Tag: Harper Perennial

Books

Book 74: Babycakes – Armistead Maupin

Geoff W

Babycakes takes place two years after Further Tales of the City and of the four books I’ve read in the series this is my least favorite. I understand characters have to grow and evolve, but sometimes you just don’t want them to.

In comparison to the other novels in this series, the novel seems angst ridden and is darker than the previous novels. I’m not sure if this is a direct response to Maupin’s mindset at the time or the general feeling of gloom and doom of San Francisco and the LGBT community at the time. Originally published in 1984, Maupin wrote the tales in Babycakes while Reagan was President of the US and Margaret Thatcher was Prime Minister of the UK and the AIDS crisis was on the horizon (although the Reagan administration didn’t acknowledge it until 1987).

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Books

Book 73: Further Tales of the City – Armistead Maupin

Geoff W

Are you sick of the Tales of the City reviews yet? I hope not! I’m just finishing up Babycakes and should have a post for Monday. Then you get a brief break while I reread Christopher Paolini’s Inheritance Cycle in time for the November 8th release of the fourth and final novel, Inheritance.

I read Further Tales of the City before deciding to go back and restart the series. Thus, I’m posting out-of-order, which is a big hypothetical no-no in my blog mind, but I didn’t want to start posting with book three so I made an exception as I enjoyed this novel so much! It didn’t hurt that a very dapper older gentleman on the bus one morning told me that he loves these novels and that they’re well worth the read. When I told him I was reading them out-of-order he looked shocked and told me I HAD to read/re-read all of them.

Click here to continue reading. (Some minor spoilers.)

Books

Book 72: More Tales of the City – Armistead Maupin

Geoff W

More Tales of the City picks up where Tales of the City ends and is just as entertaining and difficult to put down!

As the story opens, we find that Mary Ann has inherited money from her former boss Edgar Halcyon (Dede’s father) and she decides to take herself and Michael on a cruise to Mexico. While on the cruise, Mary Ann meets a lovely young man (Burke) and they hit it off. Michael meanwhile meets a former lover and they fall madly back in love.

While Mary Ann and Michael are out cruising, yes that is a double entendre, Brian becomes obsessed with a phantom of love, Mrs. Madrigal and Mona both find family in each other after Mona runs away and discovers her past, and Dede and Beauchamp continue to struggle in their marriage with their impeding children and their marriage.

Click here to continue reading (there are spoilers).

Books

Book 71: Tales of the City – Armistead Maupin

Geoff W

I first read Tales of the City for a class my final year of undergrad. It was for a course on the History of Sexuality. I clearly didn’t pay too much attention, as Maupin apparently grew up in North Carolina and attended my university (UNC Chapel Hill).*

The tales originally appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle as a serialization and this makes them incredibly readable. And although this is a great thing, it’s also a bad thing. If you read this series you will constantly keep telling yourself, one more section (most sections are at most three pages), and next thing you know the book is almost finished and it’s 1:00am.

Tales of the City serves as the introduction to the core characters of the series (the first three novels at least) and they are a varied bunch of characters. From Mary Ann Singleton and Michael Tolliver leaving their small town lives in Cleveland and Florida, respectively, to Anna Madrigal and her secret, to Dede (Halcyon) Day and her not-so-straight husband Beauchamp Day, all of the characters of these tales are unique and well written. You always want to know more, but Maupin is a master of only revealing so much and intertwining all of the stories to engage the reader.

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Books

Book 61: Brave New World – Aldous Huxley

Geoff W

First I have to apologize for the length of the post, it definitely got away from me. I planned on discussing the condition of the book when I bought it used (covered in ink writing, highlights, penciled notes, underlines, etc.) but will save that for another post. If you’re interested in the points I found most interesting click here. If you’re interested in quotes click here. If you want to know whether I think you should read it click here.

As pertinent today as when first written in 1931. The question though is when you read the novel whether you read it as a utopic or dystopic (anti-utopic novel). Having written a paper on these type of novels (A Handmaid’s Tale and Woman on the Edge of Time) I determined, and supported by many reference works that you can’t have one without the other.

Click here to continue reading the review.