FASCINATING NEW NOVEL

We were pleased, when gay author  Charles Caselton sent us a copy of his new novel "Meanwhile Gardens".  Charles has been described as the Amistead Maupin of Portobello.

Just one of the many positive reviews the book has received states:

When Meanwhile Gardens first aired in episodes on the interent, it was hailed as... "London's cult soap opera....screamingly camp and slightly surreal....A Famous Five for adults...Tales of the City set in Portobello...W11's the Archers".

It's published by Matador and is next on our reading list! 

LGBT HISTORY MONTH EVENT

As part of LGBT History Month author and comedienne VG Lee is coming to Margate Library's Gateway Plus to talk about her recently published book of short stories, "As You Step Outside".

The event will take place from 2 to 3pm on Saturday 12th February. Tickets are free from the Library. For more information contact Jane Bex 01843 223626.

17.1.11.  

Background reading for James Agar’s talk (October 2010), ‘Out at the Movies’

 2 Books about Stephen Sondheim.

SONDHEIM & Co. by Craig Zadan.

The authorised, behind-the-scenes story of the making of Stephen Sondheim's musicals.

EVERYTHING WAS POSSIBLE. by Ted Chaplin.

The making of the musical "Follies". "One of the top-10 must read theatre books of all time." Theatermania.com

2 New Books

HEROES AND EXILES

Gay Icons through the ages.  By Tom Ambrose.

MAN'S WORLD By Rupert Smith

"A meticulously researched, thought-provoking comparison between gay life in the London of the repressive 50s and in the hedonistic present." Nicholas De Jong.

18.3.10

New Book by our "Character of the Year 2009".

Roger Taber, who was born in Kent, gave a talk for Pride in Canterbury last year, and after his appearence on the 4th plinth in Trafalgar Square, was presented with our "Character of the Year Award", has a new book of his poetry out.

The back cover of the book states, "Roger Taber's sixth collection does not disappoint.  Again, the reader is treated to a multidimensional perspective on contemporary society.  If more poems on a gay theme spill over into other sections, they do not strike the reader as either intrusive or irrelevant.  Throughout, we are reminded that it is not only on the battlefield that any one of us may find ourselves in the thick of battle........ "

We are delighted, that one of the poems "A Timely Review" is dedicated to us and we have never appeared in "Endnotes" before.  Thanks Roger!

If you would like more information, or would like a signed copy, (£9.99 inc. P&P,214 pages), then you can contact Roger on RogerTab@aol.com or you can obtain the book from UK bookstores, amazon.co.uk or public libraries. 

Paul Burston's Inspiring Reads

Paul Burston, critically acclaimed author of Shameless, Star People and Lovers and Losers, was asked which authors and books inspired him.

1.       Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray

"A beautiful young man sells his soul in exchange for perpetual youth. As relevant now as it was a century ago."

2.       John Rechy, City of Night

"This great gay American novel was out of print for 20 years and is finally available again, thanks to Souvenir Press."

3.       Armistead Maupin, Tales of the City

"Maupin was the first writer I ever read who presented gay characters as part of life's rich tapestry. I was very flattered when Jonathan Harvey compared my work to his."

4.       Andrew Holleran, Dancer From The Dance

"A mythic tale of the gay disco era and the search for love under the mirrorballs."

5.       Edmund White, A Boy's Own Story

"Often compared to 'De Profundis' and `The Catcher In The Rye', White's coming-of-age tale is a true original. This was the book that helped me to come out."

6.       Randy Shilts, The Mayor of Castro Street

"The full story of Harvey Milk — a great man and a great book."

7.       Neil Bartlett, Skin Lane

"Bartlett is one of the most gifted gay authors we have, and this is his best book to date — a claustrophobic tale of a repressed man living in 1960s London."

8.       Derek Jarman, Modern Nature

"I had the pleasure of knowing Derek, and his journals confirm everything that was so special about him."

