Book Forum, Anyone?

[+ Just Sayin]

I remember, in the 70s and 80s I was very big on Jerzy Kosinski. He's been dead for awhile.

I loved reading Kosinski in the '80s; I was reading one of his novels on a plane one time and one of the sex scenes gave me a hard-on; quite exciting!!!

[+ poolboy48220]

Just wondering if anyone knows of any good gay romance books. Or spy novels where the super spy beds hot guys rather than gals. Or any writer or series that has regular fiction where the characters happen to be gay. PM me if you want. Thanks

I have some of the Gordon Merrick novels. I used to stealth-read them in the book department of Hudson's when I was younger & waiting for my mother & sisters to finish shopping. There are still parts of them that I read when I'm in a written-porn mood; Charlie & Peter's measuring contest, for example.

[Rudynate]

I loved reading Kosinski in the '80s; I was reading one of his novels on a plane one time and one of the sex scenes gave me a hard-on; quite exciting!!!

 

I really liked his writing. And I was doubly impressed with it knowing that English wasn't his native language.

[+ Charlie]

Robert Caro on political power: Lyndon Johnson and Robert Moses:

 

 

 

 

 

Robert Caro's book on Robert Moses," "The Power Broker" is one of the best book I've ever read, but it's too long.

I hated to have it end. It was one of the best, most memorable, most informative books I have ever read.

[+ WilliamM]

I hated to have it end. It was one of the best, most memorable, most informative books I have ever read.

 

Neither Robert Moses nor Lady Bird Johnson/Bill Moyers were/are fans of his books.

 

Moses was still alive and spoke out. I believe Mrs. Johnson kept her opinion private, as does Bill Moyers presently.

 

Charlie, I agree completely.

[Rudynate]

I used to like to binge-read an author that I liked, reading everything by that author I could find in one uninterrupted succession. One author I did that with was Ursula K. Le Guinn. I especially liked the cycle dealing with the Hainish and the Ekumen.

 

I also did that with William Gibson's cyberpunk novels.

 

Another book I really enjoyed was Anthony Bourdain's "Kitchen Confidential."

[+ poolboy48220]

My sister just gave/lent me her copy of Octavia Butler's "Lilith's Brood". She said it was very weird but she liked it a lot. Her bar for "weird" is pretty low, though. I considered lending her John Varley's Titan trilogy, where the antagonist in the last book is a 50-foot tall Marilyn Monroe lookalike, and the aliens who are 9-foot tall centaurs with three sets of genitalia (two horse-size, one human), who have 29 ways of procreating.

[+ Charlie]

I used to like to binge-read an author that I liked, reading everything by that author I could find in one uninterrupted succession. One author I did that with was Ursula K. Le Guinn. I especially liked the cycle dealing with the Hainish and the Ekumen.

 

I also did that with William Gibson's cyberpunk novels.

 

Another book I really enjoyed was Anthony Bourdain's "Kitchen Confidential."

I am not normally a reader of science fiction, but A Wizard of Earthsea is one of my favorite books.

[Rudynate]

I am not normally a reader of science fiction, but A Wizard of Earthsea is one of my favorite books.

 

I used to think of SciFi and fantasy fiction as a "guilty pleasure." I thought it was a trifle light-weight but I really enjoyed getting lost in it.

[AdamSmith]

Re: SF, I'm most of the way through David Brin's Existence.

 

Just wow. No words to encapsulate it.

 

If anyone today is the rightful heir to Clarke, Brin is it. And there's no higher praise in my book.

[+ quoththeraven]

My sister just gave/lent me her copy of Octavia Butler's "Lilith's Brood". She said it was very weird but she liked it a lot. Her bar for "weird" is pretty low, though. I considered lending her John Varley's Titan trilogy, where the antagonist in the last book is a 50-foot tall Marilyn Monroe lookalike, and the aliens who are 9-foot tall centaurs with three sets of genitalia (two horse-size, one human), who have 29 ways of procreating.

 

Butler is great! I want to read more of her stuff, especially Kindred, but I read her collection of short stories (Bloodlines, I think), Fledgling, and another book, the name of which escapes me.

 

And I'm not primarily a SFF reader. But practically everyone I know from LJ/DW is.

