Some bad news for book lovers...

The Associated Press reports that book bans and attempted bans remain at record highs, and efforts to have titles removed have never been more coordinated or politicized.

On April 20, the American Library Association issued its annual list of the books most challenged at the country’s libraries, part of the association’s State of America’s Libraries Report. Patricia McCormick’s Sold, a 2006 novel about sex trafficking in India, topped the list for 2025. Other targeted books include Maia Kobabe’s graphic memoir Gender Queer, Stephen Chbosky’s high school novel The Perks of Being a Wallflower, and Sarah J. Maas’ romantasy favorite Empire of Storms.

Objections include LGBTQ+ themes (Gender Queer, The Perks of Being a Wallflower), sexual violence (Sold and A Clockwork Orange) and use of alcohol and cigarettes (Looking for Alaska). Overall, the ALA’s Office for Intellectual Freedom recorded challenges to 4,235 different works, topped only by 4,240 in 2023 since the association began keeping track more than 30 years ago.

...and some good news

The Guardian reports that 422 new indie bookshops opened in 2025, according to the American Booksellers Association, a 31% rise from 2024. Countless independent restaurants, coffee shops, fitness centers, movie theaters, clothing stores and other small businesses also continue to thrive even in this era of ever-bigger retailers, fast-casual restaurants and massive e-commerce platforms.

Reporter Gene Marks observes: "The Barnes & Noble outlet near me has to meet their numbers each month and is focused entirely on moving product to make the most of every square inch of space. It’s not as profitable as a location to inventory slower-selling titles, even if there’s an audience for them. Small businesses fill in that space. They sell more obscure books that only a small percentage of people will buy. Big companies optimize for scale. Small businesses win by ignoring it."

When Peter met Paul

Peter Hujar is much better known today than his fellow artist and former lover Paul Thek, thanks in no small part to the acclaimed 2025 film, "Peter Hujar's Day."

But a new joint biography by Andrew Durbin, The Wonderful World that Almost Was: A Life of Peter Hujar and Paul Thek, sets out to do equal justice to both men. Here are an excerpt from Vulture and a book review in The New Republic.

By the way, if Hujar's name sounds vaguely familiar but you can't quite place him: One of his most famous photographs, "Orgasmic Man," graces the cover of Hanya Yanagihara's novel, A Little Life, which we read back in 2018.

Colm Toibin's latest

Over the years, we've discussed four books by Irish writer Colm Toibin: The Master (discussed in 2005), Love in a Dark Time (2006), The Empty Family (2012) and, most recently, The Magician (2023).

So far as I can tell from this laudatory review in The Guardian, Toibin's latest short story collection, The News from Dublin, only contains one LGBTQ character. But as with Lev Raphael, whose Secret Anniversaries of the Heart we'll be returning to next week, his writing is still powerful no matter what the subject matter is.

Speaking of which, here are two bonus tracks: an essay in The Guardian titled "I've Learned First-Hand How Evil Is Tolerated,"and a book review Toibin recently published in The New York Review of Books.

The Further Adventures of Gertrude Stein

Later this year, we'll discuss Gertrude Stein: An Afterlife by Francesca Wade, a literary biography of the enigmatic writer and larger-than-life personality.

In the meantime, I thought I'd share a review in The Guardian of a new book that takes a somewhat different approach to distilling Stein's legacy: My Year in Paris with Gertrude Stein, by Deborah Levy.

To quote the opening of the review: "The book doesn’t exactly have a plot, but there is a situation. Three female friends are in Paris. The narrator (English, single) is writing, or failing to write, an essay about Gertrude Stein. Eva (Spanish-Danish, married to a man in Seattle whom she sees once a week, if that, on FaceTime) is a graphic novelist. Fanny (French, polyamorous with three female lovers) is a financier." Color me intrigued!

Happy 100th Birthday, Frank O'Hara!

I am indebted to Ron Charles for the reminder in his Substack that Frank O’Hara was born on March 27, 1926. Charles notes that The Collected Poems of Frank O’Hara, edited by Donald Allen, won a National Book Award in 1972, six years after the poet was struck by a car and died at 40.

Back in 2014, we read perhaps his best-known collection, Lunch Poems. A decade before that, we read Joe LeSueur's Digressions on Some Poems by Frank O'Hara. And just five years ago, we read Brad Gooch's biography of the poet, City Poet: The Life and Times of Frank O'Hara (highly recommended).

I've also posted several items here about O'Hara over the years, which you can (re)read by clicking on this link.

Following in LeSueur's footsteps, here is a poetic tribute to O'Hara by a Somali-American poet, Laden Osman.

Some thoughts on "Hawk Mountain"

Because he lives in Russia, our friend Jacob Green is unable to attend BookMen meetings in person, but he has attended one Zoom session (so far) even though it happened in the wee hours for him. But as soon as I announced we'd be reading Connor Habib's Hawk Mountain, which we'll discuss on April 8, he ordered the book and posted a review on his own blog.

I'm only going to quote one paragraph here because the review contains a major spoiler. But once you've finished the novel, I encourage you to check out the rest of Jacob's thoughts.

"I have every reason to believe that Hawk Mountain is deeply personal for Conner Habib, its author. For example, there is a passage where Jack shares his sense of a family in the army. It has a very special meaning to me because my father is a military officer. 'To my father, who left me at the age of 3'—these exact words I used on the dedication page of my coming-out novel, Truth with Ornaments."

Thanks, Jacob!