9.       Andrew Sullivan, Love Undetectable

"Sullivan's 'reflections on friendship, sex and survival' chart a key turning point in gay history, described here as 'the end of the plague era' ".

10.    David Sedaris, Me Talk Pretty One Day

"Sedaris is one of the few writers who makes me laugh out loud. His sexuality is incidental to the stories he tells, but he makes no secret of it."

11.    Quentin Crisp, The Naked Civil Servant

"I was ten years old when I saw John Hurt playing Crisp in the TV adaptation, and it scared me to death. Years later I read the book and realised what an extraordinary man Crisp was, and what a witty writer."

Sarah SSSSSarah Waters' Inspiring Reads

Sarah Waters, best-selling author of Tipping The Velvet, The Fingersmith and Little Stranger was asked which authors and books have inspired her life and writing.

1.                   Sylvia Townsend Warner, The Corner That Held Them

"I admire all of Townsend Warner's novels, but this, I think, was her masterpiece. Set in a fourteenth-century Norfolk nunnery, it has no main protagonist, but instead moves through several decades in the nunnery's history to chronicle the day-to-day lives of an evolving cast of characters. Insightful, compassionate, and unexpectedly compelling."

2.                   Jeanette Winterson, The Passion

"Winterson was a groundbreaking author in lots of different ways, not least because she combined lesbian subject matter with literary ambition, and helped propel lesbian fiction into the mainstream. This fantastic novel, set in Venice at the time of Napoleon, is still my favourite of her books."

3.                   Margaret Forster, Daphne du Maurier

"I've always been a big fan of du Maurier's fiction, and this biography - which discusses the author's life and writing processes, and reveals her passionate affairs with women and men - is illuminating and inspiring, a great companion to her novels."

4.                   Elana Dykewomon, Beyond the Pale

This is a book that deserves to be much better known: a beautifully written study of Jewish emigration to North America at the turn of the twentieth century; a novel about sexuality, politics and community, and a really inspiring read."

5.                   Alison Bechdel, The Essential Dykes to Watch Out For

"Bechdel's Dykes to Watch Out For comic strip has been entertaining gay and non-gay readers for twenty years, and I've always been one of its biggest fans. I love its combination of humour and political engagement —and the fact that, at times, it's as well plotted as Dickens. This book puts the best of the strips together in one handy edition."

6.                   Mary Renault, The Persian Boy

"Renault is one of the greatest historical novelists, able to transform scrupulous academic research into wonderfully pacy stories with likeable, believable characters. The Persian Boy — which describes the last years of Alexander the Great, as narrated by Alexander's servant and lover, Bagoas — is my favourite of her novels."

7.                   Patricia Highsmith, Carol

''This is an important book for lesbian readers and writers, because it was one of the earliest positive representations of lesbian love — all the more impressive for being written at a time (the early 1950s) when most popular depictions of gay life ended with punishment, suicide, despair, or heterosexual 'conversion'. It's still a great read, smart, sexy and romantic."

8.                   Alan Hollinghurst, The Swimming Pool Library

"This novel had a huge impact on me when I first read it in the early 1990s. It's thoroughly literary, stylish and ambitious, but it deals with sexually adventurous late twentieth-century gay male life: the result is fabulously entertaining and compelling. A brilliant book."

9.                   Isabel Miller, Patience and Sarah

This is a love story inspired by the lives of two nineteenth-century American women, who broke with the traditions of their rural community to set up house together. Its a wonderful, lyrical read – much more than a simple romance."

10.               Patrick Hamilton, Twenty Thousand Streets Under the Sky

"I think it's a pity that Hamilton isn't more widely known. He has a reputation for bleakness, which perhaps puts people off, but, while his novels are certainly gloomy, they are also wonderfully comic and poignant. I admire him because he wrote fondly but unsentimentally about ordinary people; the characters in these three linked '30s novellas, for example, are the bar staff, drinkers and prostitutes who congregate in a shabby London pub, 'The Midnight Bell'."

