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| Version | User | Scope of changes |
|---|---|---|
| Jun 7 2009, 3:30 PM EDT (current) | rolledham | 38 words added |
| May 14 2009, 10:58 PM EDT | rolledham | 19 words added |
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The book club is taking a break for the summer. Instead of curling up with a good book we are enjoying the weather going to BBQs and summer festivals. The book club will likely resume in the fall.
| Book Image | Title/Author | Book Description |
| May 21, 2009 Open Read | Read anything you like and come to the group to discuss what you read. | |
 | April 16, 2009 Seti's Heart by Kiernan Kelly | Cursed by a god who shares his name, Seti was an Egyptian king who lost everything; his name, his kingdom, even the man he loved more than anything in the world. For centuries, he's waited in a dusty, forgotten sarcophagus, until Logan comes along. Logan is a graduate student who stumbles on Seti in the basement of a museum and accidentally awakens him. Logan figures any way he looks at it, a missing mummy is going to be bad for his career, so he takes Seti with him until he can decide what to do. He doesn't want to be accused of theft, but who's going to believe in a mummy coming back to life? Seti and Logan have a lot more to worry about than the modern day police. There's a group of scientists that want Seti for more than decoration and a vengeful god with an agenda to get Seti gone once and for all. Logan has to deal with all of that, but his biggest problem might just be Seti himself, who's trying hard to get into Logan's pants, and his heart. |
 | March 19, 2009 Hitched: Wedding Stories from San Francisco City Hall Edited by Cheryl Dumesnil | On Thursday, February 12, 2004, Phyllis Lyon and Del Martin, a lesbian couple who have been together for fifty-one years, became the first same-sex couple married at San Francisco City Hall. By March 11, when the California State Supreme Court ordered a halt to the weddings, 4.037 gay and lesbian couples had tied the knot. These couples had traveled to San Francisco by bus and plane. They had called in sick to work and packed their kids and camping gear into the backs of their cars, and headed to City Hall. They had stood in line through high wind and torrential rain, all for a chance to have their relationships legally recognized. Each couple has a unique story to tell. <BR>While the media have focused on political aspects of the ongoing marriage debate, interviewing pundits and average citizens on both sides of the issue, by and large the lives of the newlyweds — their rich, diverse, and vibrant personal histories — have remained invisible. "Hitched! Wedding Stories from San Francisco City Hall introduces readers to the determined, brave, and loving couples who took center stage during the historical events at City Hall. |
 | February 19, 2009 The Passion by Jeanette Winterson I have extra used copies of the book, $9.00 email me . | Publisher Comments: The Passion is a modern classic that confirms Jeanette Winterson's special claim on the novel. Set during the tumultuous years of the Napoleonic Wars, The Passion intertwines the destinies of two remarkable people: Henri, a simple French soldier, who follows Napoleon from glory to Russian ruin; and Villanelle, the red-haired, web-footed daughter of a Venetian boatman, whose husband has gambled away her heart. In Venice's compound of carnival, chance, and darkness, the pairi meet their singular destiny. Review: "A Historical novel quite different from any other...it is written with a living passion, an eyewitness immediacy....Winterson is a master of her material, a writer in whom great talent deeply abides." Vanity Fair Jeanette Winterson was born in Manchester, England, and adopted by Pentecostal parents who brought her up in the nearby mill-town of Accrington. The house had no bathroom either, which was fortunate because it meant that Jeanette could read her books by flashlight in the outside toilet. Reading was not much approved unless it was the Bible. Her parents intended her for the missionary field. Schooling was erratic but Jeanette had got herself into a girl's grammar school and later she read English at Oxford University. This was not an easy transition. Jeanette had left home at 16 after falling in love with another girl. While she took her A levels she lived in various places, supporting herself by evening and weekend work. In a year off to earn money, she worked as a domestic in a lunatic asylum. |
