< A Single Man >
< Christopher and His Kind >
< The Berlin Stories >
< Tropic of Orange >
< Locas: A Novel >
< What Makes Sammy Run? >
Christopher Isherwood
price:$5.10
University of Minnesota Press
Usually ships in 24 hours customer 's review (a slender tome that speaks volumes)    
(Very easy read)    
(Top of the Top)    
(A single man as Everyman)    
(Identity Literature)   This novel is marked for being one of the first where the main character/narrator is unapologetically and openly gay. But I encourage the reader to come to it without viewing it as a "gay" novel. This day-in-the-life story of a college professor who recently lost the love of his life is written in a spare style but filled with emotional resonance to which any human being with an honest heart can relate. A brief but powerful read. The book I had was a collection of his works (Berlin Stories)and found them all very easy to read. I read A single man twice getting more out of it each time I read it. This is THE GREAT AMERICAN GAY NOVEL, and every gay man (and probably every thinking man or woman, too) should experience it. Period. Because of "Cabaret," Christopher Isherwood is mostly remembered for his "Berlin Stories" and its inimitable Sally Bowles. But "A Single Man" is, I think, far and away his masterpiece--a Southern Californian counterpoint to "Ulysses" and (especially) "Mrs. Dalloway." But, if you're intimidated by stream-of-consciousness prose, don't let the references to Joyce and Woolf put you off; this novel is nearly a breezy Malibu beach read by comparison.
Isherwood details twenty-four hours in the life of an aging college professor who had lost his younger lover the previous year. "Waking up begins with saying 'am' and 'now,'" opens the first chapter, which describes the emerging corporal awareness of this initially anonymous id and which closes with the line, "It knows its name. It is called George."
The novel sticks to the mind of its protagonist as he embarks on his daily rituals: preparing for a class he must teach (Huxley's "After Many a Summer" is the subject and the students' apathetic ignorance provides much of this section's mirth); lunching with his colleagues; visiting a dying friend in the hospital; going to the gym and flirting with its teenaged patrons.
His routine begins to leave its expected track when he meets an old friend for dinner and they get uproariously drunk. Afterwards, he intends to head home but, "How to explain, then, that, with his foot actually on the bridge over the creek, George suddenly turns, chuckles to himself, and with the movement of a child wriggling free of a grownup," he heads to the local "nonconformist" dive--and runs into one of his students.
Like Clarissa Dalloway readying for a party, George lives a lonely, lackluster existence occupied with petty details, inconsequential annoyances, and unanticipated pleasures. But Isherwood instills every sentence with beauty, every character with immediate empathy, and every encounter with so much tension that "A Single Man" is, indeed, Everyman. The unique particulars of George's declining years may not be familiar to many of us, but the struggle between hopefulness and disenchantment is. Well written, certainly, but this is identity literature: if you want to step inside the world of an aging homosexual lecturer, grim, drinking, depressed, at a mediocre college, with an occasional crush on some of his students, this may be a suitable book. It is richly furnished with all the details, sensitivities and grumblings. I did find it excessively preoccupied with itself and that particular perspective. It is an account of a peculiar solitariness, with a few good moments. If you are trying to read something within this distinct genre -- perhaps only for a change of perspective -- this book may be worthwhile. But expect that you may not be swept off your feet if you cannot empathize sufficiently.