11.               Colm Toibin, The Blackwater Lightship

"Toibin is one of our greatest contemporary writers, and this is my favourite of his books: it's a story of subtle inter-generational dynamics, as a family gathers together to care for an ill young man. What I admire most about Toibin is the precision of his prose — which manages to be spare, yet extraordinarily vivid and powerful."

12.               Philippa Gregory, Wideacre

"This is one of the novels that inspired me to start writing historical fiction of

my own. It's a really extraordinary read, about an eighteenth-century                           ,s woman's diabolical machinations to hold on to her ancestral Sussex home. Sex, murder, incest: this book's got it all — but it's also a remarkably clever` analysis of gender, history and power."

2 NEW BIOGRAPHIES

THE SECRET LIVES OF SOMERSET MAUGHAM by SELINA HASTINGS

"Persuading himself that he was 'three-quarters normal and that only a third of him (sic) was queer, when it was the other way around', he made a spectacularly disastrous marriage."

"Selina Hastings approaches her fabulously complex subject with a cool ,assured elegance that keeps you reading to the very end." 

DIAGHILEV A life by SJENG SCHEIJEN

"He was Nijinsky's lover ..... a man driven by an overpowering need to explore the mystery of human creativity in its highest form."

2 Reviews in the Sunday Times.

GAY POETRY

Gay poet and author Roger Taber gave a talk for us in May. He is an interesting character, and, since then, he was chosen to appear on the celebrated fourth plinth in Trafalgar Square.

If you would like to know more about Roger and his work, go to:-

http://aspectsofagaymanslifeinverse.blogspot.com/

(Especially for gay readers, but everyone welcomed.)

http://rogertab.blogspot.com/

( For everyone.) 

SOME BOOKS ON OUR HISTORY

"Flights of Angels: My Life With The Angels of Light" by Adrian brooks. Reviewed in the latest Gscene. " Adrian Brooks' memories of the politics and theatre of the 60s and 70s, show show not only how much of our LGBT history has been polished and commercialised, but also, how radical and revolutionary those years were. We need more voices like his, telling us that not only can we be whoever we want, but that we can be FABULOUS AND EFFECTIVE too."  With 50 pages of colour photos of the Angels' shows, the people and the times. 

"Christopher & His Kind" by Christopher Isherwood. "Recreates the gay, hectic life of Berlin in the '30s."  "Above all, Christopher Isherwood writes about himself, freely acknowledging his homosexuality, and about the real people he used as fictional charcters in his famous Berlin novels."  The facts behind the musical "Cabaret."

"Gay Life and Culture- A World History". Edited by Robert Aldrich. Publishers Thames & Hudson.

"On Queer Street" by Hugh David. A Social History of British Homosexuality 1895-1995. Publishers Harper Collins.

"Mad World: Evelyn Waugh and the Secrets of Brideshead" by Paula Byrne. How the "upper crust" lived and loved! Published by Harper Collins on August 20th.

NOVELS

"The Gay Divorcee" by Paul Burston - "The Gay Novelist of Now" -BOYZ. Publishers Sphere. Read and enjoyed Paul's earlier book, "Star People", while on holiday.

"Man on the Beach" by ex-actor Roland Curram. This gay-themed novel is partly set in Canterbury!  Available from Amazon. (Have asked Kent Libraries to acquire this.)

LESBIAN AND GAY THEATRE IN THE TWENTIETH CENTURY

"Out on Stage" by Alan Sinfield. Publishers Yale University Press.

ART

If you can't get to see the "Gay Icons" exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery, why not treat yourself to the book? It's well worth it.

"Gay Icons" is published by National Portrait Gallery Publications. www.npg.org.uk/publications

Maggi Hambling's book "George Always" is also available from the Gallery and you might like to get "Maggi & Henrietta", Maggi's drawings recording her relationship with the late Henrietta Moraes. Published by Bloomsbury Publishing www.bloomsbury.com