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LGBT History Month: queer book club special!

Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
edited January 2023 in General Chat
February is LGBT History Month, and we thought we'd mark it in Book and Film Clubs this month.

The criteria are simple; the book must have at least one character who is LGBT+, or relate somehow to issues faced by the LGBT communities.

Nomation format:
Book: Snuff by Terry Pratchett | Kindle Edition | ePub

Synopsis: It is a truth universally acknowledged that a policeman taking a holiday would barely have had time to open his suitcase before he finds his first corpse.

And Commander Sam Vimes of the Ankh-Morpork City Watch is on holiday in the pleasant and innocent countryside, but not for him a mere body in the wardrobe. There are many, many bodies and an ancient crime more terrible than murder.

He is out of his jurisdiction, out of his depth, out of bacon sandwiches, occasionally snookered and out of his mind, but never out of guile. Where there is a crime there must be a finding, there must be a chase and there must be a punishment.

They say that in the end all sins are forgiven.

But not quite all...
From Amazon

Reason for Nomination: Any reason you like can go here. The above is an example, and was our book for March 2012, so no nominating!

As I did above, if there are Kindle/e-reader editions, put separate links to those, please.
Post edited by JustV on

Comments

  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Book: Orlando: A Biography by Virginia Woolf

    Synopsis: "Orlando is destined to live for four hundred years... During the Elizabethan era, the young courtier Orlando becomes a lover to the aging Queen and embarks on an intense affair with the beautiful Russian Princess Sasha. Yet while Orlando can fulfil most of his desires, he never quite seems to fit in. Then one night, Orlando falls into a deep sleep and awakes transformed, emerging as a woman in eighteenth-century London." (from Google books)

    Reason for nomination: Virginia Woolf is one of my favourite authors, and this book is beautifully written and a lovely fable about human existence.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides

    Synopsis (from Amazon):

    ‘I was born twice: first, as a baby girl, on a remarkably smogless Detroit day of January 1960; and then again, as a teenage boy, in an emergency room near Petoskey, Michigan, in August of l974 ...My birth certificate lists my name as Calliope Helen Stephanides. My most recent driver's license ... records my first name simply as Cal.'

    So begins the breathtaking story of Calliope Stephanides, and three generations of the Greek-American Stephanides family who travel from a tiny village overlooking Mount Olympus in Asia Minor to Prohibition era Detroit, witnessing its glory days as the Motor City, and the race riots of l967, before they move out to the tree-lined streets of suburban Grosse Point, Michigan. To understand why Calliope is not like other girls, she has to uncover a guilty family secret, and the astonishing genetic history that turns Callie into Cal, one of the most audacious and wondrous narrators in contemporary fiction. Lyrical and thrilling, Middlesex is an exhilarating reinvention of the American epic.

    Reason for Nomination: I read this a while ago and it's a bit of an epic! Worth reading :)
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Book: Sacred Country by Rose Tremain | Kindle Edition | ePub

    Synopsis: Young Mary Ward realises one morning that her identity has been wrong all her life. She is a boy. She begins to change her gender, whilst those around her struggle to adjust and adapt, and to find a place in the world.

    Reason for nomination: Remarkable story of someone who is born all wrong; a tremendous, emotional account of the turmoil of transition.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde

    from Amazon: Wilde's only novel, first published in 1890, is a brilliantly designed puzzle, intended to tease conventional minds with its exploration of the myriad interrelationships between art, life, and consequence. From its provocative Preface, challenging the reader to believe in 'art for art's sake', to its sensational conclusion, the story self-consciously experiments with the notion of sin as an element of design. Yet Wilde himself underestimated the consequences of his experiment, and its capacity to outrage the Victorian establishment. Its words returned to haunt him in his court appearances in 1895, and he later recalled the 'note of doom' which runs like 'a purple thread' through its carefully crafted prose.

    Reason for Nomination: It's all down to interpretation ;)
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Across the Nightingale Floor by err.... Lian Hearn?