FictionThe author's favorite of his own novels, now back in print! When A Single Man was originally published, it shocked many by its frank, sympathetic, and moving portrayal of a gay man in midlife. George, the protagonist, is adjusting to life on his own after the sudden death of his partner, and determines to persist in the routines of his daily life; the course of A Single Man spans twenty-four hours in an ordinary day. An Englishman and a professor living in suburban Southern California, he is an outsider in every way, and his internal reflections and interactions with others reveal a man who loves being alive despite everyday injustices and loneliness. Wry, suddenly manic, constantly funny, surprisingly sad, this novel catches the texture of life itself. "A testimony to Isherwood's undiminished brilliance as a novelist." Anthony Burgess "An absolutely devastating, unnerving, brilliant book." Stephen Spender "Just as his Prater Violet is the best novel I know about the movies, Isherwood's A Single Man, published in 1964, is one of the first and best novels of the modern gay liberation movement." Edmund White Rerations < A Single Man >
< Christopher and His Kind >
< The Berlin Stories >
< Tropic of Orange >
< Locas: A Novel >
freaks
< Bodies That Matter: On the Discursive Limits of Sex >
< Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity (Routledge Classics) >
< Undoing Gender >
< The History of Sexuality, Vol. 1: An Introduction >
< Epistemology of the Closet >
< Discipline&Punish: The Birth of the Prison >
Judith Butler
price:$8.63
Routledge
Usually ships in 24 hours customer 's review (Material Bodies)    
(A poststrcuturalist deconstruction of Freud)  
(Lacanian response) 
(Major work from a major thinker that doesn't quite convince)  
(colossal hybris) With the publication of Gender Trouble in 1990, Judith Butler spearheaded a movement in feminist theory which has become known as 'radical constructivism'. Taking its departures from psychoanalytic and poststructuralist theory, and also informed by speech-act theory, Gender Trouble contends (albeit with sophistication and nuance infinitely greater than this) that gender is not an internal essence, but one produced 'in anticipation' by a repeated and naturalised set of acts, behaviours and stylings. Gender and sexual categories are held in place by the restrictive norms of heterosexuality, but these can be revealed as artificial by their very citability -- as demonstrated in extremis by, for example, drag and camp performance. In Bodies That Matter (1993) Butler extends and complicates the theories put forward in Gender Trouble to contend that not only gender, but the materiality of the body itself, is discursively and performatively produced. We cannot, therefore, speak of a natural, prelinguistic, 'given' body, because what we think we know about bodies is an effect rather than a cause of signification. As with Gender Trouble, this is not to say that bodies are entirely, unchangingly determined by language, but a recognition that, in Butler's words, there can be 'no reference to a pure body which is not at the same time a further formation of that body' (1993, p. 10). Referring to a body is thus, in quite a strict linguistic sense, always almost performative or constitutive, and governed largely (though not entirely) by habitual understandings and norms (such as heterosexism). Again, the citation and iterability of the norms that subjects are expected 'naturally' to embody belies their instability in a classic deconstructive manoeuvre: the natural or intelligible body shores itself up against, and thereby defines or summons the appearance of the deviant or unintelligible (just as the legitimate summons the illegitimate, the authentic the false, the proper the improper, and so forth). The 'performance' of alternative sexualities and gender identities both denaturalises normative suppositions, and pushes for the articulation of new bodily possibilities. Butler outlines her theory of how bodies are produced, or materialised, in discourse, and clarifies the oft-cited notion of performativity in its twinned senses of speech-act and theatrical agency. The textual style in this instance is relatively straightforward by Butler's standards: her work is renowned for what can seem like a wilfully opaque syntax. This, however, is central to her critique, which is shot through with a relentless critical suspicion of the 'common sense' of linguistic transparency.
My initial reaction to reading Bodies that Matter by Judith Butler is that she writes from a very unique perspective and theoretical standpoint: post-structuralism. While she maybe considered one of the foremost theorists on gender and feminism, I find her writings extremely difficult to follow. She presents key concepts readily but in a langue that is indicative of the post-structuralist perspective, convoluted and overly wordy. More often than not I found myself loosing focus and having to reread numerous passages just to maintain basic understanding. If language, as Butler suggests, is confined by the language used (Butler 91: 1993) then Butler is caged. Her critical deconstruction of Freud, which is the main focus of the text, is enlightening but far too complex within the language used for the critique. The concepts of Freudian psychology are not that difficult to understand when presented in a fashion that lends itself to understanding. Many of his theories are paramount to understanding basic anthropological concepts, not to mention human psychology.
