The polls are open for our next reading list!

Greetings, Colleagues—

All Bookmen members should already have received my e-mail listing the books nominated for our next reading list, which will commence in January and run most of next year.  Please vote!

I don't believe we've publicized the "ballot" on the blog before, but here it is.  Perhaps it will entice prospective Bookmen members to check us out!

Cheers, Steve

Nominations for Bookmen DC’s 2016 Reading List 

This list isn't supposed to tell you everything you might want to know about each book, but rather to give you basic information and a description or quotation to make it easier to remember.  Often subtitles suffice. Also, there's a wealth of information on Amazon.com (be sure not to overlook the customers' reviews), Wikipedia and, of course, Google.

The list is constructed as follows:

Title. Author (Editor).  Year Originally Published (decreasing within genre), Number of Pages, Publisher, and Price (rounded up—usually at a discount on amazon)

FICTION

The Medici Boy. John L’Heuruex.  2014, 320pp, Astor + Blue Editions, $17
Renaissance Florence: art, homosexuality, and murder (not necessarily in that order).

The City of Devi. Manil Suri.  2013, 400pp, W.W. Norton, $16
In post-apocalyptic Mumbai, a wife searches for her husband and a male hustler continues looking for his one true love.

These Things Happen. Richard Kramer.  2012, 272pp, Unbridled Books, $16
After his best friend comes out, a 15-year-old boy tries to reconnect with his divorced gay father and his father's longtime lover.

Was. Geoff Ryman.  1992, 384pp, Small Beer Press, $16
L. Frank Baum, “The Wizard of Oz,”  the “real” Dorothy Gael [!], Frances Gumm (who becomes Judy Garland) — and a PWA racing to make sense of it all … and his life.

NON-FICTION

Gay Berlin: Birthplace of a Modern Identity. Robert Beachy.  2014, 352pp, Vintage, $17

The Delectable Negro: Human Consumption and Homoeroticism within US Slave Culture. Vincent Woodard.  2014, 320pp, NYU Press, $27

Gay Artists in Modern American Culture. Michael S. Sherry.  2007, 304 pp, University of North Carolina Press, $32

BIOGRAPHY

Wagstaff: Before and After Mapplethorpe. Philip Gefter.  2014, 480pp, Liveright, $20

The Best Kept Boy in the World: The Life and Loves of Denny Fout. Arthur Vanderbilt.  2014, 260pp, Magnus Books, $20

In Bed with Gore Vidal. Tim Teeman.  2013, 296pp, Riverdale Avenue Books, $19 

MEMOIR

Bettyville. George Hodgman.  2015, 288pp, Penguin, $17
Gay man returns to mother dying in Missouri and still unreconciled to his sexuality.

POETRY

Silverchest. Carl Phillips.  2013, 80pp, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, $14
The poet connecting to men and the natural world around them. (Sample the poems by clicking on the “Look inside” link.)

DRAMA

Choir Boy. Tarell Alvin McCraney. 2015, 112pp, TCG, $15
Young gay man leads his school’s prestigious gospel choir while negotiating his coming out.

ANTHOLOGIES

Tennessee Williams: Mad Pilgrimage of the Flesh. John Lahr.  2014, 784pp, W. W. Norton, $20.
This very long, excellent biography, if chosen, will be read Third Wednesdays (hence its appearance here under “Anthologies”).

Blue, Too: More Writing by (for or about) Working-Class Queers. ed. Wendell Ricketts.  2014, 486pp, FourCats Press, $19

Fool for Love: New Gay Fiction. ed. R.D. Cochrane & Timothy J. Lambert.  2009, 265pp,  Cleis Press, $15

Our Caribbean: A Gathering of Lesbian and Gay Writing from the Antilles. ed. Thomas Glave.  2008, 416pp, Duke UP, $27