[+ quoththeraven]

Just wondering if anyone knows of any good gay romance books. Or spy novels where the super spy beds hot guys rather than gals. Or any writer or series that has regular fiction where the characters happen to be gay. PM me if you want. Thanks

 

Could you be more specific as to what gay romance means to you? The Nava, Hansen and Stephenson series mentioned by me and WilliamM above might qualify. There are long-term relationships running through at least two of them. Then there are the books I recommended to Glennn, which are straight up romance with explicit sex scenes, but they're all written by women.

 

There are a few men who write gay romance as opposed to gay fiction. Try Rick Reed, Victor Banis (I like his non-romance stuff), TJ Klune, Sean Michael, and Alexis Hall. I particularly recommend Hall.

[+ quoththeraven]

I used to like to binge-read an author that I liked, reading everything by that author I could find in one uninterrupted succession. One author I did that with was Ursula K. Le Guinn.

 

I am also a binge-reader and, sometimes, a binge-rereader.

 

I used to think of SciFi and fantasy fiction as a "guilty pleasure." I thought it was a trifle light-weight but I really enjoyed getting lost in it.

 

So many of my earliest internet buds are into SFF and I'm (mostly) not. They consider it anything but lightweight.

 

There seems to be a consensus that SFF, particularly the sci fi/ speculative end, is more highly regarded today. Many SFF books play with received ideas. Some "classics" or books now highly regarded for literary purposes are technically SFF: Frankenstein, Dracula, 1984, Brave New World, Fahrenheit 451, A Clockwork Orange, The Left Hand of Darkness, The Handmaid's Tale (though I am no fan of it - super implausible and not very original). Can't think of any more now.

[tyro]

Re: SF, I'm most of the way through David Brin's Existence.

 

Just wow. No words to encapsulate it.

 

If anyone today is the rightful heir to Clarke, Brin is it. And there's no higher praise in my book.

The late, great Arthur C. Clarke HAS an heir? This Brin guy must be worth a look.

T

[Rudynate]

I am also a binge-reader and, sometimes, a binge-rereader.

 

 

 

So many of my earliest internet buds are into SFF and I'm (mostly) not. They consider it anything but lightweight.

 

There seems to be a consensus that SFF, particularly the sci fi/ speculative end, is more highly regarded today. Many SFF books play with received ideas. Some "classics" or books now highly regarded for literary purposes are technically SFF: Frankenstein, Dracula, 1984, Brave New World, Fahrenheit 451, A Clockwork Orange, The Left Hand of Darkness, The Handmaid's Tale (though I am no fan of it - super implausible and not very original). Can't think of any more now.

 

That's why I liked LeGuin so much. She was extremely original. It just amazed me how she could construct alternative universes out of nothing. On the other hand, I read Asimov's Foundation trilogy, which is well thought of by SSF fans and didn't find an original idea in it. The scope was certainly epic, but it was just an amalgamation of the same old stuff.

[+ WilliamM]

There are several other gay books that may not have been mentioned-

 

Alan Hollinghurst, The Line of Beauty

Charles Nelson, The Boy Who Picket The Bullets Up (Vietnam)

Edmund White, The Fairwell Symphony

Joseph Hansen, Living Upstairs (not a crime book)

Jean Genet, Querelle of Brest

James Baldwin, Giovanni's Room

[AdamSmith]

Alan Hollinghurst, The Line of Beauty

Also his first novel, The Swimming Pool Library. I liked that one the best; he seems one of those writers who to some extent have one book in them that they write over and over. (Not a criticism.)

[body2body]

Re: SF, I'm most of the way through David Brin's Existence.

 

Just wow. No words to encapsulate it.

 

If anyone today is the rightful heir to Clarke, Brin is it. And there's no higher praise in my book.

 

One of my favorite works by Brin is Startide Rising. He manages to combine a rip roaring space opera with a thoughtful meditation on sentience. It has a spaceship manned by Dolphins who speak in haiku. It is exciting, thoughtful, and at times very moving.

[body2body]

That's why I liked LeGuin so much. She was extremely original. It just amazed me how she could construct alternative universes out of nothing. On the other hand, I read Asimov's Foundation trilogy, which is well thought of by SSF fans and didn't find an original idea in it. The scope was certainly epic, but it was just an amalgamation of the same old stuff.

