Classic LGBTQ literature

Our friend Bruce Dunne recently shared the following info with me:

"I just came across a list of 21 LGBTQ+ books in the section of the New York Review of Books website where one can look up books by theme. It surprises me how few I am familiar with (other than J.R. Ackerly and Jan Morris), and it occurred to me that some may be of interest to the group. Cheers, Bruce."

Our merry band has read both Ackerly titles in the compilation--We Think the World of You (in 2015) and My Father and Myself (in 2013)--as well as John Horne Burns' The Gallery (in 2015) and a different book by Jean Genet than the one recommended here. As the time for our annual process of nominating books for next year's reading list approaches (stay tuned for details!), I invite you to take a look at this list to see whether any of these titles intrigue you enough to propose them.

Encouragement, not clutter

Writing for The Conversation, a site dedicated to "analysis from scientists and medical doctors," Michelle Spear, an anatomy professor at the University of Bristol, explains "Why you keep buying books you don't read--and why it feels so good."

"Some might call this clutter," she acknowledges. But "the Japanese have a far more elegant word for it: tsundoku. The term describes the habit of acquiring books and allowing them to accumulate unread. It combines the idea of stacking things up (tsunde), leaving something for later (oku) and reading (doku). The result is a concept that captures the quiet optimism of a pile of books."

Prof. Spear elaborates on the phenomenon in her essay, and after reading it, I feel a lot better as a proud practitioner of tsundoku than a mere hoarder. Hopefully, you will, too.

Funny because it's true

From a recent New Yorker:

Mike M.'s Kiss for the Spider Woman

The 11 of us who attended last week's discussion of Manuel Puig's Kiss of the Spider Woman enjoyed a lively discussion of the novel. That prompted Mike Mazza to look up the review he posted on Amazon 25 years ago of Kiss of the Spider Woman and Two Other Plays.

Spoiler alert: Mike was (and is) a fan of Puig's work. Perhaps it might be worth our taking a look at the other two plays in that volume at some point?

TL;DR = DNF?

No, our blog hasn't suddenly become a conduit for mathematicians or cryptographers to pass secret messages! :-)

Many of you are probably already familiar with the term on the left side of the equation, which is shorthand for "too long; didn't read." It's most often applied to online articles and posts, and sometimes carries a whiff of disapproval about an overly indulgent author who expects readers to wade through dense writing that doesn't offer a payoff for the time spent.

Now "TL;DR" has spawned a new term for book lovers: DNF--"did not finish." This New York Times article explores the debate between completists--who insist that if you start a book, you should finish it--and readers who say life is too short to waste time on something you're not enjoying.

In the spirit of full disclosure, I'll note that I am a completist by nature. But as I grow older, and am increasingly aware of how many books I'll never get to, I'm becoming more and more sympathetic to the DNF perspective.

A Radiant Dawn at Little District Books

Little District Books, the LGBTQ bookstore now on Pennsylvania Ave. SE, is getting into the publishing game! For its first project, LDB is soliciting contributions to Radiant Dawn: A Queer Hopepunk Anthology, a short story collection it plans to publish in the spring.

Coined by author Alexandra Rowland, "Hopepunk" is defined by weaponizing kindness, community and optimism to overcome oppressive systems. It doesn’t fit neatly into any one genre, which offers authors a lot of options. Visit this site for more details on the project and submission guidelines.

A year after Andrea Gibson's passing...

Last year, I posted a couple of items about the late, great Andrea Gibson, who served as Poet Laureate of Colorado from 2023 until their passing on July 14, 2015. In her honor, Poets. org (which puts out the Poem-a-Day newsletter I so often reference here) recently published several of Gibson's poems:

Wellness Check

Spider

Acceptance Speech After Setting the World Record in Goosebumps

Photoshopping My Sister’s Mugshot