A life of books . . .
After finishing Strawberry Kisses rather than do the responsible thing and keep going down my galley list to the next nonfiction book I wanted to get done before the end of 2020, I sought out the book Novak mentions these characters made their first appearance.
SO responsible right? I at least enjoyed it, I’ll just have to remind myself that as I slog through those nonfiction works in the next few weeks.
Uhhh…. A for effort?
I said yes to this one when the publisher reached out with a review copy way back in July (it’s been a long year obviously), because it sounded interesting and was nonfiction.*
I was obviously going to come into it with some bias, as a gay man I’m clearly going to have opinions, but I’m also going to come into it with a lot more education and history knowledge, holding an advanced degree in gender, sexuality, and queer theory. And frankly my thoughts are divided on this book. Did Wolters do a good job of starting a conversation and representing the individuals she interviewed? More or less. If I were judging the book solely on this she would’ve gotten four stars.
Continue reading “Book 753: Voices of LGBTQ+ – Lynda Wolters”
This has been sitting on my shelf for almost three years ever since I read the Rolling Stones article “How One Publisher is Rescuing 1970s Gay Porn Paperbacks”. I finally got around to this as I was looking at the shorter books already on my shelves. And after the emotional drain that was Ethan Frome I thought I should try and get a little further away and a smutty gay porn novel from the 1960s checked all the boxes plus some.
Let’s just say, not a lot has changed in erotica novels. I mean sure the large portion of MM romance/erotica novels are now written by women, but the few that I know for a fact were written by men are pretty damn similar to this one. The big things that have changed is that in general the toxic masculinity and hetero-toxicity in general seem to have been tone down in the more recent books and there are some overt racist scenes and comments sprinkled throughout the novel that were horrible.
Continue reading “Book 685: A Gay Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum – Bert Shrader”
This was harder to read than I thought it would be. Not because of anything I’ve personally experienced, but because it kept hitting me over and over that what was happening in this book was not happening in the 60s, 70s, 80s or even 1990s.
It was happening in the mid-2000s, the same time I was coming to terms with my sexuality and learning about the wider LGBTQ+ world. It was also incredibly eerie how many of the thoughts Conley had mirrored thoughts I had myself and I did not grow up religious, just southern!
I’m nearing the end of my galley/ARC backlog. With this one finished I only have four more. I’ve had this since March and finally got around to it this past week.
The publicist for this book reached out to me and with my Masters degree (Gender, Sexuality and Queer Theory) and a friend who at one point studied gerontology, I of course said yes!
Finally Out is Olson’s look at gay men/MSM who come out/acknowledge their practices later in life. What seriously strengthens the book is Olson’s own story and experience of coming out at the age of 40. What Olson really needs though, is a good Queer Theory 101 course. In general he did a really good job of writing about these men, but there were some problems when it came to sexual orientation/identity/practice. He basically gets it, but in choosing not to use the pre-existing language, I feel that the book suffers.
Continue reading “Book 505: Finally Out: Letting Go of Living Straight – Loren A. Olson”