was probably because it was about WWII, which does not interest me. Of course it's not really about WWII.