 | January 15, 2009 Strangers on a Train by Patricia Highsmith | Two men, a tennis star and a psychopath, meet by chance on a train and "swap" murders. "Strangers on a Train", Highsmith's first novel, was the source for Alfred Hitchcock's classic masterpiece. Description: A major new reissue (2001) of the work of a classic(1950) noir novelist. With the acclaim for The Talented Mr. Ripley, more film projects in production, and two biographies forthcoming, expatriate legend Patricia Highsmith would be shocked to see that she has finally arrived in her homeland. Throughout her career, Highsmith brought a keen literary eye and a genius for plumbing the psychopathic mind to more than thirty works of fiction, unparalleled in their placid deviousness and sardonic humor. With deadpan accuracy, she delighted in creating true sociopaths in the guise of the everyday man or woman. Now, one of her finest works is again in print: Strangers on a Train, Highsmith's first novel and the source for Alfred Hitchcock's classic 1953 film. With this novel, Highsmith revels in eliciting the unsettling psychological forces that lurk beneath the surface of everyday contemporary life. About the Author: Patricia Highsmith wrote twenty-one novels, including Strangers on a Train and the Ripley series. She died in 1995 in Switzerland, where she resided much of her life. Note: While you may be tempted to rent the Hitchcock movie (go ahead, you'll enjoy it) please know that Hitchcock had a reputation for taking a LOT of liberties with novels he turned into scripts, to the extent that you won't be able to "fake" having read the book by watching the film. |
 | December 18, 2008 Holidays on Ice by David Sedaris | This wonderfully subversive holiday gift package reprints Sedaris' deliciously acerbic short story "The Santaland Diaries" and combines it with two equally sardonic Sedaris Christmas classics plus an all-new holiday tale. For everyone who's had enough of the forced good cheer, family madness, and commercial overkill of Christmas, "Holiday on Ice" is the perfect antidote. (N.B. Recently republished under the same/similar title, newer editions contain additional stories. We will be concentrating on the original 1997 edition of Holidays on Ice) |
 | November 20, 2008 The Lost Language of Cranes by David Leavitt | David Leavitt's extraordinary first novel, now reissued in paperback, is a seminal work about family, sexual identity, home, and loss. Set in the 1980s against the backdrop of a swiftly gentrifying Manhattan, The Lost Language of Cranes tells the story of twenty-five-year-old Philip, who realizes he must come out to his parents after falling in love for the first time with a man. Philip's parents are facing their own crisis: pressure from developers and the loss of their longtime home. But the real threat to this family is Philip's father's own struggle with his latent homosexuality, realized only in his Sunday afternoon visits to gay porn theaters. Philip's admission to his parents and his father's hidden life provoke changes that forever alter the landscape of their worlds. (Check your local library, or I have a few used copies available for resale at $6.50, contact GaySop ) |
| October 17, 2008 Becoming a man: Half a Life Story by Paul Monette | Our first selection is a story about growing up gay in the 1950s and 60s. It's a memiore about what it is like for a child to keep such a big secret! Surely many of us will be able to relate to this story. Synopsis: A child of the 1950s from a small New England town, "perfect Paul" earns straight A's and shines in social and literary pursuits, all the while keeping a secret — from himself and the rest of the world. Struggling to be, or at least to imitate, a straight man, through Ivy League halls of privilege and bohemian travels abroad, loveless intimacy and unrequited passion, Paul Monette was haunted, and finally saved, by a dream of "the thing I'd never even seen: two men in love and laughing." Searingly honest, witty, and humane, "Becoming a Man" is the definitive coming-out story in the classic coming-of-age genre. Our book guru Robert is arranging for the first meeting, as well as attempting to get several copies of the book through inter-library loan. It may also be possible to purchase the book (used even) through outlets like Amazon.com or Powells .com. (I got the used copies at Powells, but another member emailed to say that Amazon still had used copies. ) I'll re-sell the three extra used copies I got at the next coffee if anyone is interested.(Mickeydid). The first meeting will be the evening of October 16, and the general plan will be to meet the third Thursday of each month, disecting one book that the entire group will have read. For this first meeting, bring also your suggestions for future selections. More details will be posted as they evolve. | |
