Life after Book World

Over the years, I've quoted Ron Charles, the distinguished former Washington Post "Book World" reviewer, many times in posts on this blog.

The bad news, as I presume most of you already know, is that last month, the Post discontinued "Book World" (along with the entire sports section and other parts of the newspaper). That's actually the second time the paper has done that in this century; talk about cancel culture! (I fear there will be no third resurrection, however.)

Here is the New York Times' account of a Feb. 22 gathering at Politics & Prose held to celebrate Book World's legacy and mourn its discontinuation.

The good news is that Ron Charles is now on Substack. Like most other writers on that site, he offers a good deal of content for free, but I signed up as a paid subscriber to get the full experience, and highly recommend his work.

More good news: As a paid subscriber, I can issue free one-month subscriptions to five recipients. Because I want to give dibs to current BookMen, I'll put the relevant sign-up info into my next weekly missive.

Here's a sample Substack column, "Do I Still Matter?," that I hope will pique your interest.

ReQueered reading

When you finish the final short story in Felice Picano's Slashed to Ribbons in Defense of Love and Other Stories, which we'll be discussing on March 18, I encourage you not to close the book. The "About ReQueered Tales" postscript is worth reading in its own right, and it leads into a list of 15 other titles the publishing house has issued. The first several novels are also by the prolific Picano, but Robert Ferro, Michael Grumley, Stan Leventhal, Brian Bouldrey, Nikki Baker, Matt Lubbers-Moore, Ian Young and Lev Raphael (the author of another short story collection we're currently enjoying) are also represented.

Maupin inspires across the pond

The Guardian recently reviewed what sounds like a marvelous new book: Tales of the Suburbs: LGBTQ+ Lives Behind Net Curtains by an author with one of the best aptonyms I've seen in a long time: John Grindrod, an English social historian. (Insert your own joke here.)

As reviewer Rebecca Nicholson observes, Grindrod's approach pays subtle tribute to Armistead Maupin's beloved "Tales from the City" series. She also notes something I'm embarrassed to admit came as news to me: The most recent installment, Mona of the Manor, saw one of its key characters move to the Cotswolds to navigate a very different kind of village.

Grindrod grew up in Croydon and now lives with his partner in Milton Keynes; he opens the book with an anecdote about the thrill of finding out he has next-door “gaybours”. Nicholson says "his fascination with and connection to the subject have allowed him to weave an intelligent and sensitive collection of stories, interspersing research from libraries, archives, books, newsletters and reports with original interviews. As much as it is a social history, it is a political, an architectural (he links the popularity of bay windows to the rebellious Arts and Crafts movement, for example) and a cultural one." I plan to order a copy and nominate it for our next reading list if it lives up to expectations.

Some thoughts on "The Bee Sting"

David Stewart, who nominated the novel we'll be discussing tomorrow night --Paul Murray's The Bee Sting--unfortunately cannot join us. However, he offers the following comments and possible discussion questions for our consideration:

"I recommended The Bee Sting because I thought it was a compelling story that offered a fascinating psychological study of the main characters–Dickie and his wife, Imelda, and, to some extent, Dickie’s younger brother, Frank–that centered on Dickie’s deeply closeted homosexuality. I thought that the characters were all very well drawn and that the plot–while it took a while to get going–was dynamite. So here are some possible discussion questions, in no particular order:

· Does Dickie rise to the level of a tragic hero? Why or why not?

· Is The Bee Sting a morality tale? If so, what is the moral?

· As a young man, Dickie was at least halfway out of the closet. How do you explain his retreat?

· Why was it apparently impossible for Dickie to come out to his family when he was being blackmailed by Ryszard?

· Why did Imelda marry Dickie? Was it simply coercion?

· To what extent was Imelda complicit in the sexual fraud at the heart of their marriage? Was there an element of awareness/denial?

· “The Bee Sting” refers to a specific episode in the novel. Does it also have a broader, metaphorical reference?

· Do you have any thoughts about what motivated the actions of Dickie’s brother Frank? Any thoughts about the feelings of the two brothers toward each other?

· What did you think of the novel’s alternating first person narratives? Did it work well--or not?

· What is the role of Dickie’s children, Cass and PJ, in the novel? Are they simply a Greek Chorus?

· What do you make of PJ’s susceptibility to sexual predators?

· Did you find the sex scenes between Dickie and Ryszard hot?

· What did you think of the novel’s ending?"

Thanks, David!

A Whale of a tale

In his introduction to The Celluloid Closet: Homosexuality in the Movies, which we discussed earlier this month, Vito Russo name-checks several LGBTQ directors from Hollywood's early days: Jean Vigo, Dorothy Arzner, F.W. Murnau, James Whale, Edmund Goulding, Mitchell Leisen, Sergei Eisenstein and Pier Paolo Pasolini.

Back in 2013, we discussed Gods and Monsters, Christopher Bram's novel about Whale that was later filmed (I highly recommend both versions of the story). And in a November 2025 post here, I noted the 50th anniversary of Pasolini's murder by referencing an essay about the director's legacy by Olivia Laing, whose essay collection, The Lonely City, we read in 2020.

Wilde and free!

The National Theatre production of "The Importance of Being Earnest," directed by Max Webster, will be available to stream for free worldwide on YouTube next month as part of "Take Your Seats," the weeklong streaming initiative from National Theatre at Home that allows anyone, anywhere, to access theater for free.

Performances will be available for free viewing on YouTube from March 12-18, before moving to the theater's subscription service on March 19. There will be a digital watch-along YouTube premiere on March 12 at 7 p.m. GMT, which will include chats and polls during the show. Captioned, audio-described and BSL options will also be available.

"The Importance of Being Earnest" stars three-time Olivier Award-winner Sharon D. Clarke, "Doctor Who"‘s Ncuti Gatwa, Ronkẹ Adékọluẹ́jọ́, "Little Women‘s" Eliza Scanlen and "Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again"‘s Hugh Skinner.

Click here for more information or to subscribe to National Theatre at Home.

Some LGBTQ+ Poetry to Enjoy, Part 1

Some LGBTQ+ poetry to enjoy, Part 1 The American Academy of Poetry's Poem-a-Day newsletter has featured even more LGBTQ+ poetry than usual (not all by LGBTQ+ poets, I should note) so far this winter, so I'm playing catchup here. These poems were disseminated in November and December; the post immediately below this one will bring us up to date. Enjoy!

Madagascar [Opus 104] by Witter Bynner

To My Daughter's Dead Name by Lance Larson

Egg Tooth by Benjamin Garcia

Jessica McClure, After the Well by Elizabeth Lindsey Rogers

Dock Rats by Marianne Moore

Gender Euphoria and the Superbloom by Jennifer Huang

The Sign as You Leave the Artists' Colony Says "The New World" by Aliki Barnstone

Le Jardin des Tuileries by Oscar Wilde

Megaloceros by J. Bailey Hutchison