When I first read this book, I was pleased to see that Butler was returning to the problem of "gender performativity" she raised in *Gender Trouble.* I do believe that she was misunderstood as having claimed in *Gender Trouble* that the performativity constitutive of gender implies an infinite "plasticity" or freedom from the constraints of gender. Yet after reading *Bodies,* I felt that she evaded the question with which she opened the book: in what way can the "materiality" of anatomical sex be construed as a "discursive limit" to ideological constructions of gender without being understood as existing outside of discourse? I believe that Butler is ultimately indecisive about the status of the materiality of sex as either a pre- or extra-discursive "hard kernel of the Real" or (just like gender) another aspect of discourse. This is what leads to her very wrong-headed "critique" of the concept of "objet petit a" in the work of Slavoj Zizek and Jacques Lacan, very complex work which she oversimplifies and accuses of "reifying" or "essentializing" sex. Any serious student of Lacan knows that the a-object of fantasy is anything but "essential." It phantasmatically "dresses up" (to use Lacan's words in Seminar 14) a primordial psychic "hole," an *absence* or pure negativity where a "grounding" for discourse ought to be but is *lacking.* It's a shame that a book such as this which begins with a rigorous intellectual question degenerates into a sort of psychoanalytic dilettantism. The best thing about Judith Butler is that she is always willing to think through the consequences of her earlier writings. This book was a response to the criticism that emerged out of the groundbreaking conclusion to GENDER TROUBLE that argued for an understanding of gender as performative. Critics took Butler to task for arguing that gender is something that is simply an act of performative volition - one can "be" whatever one wants to be - irrespective of the materiality of the body. Here, Butler turns the tables (in a neat deconstructive move) by showing how this criticism presupposes the a priori existence of "bodies" and "matter" separate from discourse. Yet, after a brilliant introduction, the book becomes weighted down by its own psychoanalytic presuppositions and its tediously dense prose style. There is often no reason for Butler's writing to be as incomprehensible as it is, especially given the giant claims she's making about the nature of gender (other than to "perform" her writing's own indebtedness to Lacanian psychoanalysis and Althusserian critique).Moreover, her work has been rightly faulted (partiucularly by Martha Nussbaum) by holding out an ideal of "subversion" that is something (in the terms of how she frames it) that ultimately DOES have very little to do with the ways sexual inequality is experienced outside of a somewhat narrow bourgeois American academic purview. But, finally, given the indisputable pervasiveness of Butler's ideas within the academy and without it (particularly in the ways in which sexuality is viewed today), the work is clearly a seminal text nonetheless. This book drove me almost entirely insane. The essay if you can call it that on the film Paris is Burning is simply incendiary to any person with a trace element of logic in their scalp. This essay argues that Venus Extravaganza was murdered for having been a transvestite. In the film itself it says she/he is killed -- but what the NYPD cannot solve Butler solves in the twinkling of a phrase -- she claims he/she is erased for playing with the sexual line. Not for burning a customer, or for simply being in a dangerous business. Whores are wiped out all day and night for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Ever hear of the Green River Killer? Still Butler knows the motive. She just invents anything she wants, and calls it truth. She actually infers that anybody has the right to invent their own reality, and everybody else has to honor this reality. Only an extremely stupid person who has never had to work for a living could keep such a dumb idea down without puking. Do you mean if I think I'm a millionaire and walk into a bank, they will give me a million dollars? Do you mean if I have cellulite all over my legs and breasts that I can be a top model, I just have to really believe it? Do you mean that if I think I'm a genius, then others will agree? Feminist academics who've never worked, but who love to dramatize their own victimization, will love this book. Everybody else will simply puke from laughing so hard. In Bodies That Matter, Judith Butler further develops her distinctive theory of gender by examining the workings of power at the most ``material'' dimensions of sex and sexuality. Deepening the inquiries she began in Gender Trouble, Butler offers an original reformulation of the materiality of bodies, examining how the power of heterosexual hegemony forms the ``matter'' of bodies, sex, and gender. Butler argues that power operates to constrain ``sex'' from the start, delimiting what counts as a viable sex. She offers a clarification of the notion of ``performativity'' introduced in Gender Trouble and explores the meaning of a citational politics. The text includes readings of Plato, Irigaray, Lacan, and Freud on the formation of materiality and bodily boundaries; ``Paris is Burning,'' Nella Larsen's ``Passing,'' and short stories by Willa Cather; along with a reconsideration of ``performativity'' and politics in feminist, queer, and radical democratic theory. Rerations < Bodies That Matter: On the Discursive Limits of Sex >
< Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity (Routledge Classics) >
< Undoing Gender >
< The History of Sexuality, Vol. 1: An Introduction >
< Epistemology of the Closet >
freaks
< Michael Tolliver Lives: A Novel >
< Sure of You (Tales of the City Series, V. 6) >
< Significant Others >
< Babycakes (Tales of the City Series, V. 4) >
< Tales of the City: A Novel (P.S.) >
< Further Tales of the City (Tales of the City Series, V. 3) >
Armistead Maupin
price:$6.23
HarperCollins(2007-06-12)
Usually ships in 24 hours customer 's review (Honest portrayal of a mature gay man who's been there and still is.)    