 

I adore Le Guin, she is hands down my favorite author. I remember reading a review of The Dispossessed in Time magazine back in '73. The critic raved about the beauty of her language. It was the first time I had ever read a review of a work of Science Fiction that was not qualified with comments about the genre.

While Asimov is not in the same league as Le Guin you have to think in terms of context. He wrote Foundation in 1942.

[+ Gar1eth]

I actually was thinking about starting one of these threads at least in reference to escorting. I was reading Richard Ford's Canada and there was a passing reference to women who would escort on trains. They would buy roundtrip train tickets but then never actually got off the the trains at the destination city. They just rode the trains back and forth meeting customers in the train compartments, and I wondered if this detail lacked verisimilitude or if it really depicted an old-fashioned way of high-end escorting before the Internet came along.

If you are not reading much, perhaps you should cancel Kindle Unlimited. Not that it's a lot of money per month (I have it), but still.

 

I would be lost without my Kindle Fire. I use it far more than I use my desktop. Typing on a touchscreen is still an art I haven't completely mastered, though.

 

 

 

People are so unaccountable that this could be true -- it sounds a lot more comfortable to me than fucking in an airplane toilet, but who knows? Perhaps it was something the author ran across in his research.

 

A quick look on the internet neither confirmed nor denied the veracity of this.

 

Also, you reminded me about The Crimson Petal and the White by Michel Faber. After a point, I skimmed -- it leaned a little too far toward magical realism for what I was looking for -- but the beginning, and its depiction of how sex work was an objectively much better choice for a young working-class widow and mother during the Victorian era than so-called "honest work," is memorable.

 

 

I've been on trains with escorts 4 times. It can be very difficult to have sex because of the lack of space even in an Amtrak Deluxe two person room and because of the swaying. It can be done. But partially it depends on how 'able' the escort is. I was with a well-known escort years ago-he's now retired. But he couldn't quite relax due to the swaying motion for intercourse. His butt remained quite clenched. It was very pretty that way. But it was not conducive to intercourse at all. Another 2 escorts (different trips) had no problems I don't think (It was all a long time ago). The 4th escort proved not to be that great a companion, and I was the one not interested. I'm betting 'traditional' male/female relations would be easier for average sized people on a train.

 

For someone endowed larger than I am it most likely would have been easier too.

 

Gman

[+ poolboy48220]

Also his first novel, The Swimming Pool Library. I liked that one the best; he seems one of those writers who to some extent have one book in them that they write over and over. (Not a criticism.)

I like Spider Robinson, but lately, he exactly matches your description of writing one book over and over. Or maybe just the same ending over and over.

[Rudynate]

I adore Le Guin, she is hands down my favorite author. I remember reading a review of The Dispossessed in Time magazine back in '73. The critic raved about the beauty of her language. It was the first time I had ever read a review of a work of Science Fiction that was not qualified with comments about the genre.

 

While Asimov is not in the same league as Le Guin you have to think in terms of context. He wrote Foundation in 1942.

 

I didn't realize Foundation was that old.. Yes context is important. I remember, when I was a little kid, in the early sixties, my mother read Rachel Carson's "Silent Spring" and became an instant environmentalist. For the time, it was an extremely influential book. I picked it up a few years ago, and found it lightweight and simplistic, but realized that one had to be mindful of the time and the intended audience.

[+ poolboy48220]

I didn't realize Foundation was that old.. Yes context is important. I remember, when I was a little kid, in the early sixties, my mother read Rachel Carson's "Silent Spring" and became an instant environmentalist. For the time, it was an extremely influential book. I picked it up a few years ago, and found it lightweight and simplistic, but realized that one had to be mindful of the time and the intended audience.

Reminds me of reading "Jonathon Livingston Seagull" in my late teens. I kept looking for the 'subtle message' everyone was talking about, when finally someone explained it, I realized that our definitions of subtle were different. :-)

[Rudynate]

Reminds me of reading "Jonathon Livingston Seagull" in my late teens. I kept looking for the 'subtle message' everyone was talking about, when finally someone explained it, I realized that our definitions of subtle were different.

 

I have a few slogans that I have adopted as "words to live by." One of them came from "Jonathan Livingstone Seagull."

[+ poolboy48220]

I'm not saying it didn't have a good message, just that it wasn't particularly subtle.