    Synopsis:
    love, sex, magic, intrigue, murder and war in NotJapan with NotNinjas

    Reason for Nominating:
    I can't remember if there is any L - I think there might have been some in the trilogy, but there is BGT (although the T may just be cross dressing as a disguise - it's been a while since I read it)
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    I'm not sure if I'm allowed to nominate it, as it is a graphic novel, but it is well worth a read.
    http://www.amazon.com/Tough-Love-High-School-Confidential/dp/1933149086

    "Inspired by shounen-ai manga—melodramatic Japanese comics by girls about gay boys—Tough Love is a teen romance and coming-out story about a shy boy named Brian. More realistic than Japanese manga, this story centers on the relationships Brian develops with the boy he likes, Chris, and Julie, the girl who befriends him. Serious issues like gay bashing, suicide, and coming to terms with one's own sexual identity are depicted with an honest, gentle touch. Socially relevant, fun, immediately accessible, and a bit of a soap opera, Tough Love helps gay teenagers to be more comfortable with themselves and less troubled, especially when they’re feeling alone and misunderstood."

    (Amazon is much better at book descriptions than me) Definitely worth a read!
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    I'm not sure if I'm allowed to nominate it, as it is a graphic novel, but it is well worth a read.

    Yup, that's fine :-) We're hoping to do a graphic novel month in the future anyway. Makes me think I might nominate one this month, too :chin:

    So that's Tough Love by Abby Denson
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    The Wasp Factory Iain Banks

    Meet Frank Cauldhame. Just sixteen, and unconventional to say the least:
    Two years after I killed Blyth I murdered my young brother Paul, for quite different and more fundamental reasons than I'd disposed of Blyth, and then a year after that I did for my young cousin Esmerelda, more or less on a whim.

    That's my score to date. Three. I haven't killed anybody for years, and don't intend to ever again.

    It was just a stage I was going through.
  • **helen****helen** Deactivated Posts: 9,235 Supreme Poster
    Fab theme :)

    I nominate Annabel by Kathleen Winter

    From Waterstones website
    In 1968, in a remote part of Canada, a mysterious child is born: a baby who appears to be neither fully boy nor girl, but both at once. Only three people share the secret - the baby's parents and a trusted neighbour. Together the adults make a difficult decision: to go through surgery and raise the child as a boy named Wayne. But as Wayne grows up within the hyper-male hunting culture of his father, his shadow-self - a girl he thinks of as 'Annabel' - is never entirely extinguished, and indeed is secretly nurtured by the women in his life. As Wayne approaches adulthood, and its emotional and physical demands, the woman inside him begins to cry out. The changes that follow are momentous not just for him, but for the three adults that have guarded his secret. Shortlisted for the Orange Prize.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    So many books I've been meaning to read have been nominated!

    Fiend_85 has asked me to nominate two on her behalf (that I probably would have done for myself anyway :p)

    The Colour Purple by Alice Walker | Kindle Edition | ePub

    Synopsis: Celie has been abused by her father since she was a child, and her two children have been taken away from her. She is in a loveless marriage with a man she doesn't find attractive. She has no love in her life until she meets Shug...

    Reason for nomination: (Fiend) "I've been meaning to read it."

    Oranges are Not the Only Fruit | Kindle Edition | ePub

    Synopsis: Jeanette was adopted by Mrs. Winterson as a baby, and raised for God in a strict Pentecostal household in Lancashire. God, and the stories we tell, are her refuge from her struggles to fit in at school and stay on the right side of her mother at home. When Jeanette meets Melanie, her life must change.

    Reason for nomination: "It's about gays." (Fiend)
    It's also my (piccolo's) absolute favourite novel of all time. I can quote whole swathes. I read it when I was 15 and it changed the way I think, I still revisit it when I need a lift.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    10 nominations. Any more for any more? I want to get the poll up before the weekend :)
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Didn't even realise this was a book :)

    A Single Man by Christopher Isherwood

    from amazon: Celebrated as a masterpiece from its first publication, A Single Man is the story of George Falconer, an English professor in suburban California left heartbroken after the death of his lover, Jim. With devastating clarity and humour, Christopher Isherwood shows George's determination to carry on, evoking the unexpected pleasures of life as well as the soul's ability to triumph over loneliness and alienation.

    Reason for nomination: Have seen the film and really enjoyed it. Book looks great too.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Cheeky last-minute one from me.

    Fun Home by Alison Bechdel

    Synopsis: Bechdel (best known as the creator of Dykes to Watch Out For) grew up in a dysfunction family-run funeral home. This graphic memoir charts her relationship with his father - and his latent homosexuality.

    Reason for nomination: Inspired by Broken-Angel's nomination. It's really funny, and very poignant.
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