(armistead maupin lives)    
(More Michael T.)    
(Michael Tolliver lives.) 
(Michael toliver Lives, Armistead Maupin)  This is a rare find. Maupin has portrayed a mature man's gay life as it really is, including sexuality as love and reality in a relationship. Most writers are bashful and skirt the subject, or else include lots of heavy breathing for single-handed readers. Maupin deals with it openly, with a sense of joy and love, yet tastefully. This is a gay man's loving life as he lives it in real life - a rare find from a mature writer. I loved the TV series, but haven't read the stories. It's my guess that this first-hand account of one man's life may fill a niche left by the Tales of the City series. Although I actually had this book sent to a friend as a gift, I did read it beforehand and loved it. Armistead Maupin is on my A-list. I have yet to be disappointed by anything he does. Another GREAT Maupin classic! He is a story teller par excellence. We can only hope for more of Michael Tolliver. While I enjoyed reading the Barbary Street stories, and was happy to see this book had been written, I was very disappointed in it. Rather than an update about the great people who lived on Barbary Street in the stories, it was mostly a pornographic memoir of Michael Tolliver. I don't recommend it. I read this book last summer. I have loved all the other books, this one is not funny, too graphic , detailed etc.. Michael and his friends sex life etc.. . I really do not think that I wanted to know all the small details. I did not really want to know about the sex life of transexuals. thanks a lot Mr. Maupin. Do get your sense of humour back!! icihiboo
Michael Tolliver, the sweet-spirited Southerner in Armistead Maupin's classic Tales of the City series, is arguably one of the most widely loved characters in contem-porary fiction. Now, almost twenty years after ending his ground-breaking saga of San Francisco life, Maupin revisits his all-too-human hero, letting the fifty-five-year-old gardener tell his story in his own voice. Having survived the plague that took so many of his friends and lovers, Michael has learned to embrace the random pleasures of life, the tender alliances that sustain him in the hardest of times.Michael Tolliver Livesfollows its protagonist as he finds love with a younger man, attends to his dying fundamentalist mother in Florida, and finally reaffirms his allegiance to a wise octogenarian who was once his landlady. Though this is a stand-alone novel—accessible to fans of Tales of the City and new readers alike—a reassuring number of familiar faces appear along the way. As usual, the author's mordant wit and ear for pitch-perfect dialogue serve every aspect of the story—from the bawdy to the bittersweet.Michael Tolliver Livesis a novel about the act of growing older joyfully and the everyday miracles that somehow make that possible. Rerations < Michael Tolliver Lives: A Novel >
< Sure of You (Tales of the City Series, V. 6) >
< Significant Others >
< Babycakes (Tales of the City Series, V. 4) >
< Tales of the City: A Novel (P.S.) >
freaks
< Erotic Bedtime Stories 2: Unexpected Encounters >
< Erotic Bedtime Stories >
< Erotic Bedtime Stories 3: Lessons in the Art of Love (Erotic Bedtime Stories) >
< Assassin's Apprentice >
< Kiss of Midnight: A Midnight Breed Novel >
< Irresistible Forces >
Deirdre,Anonymous
price:$3.95
MC Publications
Usually ships in 24 hours Six erotic shorts:In one tale mans dream of a date with a super model leads him down a journey of bondage and submission he never imagined existed. In another tale a young girl spys on her brother and his girlfriend and is shocked by the her discovery of the incest relationship between her brother and their mother. Nothing is taboo in these six erotic adventures. Rerations < Erotic Bedtime Stories 2: Unexpected Encounters >
< Erotic Bedtime Stories >
< Erotic Bedtime Stories 3: Lessons in the Art of Love (Erotic Bedtime Stories) >
< Assassin's Apprentice >
< Kiss of Midnight: A Midnight Breed Novel >
freaks
< Being the Strong Man a Woman Wants: Timeless Wisdom on Being a Man >
< No More Mr. Nice Guy! >
< Hold on to Your NUTs: The Relationship Manual for Men >
< Anxious to Please: 7 Revolutionary Practices for the Chronically Nice >
< The Way of the Superior Man >
< Too Nice for Your Own Good : How to Stop Making 9 Self-Sabotaging Mistakes >
Elliott Katz
price:$2.59
Award Press(2005-04-01)
Usually ships in 24 hours customer 's review (Elliott Katz is hiding in my Attic!!)    
