BOOKS: What are you reading?

[rotary]

Ethical Oil: the case for Canada's Oilsands.

 

[DC00777]

If you like witty, dark humor check out Edward St. Aubyn's Patrick Melrose novels. Five novels (ranging in lengths of 120-250 pages). Quite excellent. If you want something VERY dark, occasionally funny and always insightful, check out Dennis Cooper's George Miles cycle of novels. But be warned, they aren't for those with weak stomachs.

Can someone suggest a book for me?


I love those teenage books with that sarcastic humor although I guess at this point I am just looking for something "Witty" love that writing, it kills me. Books have made me laugh more than movies, actually.

The last book I read that I truly loved was "Go ask Alice anonymous" along with another book just like it. Both were dark, self-deprecating, and smart.


If I can find a book that has the same humor as "The Mindy Project" I will be happy

 

[sammyyummy]

Hopeless by Colleen Hoover. Was mind blowingly better than i expected

 

[crimsonpaine]

Brain by Robin Cook

 

[yannes]

reading game of thrones now

I also really recommend the fault in our stars by john green

 

[krfflyer]

You might give Jonathan Tropper a try. Very smart, funny, but comes from a dark place, usually. I read "How to talk to a Widower", which is a man who describes his life after his wife dies (the dark) and he struggles to reconnect, especially with his weird-ish family (the smart and funny), and "Everything Changes", again death is a theme (the dark), but the protagonist moves through it with humor, anger and the will to do the right thing.

 

[HorniLad89]

Hmm, I'm really loving The Dark Tower series and am now on book three The Wastelands I'm getting through these very quickly.

 

[Thad1527]

I just finished Ask the Passengers, by A.S. King. I liked it. It's about a high school girl named Astrid, who lives with her mother, brother, and sister in a little country town named Unity Valley, not terribly far from where I live now. The title comes from Astrid's habit of going to the backyard picnic table at night, looking up at the passing airplanes, and sending her love to the passengers.

It's about first love, and small town gossip, and family. Oh, and when you find you're falling for another girl.

I know, it's not especially age-appropriate for me...but I confessed to the young adult librarian at Radnor Memorial Library that I think an awful lot of today's best new fiction is found in the young adult section. (I was pleased she liked what I did...and she's met David Levithan. I'm jealous.)

 

[Phantas33]

Reading "The Wolf Gift" by Anne Rice. AMAZING.

 

[Thad1527]

If you like a mystery with lots of surprises, twists, and turns, I recommend They Did It with Love by Kate Morgenroth. I gasped several times at the revelations along this book's storyline. The gay content, unfortunately, is about 0%. But if you consider it as The Real Housewives of Greenwich, Connecticut...which it reads as breezily as...queer enough.


Amazon.com says people who bought this also bought Looking for Alaska, by John Green, which I've also read and recommended!

 

[palbert]

John Guy, Thomas Becket, Random House 2012.

Fascinating biography of Henry II of England's Chancellor, later Archbishop of Canterbury, murdered in his Cathedral 1170, canonized 1173.

 

[sammyyummy]

Coleen Hoover's Hopeless and Losing Hope. Just WOW amazing work

 

[crimsonpaine]

The Passage by Justin Cronin

 

[Irish Queer]

Still reading A Clash of Kings lol, taking forever.

 

[elGeniuoso1721]

Finished The Stranger by Albert Camus recently. Moving on to Walden by Henry David Thoreau.

 

[TickTockMan]

Fireside Romance by Drew Hunt

 

[cubbybear01]

I've almost read the entire H.P. Lovecraft mythos from beginning to end. It's taken a very long time. Almost done with Mountains of Madness. Two more stories after that and I'll have read everything he ever wrote. Woooh!

 

[suckpoppet]

The Magnificent Savages by Fred Mustard Stewart.
Unfortunately the other 3 parts of this saga were not published in my language
So, tonight I'll start with Eden Burning by Belva Plain.

 

[EJMichaels]

I have a NSFW "Thursday Thirteen" thread in which we usually post 13 pics with a common theme. Some posts have lists instead, such as my latest book acquisitions. Below is my most recent post.


