Another 100 Best Books list

The New York Times is out with its list of the "100 Best Books of the 21st Century." (Technically, five of the books don't qualify because they were published in 2000, the last year of the 20th century, but I guess "100 Best Books of the 2000s" isn't as resonant a title.) We gays did reasonably well in terms of representation, with six books by LGBTQ writers and another five books with prominent gay characters/storylines. And our merry band has discussed four of them: Middlesex, by Jeffrey Eugenides; A Brief History of Seven Killings, by Marlon James; Fun Home, by Alison Bechdel; and The Line of Beauty, by Alan Hollinghurst. Anyway, check it out!

The proof is in the Pudding...

Tomorrow night, we'll discuss the final set of stories in Far Out: Recent Queer Science Fiction and Fantasy, edited by Paula Guran. I want to thank Mike Mazza again for nominating the book, which has been one of the strongest anthologies we've ever read. 

By coincidence, the Economist's latest "Off the Charts" newsletter links to "Who Killed the World?," a fascinating piece in The Pudding that documents the growing trend toward pessimism in science fiction. I'd never heard of the site, which bills itself as "a digital publication that explains ideas debated in culture with visual essays," but I'm glad I checked it out. I invite you to do likewise.

Back in the Jungle

Tim Hennessey, who wasn't able to be with us last week for our discussion of Rita Mae Brown's Rubyfruit Jungle, shared some thoughts I wanted to pass along:

"Many of the places in Fort Lauderdale Brown writes about are still there: the Egg N You Diner, Powerline Road, Holiday Park, Navy School. I also loved how she captured the allure of the big city to all gay people, whether they leave their small towns to head to NYC, Chicago, L.A., etc.

"I'm not sure if many of you have read Adriana Trigiani's many best-sellers about life in Appalachia (e.g., the Big Stone Gap series) and Italy (e.g., Lucia, Lucia and The Shoemaker's Wife). She grew up in a hollow in Virginia and attended St. Mary's College in Indiana when I was there. She was a rising star even then."

Thanks, Tim!

In addition, last November I posted an item about the New York Times marking the 50th anniversary of the novel's publication with a roundup of reactions to the novel from a host of musicians and writers. Unfortunately, I was so far ahead of my time (LOL) that only a handful of you read it back then, so I'm taking the liberty of reposting it here. 

I especially like this photo of the author, both because it captures her personality so well and because its caption reminds us of her strong connection to Washington, D.C., during the 1970s. Brown was a founding member of The Furies Collective, a separatist lesbian feminist community in D.C. that purchased and lived in two houses. The experiment only lasted a year (1971-1972), but its example remained influential long afterward. Brown went on to earn a doctorate in political science from the Institute for Public Studies in D.C.

Rita Mae Brown at the 1973 publication party for “Rubyfruit Jungle” at Lammas Women’s Books & More in Washington, D.C.Credit...

JEB (Joan E. Biren) 

 

When I was 1 of 30...

In honor of Pride Month, T, the New York Times Style Magazine, asked 30 creative people, ranging in age from 34 to 93, to share an indelible memory from their 30th year of life. Respondents include several authors whose works we've read, including Edmund White, Danez Smith,  John Rechy and Alexander Chee, who begins his contribution: "It was 1997, and all my lovers kept giving me books."

And yet more Pride Month poetry

From the American Academy of Poetry:

Please join us in celebrating the 36th annual Lambda Literary Award winners and finalists by reading a selection of the work on Poets.org:

“From Xibalba [You want to know where you come from.]” Stephanie Adams-Santos “Two strangers” Kimberly Alidio “What We Lost in the Swamp”  Grant Chemidlin “In the Wild” Jennifer Conlon “I Asked Why Have You Denied Yourself Love”  Sierra DeMulder “Reversal” Danielle Cadena Deulen “Invasive” Robin Gow “fragments salvaged from the oracles of mama-n-em” Destiny Hemphill “Family of Origin Content Warning”  K. Iver  “In the Middle of the Pandemic I Keep Typing Powerflu When I Mean to Type Powerful” Alyse Knorr “Garden State” Margaret Ray “Trace Evidence” Charif Shanahan

“No more compulsion to hide. In a hilly west coast city, you will know the bodies of other women with bodies akin to yours and, as the cliché goes, it will all feel like home.” From Dawn Lundy Martin’s letter to her younger self, inspired by the anthology The Letter Q: Queer Writers’ Notes to their Younger Selves (Arthur A. Levine Books, 2012).

more at poets.org

Some more Pride Month poetry

Our friends at the American Academy of Poetry have been quite busy selecting LGBTQ poetry for this month's Poem-a-Day newsletters!

Te Utu O Te Ika a Maaui                    by Essa May Ranapiri 

Preserving an Ecosystem                    by Christina Olivares

Before Parting                                    by Algernon Charles Swinburne

Solstice Re-pot                                    by Shailja Patel

Twilight                                                by Fitz-Greene Halleck

Greenness                                            by Angelina Weld Grimké

Niche                                                    by Anthony Vahni Capildeo

 

Covering Clovis

During last week's Zoom discussion of Saki's The Chronicles of Clovis, Mike Mazza shared these two images of the covers to two different editions:

The first illustration is certainly true to the period, but the latter one is more intriguing--and earns bonus points for the depiction (presumably) of the notorious Tobermory. Thanks, Mike!