(Very good outlook and easy to relate to)   
(Great book...Fast Read, then think deeply about the information.)   
(Very highly recommended to male readers)    
(It's About Time!)     As I read this book I thought the author was hiding in my attic with peepholes in my ceiling. This book in ALMOST every way represents where I am at in my marriage. My wife and I are having extreme difficulties in our marriage. She is a very strong woman, and I am the opposite of all men she has been with through out her life. I (me) am nice, trustworthy, financially responsible, go with the flow, shy, passive, a good guy. When we met she was looking for (me) and fell in love with (me) but then became bored with (me). She lost respect for (me). She has told me that she needs (me) to be stronger. To "be a man." I cannot tell you how many times she has said that. I could never figure out what she meant. I am in the process of reading it for the second time. It is a great book for any man that wants to be "strong." Decisive, confident, respected, worthy, and less criticized, among other things. If you are not sure how to be or get these things, this book is for you. This book contains a lot of good subjects to relate to and helps you to think about different things to focus on. Definitely an easy read as you follow along with the story. I enjoyed this book. The style is engaging and entertaining while offering terrific insight into what it takes to be a good husband. Many of the stories illustrate concepts that are really simplistic, but many men (in my opinion most men) today are not applying these lessons to their marriages or relationships. This book is a quick read, but I would not take it lightly. Being The Strong Man A Woman Wants: Timeless Wisdom On Being A Man by professional speechwriter and novelist Elliot Katz provides the reader with an approach to becoming a more appealing male in a society in which women tend to view men as comparatively primitive and thoughtless. Introducing the reader to a cogent study of relationships, theoretics, psychological, and philosophical understanding of what can be deemed as more acceptable, helpful, intimate, and sensitive relationships with the women in their lives, Being The Strong Man A Woman Wants definitely empowers and encourages male readers to become a better man. Being The Strong Man A Woman Wants is very highly recommended to male readers, particularly those with anger issues or a poor history of relationships with women for any combination of reasons.
Elliot Katz provides information about an important topic in a easy to read, informal and interesting manner. It's about time that someone tackled this important subject and made it available to the public. A well written, interesting and timely book! Not to be overlooked. This secret wisdom will help men and women.To women: He's sensitive, romantic and tries hard to please you, but when there's a problem he seems oblivious. When you ask for input on a decision, he says, "It's up to you. Women give this book to men, tell them to read it and say: "This is what I have been trying to tell you all this time!" To men: No matter how hard you try to please her, she s not happy. You work hard, but don t feel appreciated. You feel you ve lost control of your life. Learn how to gain respect and become a hero to the woman in your life. After reading this book, ask a woman if what it says is what she really wants. You may be surprised at her response. Being the Strong Man A Woman Wants is the timeless secret wisdom on being a man. It's the best book ever on what a man can do to make things better with the woman in his life. Challenging many of the confusing messages of the past 30 years, it explains why many relationships today aren t working and what a man can do to make things better. Rerations < Being the Strong Man a Woman Wants: Timeless Wisdom on Being a Man >
< No More Mr. Nice Guy! >
< Hold on to Your NUTs: The Relationship Manual for Men >
< Anxious to Please: 7 Revolutionary Practices for the Chronically Nice >
< The Way of the Superior Man >
freaks
< The Professor's Secret Passion >
< Out Of My Mind >
< Handyman >
< Diving in Deep >
< Under My Skin >
< Never Let Go >
M. L. Rhodes
price:$1.00
Amber Quill Press, LLC(2008-05-12)
Usually ships in 24 hours customer 's review (Short, but very sweet and passionate)    
(The Professor's Secret Passion by M.L. Rhodes)    
(The Professor's Secret Passion)     Warning: This review might contain what some people consider SPOILERS.