Having one of my stories accepted for Best Gay Erotica 2014 prompted me to learn about the editor, Larry Duplechan. I love his books and want to share some of what I found. He also maintains a blog of his sexy drawings. Get the links to his books and blog here.

From an article on his life and works:

Duplechan is an autobiographical writer. His novels do not recount events that actually happened to him, but they closely reflect his life and personality, especially through the voice of his most famous character, the protagonist of four of his novels, Johnnie Ray Rousseau

...beneath Duplechan's breezy style lurks a great deal of pain and suffering. Indeed, the humor with which his work is infused is often a coping mechanism. While Duplechan may be a comic writer—he has described his books as "romantic comedies"-- he knows that in life comedy and tragedy coexist and intensify each other.

For Johnnie Ray, as for Duplechan himself, his gay identity is more defining than his racial identity. Yet it is not true, as some reviewers alleged, that Blackbird is insensitive to racial issues, including the discrimination Johnnie Ray faces as one of a handful of black students in his high school. Indeed, the novel subtly but unmistakably indicates the pervasiveness of racism in the conformist ethos that shapes small-town attitudes.

Charles I. Nero has described Johnnie Ray's forthrightly expressed preference for white sexual partners as a challenge to the idea that "a black person's attraction to a white" is pathological; he also contends that Johnnie Ray's declaration of such a sexual preference is "a major moment of signifying in African American literature: the sexual objectification of white men by a black man."

I’ll add that there is a lot of hot erotic content – both brief references and some detailed sex scenes.

I’ve read the first two and the last book so far. The other two are waiting for me at the post office.

1. Eight Days a Week – Johnnie Ray as a young adult
2. Blackbird – prequel to above, a younger Johnnie Ray
3. Tangled Up in Blue – Not part of the series; AIDS theme
4. Captain Swing – Johnnie Ray in his thirties
5. Got 'Til It's Gone- Johnnie Ray in his forties

I’ve also been reading mysteries lately, and I’d rather read about gay characters. My searches took me to Greg Herren – I’m starting my second of his sexy adventures set in New Orleans. He also writes a mystery series. I had previously enjoyed his erotica. Another popular author is Neil S. Plakcy, creator of the Mahu Investigations series about a Hawaiian detective. Plakcy writes extensively about Hawaii, surfers, beaches, sailors, and other themes. I haven’t read his books yet.

From Greg Herren about his books:

I’m primarily known as a mystery writer. I write two series, the Chanse MacLeod mysteries and the Scotty Bradley adventures. Both private eyes are gay men who live in New Orleans, but there the similarities end. Chanse and Scotty are about as different as two people can be! Chanse is darker and more cynical, and so are the books. Scotty, on the other hand, is a happy-go-lucky person who can always see the humor in everything,

6. Bourbon Street Blues (Scotty Bradley series) by Greg Herren
7. Jackson Square Jazz (Scotty Bradley)
8. Vieux Carré Voodoo (Scotty Bradley) (obtained from library, but I'm counting it with "my" books)
9. Mahu: A Hawai'ian Mystery (A Kimo Kanapa Mystery) by Neil S. Plakcy

And, of course there’s some erotica in my latest reading pile. I liked what I read by David May and picked up a couple of his books. I'm not recommending those in general, but they'll appeal to people with certain specific tastes.

10. Butch Bottom & the Absent Daddy and Ten Other Leather Love Stories
11. Madrugada: A Cycle of Erotic Fictions (Boner Books)


Other:

12. The Lost Library : Gay Fiction Rediscovered -- found when searching for Duplechan; he’s one of many authors included.

13. The Violet Quill Reader: The Emergence of Gay Writing After Stonewall.
The editor, David Bergman, also edited the Men on Men fiction anthologies. The Violet Quill was a group of seven New York writers -- Edmund White, Andrew Holleran, Christopher Cox, Michael Grumley, Robert Ferro, Felice Picano and George Whitmore -- who regularly met in the early 1980s to discuss and read their work.

 

[Thad1527]

If you like Larry Duplechan, I'm sure you'd like the late Steven Corbin's books. I met him at an author's event and liked him and his work.