Washington Post reporter and analyst Philip Bump recently put together an article illustrating the post-2020 surge in calls for banning books throughout the United States. Most BookMen are already familiar with this disturbing phenomenon, and I have posted other items about it on this blog. But Bump's graphic depiction of the trend, using data from the American Library Association, has even more impact.
News Is Out reports on the Queer Liberation Library, which it rightly calls "a new chapter in literary LGBTQ+ access and representation." Established last fall, the QLL is a free digital collection, which currently contains about 850 ebooks and audiobooks. Amber Dierking, one of its co-founders, notes: "We emphasize purchasing books from living authors and addressing demographic imbalances inherent in publishing. Our goal is broad representation, reflecting our community's diversity."
To borrow items from the QLL, one must first apply for free membership. Members can download the Libby app or request books and audio products on the website. (The website also invites visitors to suggest books for the collection.) Digital licenses cost money, of course, and members can help by donating to the library. "That's the most direct way to support us, allowing us to expand our collection and cover operational costs," says Kieran Hickey, the QLL's other co-founder. "Engaging with public libraries for faster access to materials also supports us indirectly by demonstrating demand for queer materials, aiding their acquisition efforts.
On March 21, 1924, exactly 100 years ago today, a dinner party helped launch the Harlem Renaissance. As Veronica Chambers and Michelle May-Curry recount in this fascinating New York Times article, the attendees included several LGBTQ authors whose books we've read or read about over the years: Langston Hughes, Alain Locke and Carl Van Vechten. Though the gathering was barely covered at the time, requiring Chambers and May-Curry to reconstruct that glittering night, they point out that "In the decade after the dinner, the writers who were associated with the Renaissance published more than 40 volumes of fiction, nonfiction and poetry. That body of work transformed a community as well as the landscape of American literature."
I can still recall when nearly every newspaper and magazine would periodically publish a list of "Great American Novels." Indeed, if you go back through the years of this blog, you'll find many such compilations. But such roundups seem rarer and rarer these days, so I was interested in The Atlantic's list, totaling 136 novels. I'm pleased to say that I've heard of nearly all of them, though I've read fewer than a quarter of them. But I was surprised that only 12 of the titles are by LGBTQ authors and/or have prominent gay/queer themes (under 10%). That said, James Baldwin is one of the few authors to have two titles on the list: Giovanni's Room (which BookMen has discussed) and Another Country (which we have not gotten to yet). Check it out!
A decade ago, Edouard Louis published his first memoir, The End of Eddy, which we discussed in 2017. (We discussed his fourth book, Who Killed My Father, last year.) His latest book, Change: A Novel, has just been published in a translation by John Lambert. Here are reviews from the Washington Post, New York Times and The Guardian, along with an interview of the author in the Los Angeles Review of Books. It sure sounds like a contender for our next reading list!