Rating: 9/10
PROS: - One of my favorite fantasies. As such, I found the characters' emotional attachment very believable. - One of the sweetest stories I've read. The characters have been pining for each other for a very long time, so when they finally come together, it's magical. Really. Sweet, beautiful, loving. I read a one-page section that occurs in the aftermath of the first sex scene three times in a row before I could move on because it was so romantic it took my breath away. - Great sex scenes. Caring, passionate, intimate.
CONS: - The "big reveal" about one of the characters' pasts wasn't at all surprising to me; I guessed it very early on. - Very short - 55 pages. Rhodes does well with that length--better than a lot of other m/m authors manage--but there's a lot of backstory with these characters. I would have liked to have seen some of it rather than hearing about in passing. - The change in one of the characters seemed a bit sudden for me, but the sweetness of the ending overshadowed that. Nate is a postgraduate student of 27 years old, openly gay and with a brilliant future career. And he is in love with his mentor, Aidan, a 36 years old professor.
And Nate has decided to speak clearly to Aidan and to let him know his feelings and, with good chances, to start a relationship with him. Doesn't matter if he is his mentor, and if he has a position of authority on him. Like all the youth, he wants all and now.
But Aidan, after a night of passion, is abrutply awaken and try to quit his feelings for Nate: he fear not for himself, but for Nate and for his future. But Nate has no intention to accept a no, when the eyes and body of Aidain proclaim a loud "yes".
Nate is young and intense, obviously to all his against what he wants. He is a positive character, who not easily accept a no like answer, and he is able to read beyond the words to the real feelings of Aidan.
Aidan, even if older, is still unsure in the matter of love; but he is not blind to the feelings of Nate and sure doesn't want to hurt him.
Short but intense, this is a story I would like to continue.
Nathan Turner has finally come to the realization that he needs to tell his Professor about his feelings. He has been his grad student for two years and he can't stop thinking about a relationship with the man.
Aidan Sheridan secretly wants to take his incredibly sexy grad student as a lover, but he has been burned in the past. Aidan is determined that they can never have more than a professional relationship.
When Nathan comes to Aidan's office after hours with a confession, things heat up after Nathan realizes that Aidan just might return his feelings. After a combustible joining, Aidan withdraws, leaving Nathan more confused than ever. Is he strong enough to fight for what he wants?
The Professor's Secret Passion is a masterful story of a deep love between two incredible men. After two years lusting after each other, both men have a series of choices to make in order to find out if they can be together. Nathan is the perfect man for Aidan and I loved how he never gave up despite whatever obstacles Aidan threw at him. I thoroughly enjoyed The Professor's Secret Passion and look forward to taking it off my shelf and re-reading it again!
Shannon reviewed for Joyfully Reviewed Professor Aidan Sheridan has secretly fantasized about his grad student, Nathan Turner, for two long years. And now Nathan is hinting he'd like to move beyond their professional association to something on a deeper, more intimate level. Although Aidan longs to claim the sexy, younger man as a lover, he doesn't dare admit that he too, burns for more. Not if he intends to protect Nate from a bitter event in his own past that still haunts him.When Nate suspects Aidan is hiding his real feelings, he takes matters into his own hands. The long-pent-up passion between them explodes into a night of erotic and emotional intensity neither man can forget. But in the light of day, will Nate's love be enough to heal Aidan, or will the professor's fears tear them apart? Genres: Gay / Contemporary / Teachers&Students / Exhibitionism / Public Places Rerations < The Professor's Secret Passion >
< Out Of My Mind >
< Handyman >
< Diving in Deep >
< Under My Skin >
freaks
< Moab Is My Washpot >
< The Liar >
< The Ode Less Travelled: Unlocking the Poet Within >
< Making History >
< The Gun Seller >
< Revenge: A Novel >
Stephen Fry
price:$1.40
Soho Press
Usually ships in 24 hours customer 's review (Find, inhale, enjoy.)   
([insert cryptic title here])    
(Wildean Fry)    
(An insight I was delighted to have)    
(Not his best work)   Mr Fry lays bare his soul in this remarkable book. I read this at a single sitting, and will recommend it to my friends for its honesty, humour, and intelligence.
With surgical clarity he reveals the demons that have beset him in his earlier years, and the reader may well nod painfully in recognition of many of them. The description of his tumultuous life is described with wit and an absence of mawkishness - I await a similar treatment of his next 20 years. Stephen Fry recounts his childhood and teenage years with honesty and candor. Whenever I read an autobiography I'm prepared for some bias and self-absorption, but Fry's book seems to be a sincere attempt to be candid and reflect upon his past. The autobiography feels relatively uncensored as he writes about mischief at boarding school, unrequited love, making use of a stolen credit card, and a suicide attempt during his teenage years. It's all presented with humor and little, if any, self-aggrandizement. I finished the book feeling as though I had read his carefully thought-out musings and insights on life and certain topics in general, rather than simply a retelling of the events that had occurred his own life. I have been a fan of the polymath approaching genius that is Stephen Fry for many years and had enjoyed his acting, columns, and novels before getting my hands on "Moab is My Washpot", the story of a young, pre-fame Stephen Fry.
This volume is, as all of his writings are, a wonderful display of how beautiful language can be. Fry manages to effortlessly and effulgently blend his incredibly sharp wit, his thorough understanding of the English language, and a nice flowing story with the real life problems and challenges of being a thieving, lieing, homosexual, at times suicidal, youth who has all the blessings a boy can have and still become a bastard. It is honest, it is real -if that makes any sense- it is poetic, and it is fun.
I thoroughly enjoyed reading "Moab is My Washpot". It is gripping and warming and delightful. It makes you think, that "I can overcome this" or at least give you a sense of slight elation. It is not a "look at my how good and clever and fine and intelligent I am" biography. Not at all. It is simply a very good story told very well.
Highly recommendable. We all know Stephen Fry as the witty, urbane, polymath of entertainment that he has become. However it is interesting and, in certain ways, reassuring, to see that entertainers such as himself go through the same growing pains as the rest of us.
His autobiography 'Moab is my Washpot', charts his growth from a young schoolboy, through various adolescent crises, on to his successful graduation from school and his eventual path through to Cambridge. His early school years have an almost Enid Blyton feel to them, evoking the beauties of an old fashioned English countryside upbringing, but without any overdone sentimentality.
The book also deals heavily with Fry's homosexuality and how this effected his youth. There doesn't seem to have ever been any real internal struggle for him, but the book still gives a fascinating and often very humourous account of his formative years as a homosexual student in an all male boarding school.
Fry's rapier wit is what often makes this book such a treat. All of the petty squabbles of his youth are brought under the blade of his humour with fantastically amusing consequences. Anyone who has enjoyed the acting or comedic pursuits of Mr. Fry will no doubt find this autobiography an engrossing and hilarious read. I think Stephen Fry is wonderfully talented-- as an actor and a writer. I very much enjoyed The Liar and Making History, two of his fictional forays. MOAB seemed disjointed, haphazzard... I believe that SF must have a very interesting life&life history, but this book did not express it. Was this written to fufill a contractual obligation? His heart just did not seem to be in it. Quite a shame. A number one bestseller in Britain that topped the lists there for months, Stephen Fry's astonishingly frank, funny, wise memoir is the book that his fans everywhere have been waiting for. Since his PBS television debut in the Blackadder series, the American profile of this multitalented writer, actor and comedian has grown steadily, especially in the wake of his title role in the film Wilde, which earned him a Golden Globe nomination, and his supporting role in A Civil Action. Fry has already given readers a taste of his tumultuous adolescence in his autobiographical first novel,The Liar, and now he reveals the equally tumultuous life that inspired it. Sent to boarding school at the age of seven, he survived beatings, misery, love affairs, carnal violation, expulsion, attempted suicide, criminal conviction and imprisonment to emerge, at the age of eighteen, ready to start over in a world in which he had always felt a stranger. One of very few Cambridge University graduates to have been imprisoned prior to his freshman year, Fry is a brilliantly idiosyncratic character who continues to attract controversy, empathy and real devotion. This extraordinary and affecting book has "a tragic grandeur that lifts it to classic status," raved theFinancial Timesin one of the many ecstatic British reviews. Stephen Fry's autobiography, in turns funny, shocking, sad, bruisingly frank and always compulsively readable, could well become a classic gay coming-of-age memoir. Stephen Fry is not making this up! Fry started out as a dishonorable schoolboy inclined to lies, pranks, bringing decaying moles to school as a science exhibit, theft, suicide attempts, the illicit pursuit of candy and lads, a genius for mischief, and a neurotic life of crime that sent him straight to Pucklechurch Prison and Cambridge University, where he vaulted to fame along with actress Emma Thompson. He wound up starring as Oscar Wilde in the filmWilde, costarring inA Civil Action, and writing funny, distinguished novels.This irresistible book, the best-written celebrity memoir of 1999, concentrates on Fry's first two tumultuous decades, but beware! A Fry sentence can lead anywhere, from a ringing defense of beating schoolchildren to a thoughtful comparison of male and female naughty parts. Fry's deepest regrets seem to be the elusiveness of a particular boy's love and the fact that, despite his keen ear for music, Fry's singing voice can make listeners "claw out their inner ears, electrocute their genitals, put on a Jim Reeves record, throw themselves cackling hysterically onto the path of moving buses... anything, anything to take away the pain." A chance mention of Fry's time-travel book about thwarting Hitler,Making History(a finalist for the 1998 Sidewise Award for Best Alternative History), leads to the startling real-life revelation that Fry's own Jewish uncle may have loaned a young, shivering Hitler the coat off his back. Fry's life is full of school and jailhouse blues overcome by jaunty wit,à laWilde. The title, from Psalm 108:9, refers to King David's triumph over the Philistines. Fry triumphs similarly, and with more style.--Tim Appelo Rerations < Moab Is My Washpot >
< The Liar >
< The Ode Less Travelled: Unlocking the Poet Within >
< Making History >
< The Gun Seller >
freaks
< True Selves: Understanding Transsexualism--For Families, Friends, Coworkers, and Helping Professionals >
< She's Not There: A Life in Two Genders >
< Wrapped In Blue: A Journey of Discovery >
< The Transgender Child: A Handbook for Families and Professionals >
< Becoming a Visible Man >
< She's Not the Man I Married: My Life with a Transgender Husband >
Mildred L. Brown,Chloe Ann Rounsley
price:$6.06
Jossey-Bass
Usually ships in 24 hours customer 's review (Valuable "coming out" tool)   
(Emphasis on MTFs, not very knowledgable about FTMs)  
(Understanding the unknown side of people)    
(To be a gurl or not to be a gurl)   
(Wonderful Informatiional Book)     As a Transwoman I found this book as a great aid in coming out to my wife and management at my job. Even though the book is not current and sorely lacks information for spouses, it was a great help having the experiences of other transgender women and men as a validation of how I felt all my life. I highly recommend "True Selves" and I hope a new edition is in the works. I appreciate that this book was written; I bought it for my parents since I'm FTM. Given that though, and having read several other books like 'Becoming a Visible Man' etc, I feel like this book is heavy on the experience of transwomen (MTFs)and includes transmen thoughtfully but not thoroughly. There is a brief definition of drag queens, for example, without mention of drag kings! The definitions and discussion explain heterosexual trans people to be the norm, with queer trans people as the exception, which is not so much the case in reality.
The author also is inconsistent with her use of names and pronouns throughout. For trans children and teens, she decides that a young MTF should have male names and pronouns, and vice versa for FTMs. This is not consistent with how the trans community generally chooses to present itself. Eventually, as the discussion moves onto adults, she concedes to call adult trans therapy patients by their preferred names and pronouns. By now, the reader is thoroughly confused.
So, if your trans and coming out, don't think that just this book will explain everything...it's kind of a good start I guess. I have recently come to terms with my own identity of being a transgender. So,many years I though I was gay. It really helped me remember certain things that have happened to me that the story sounded like I have written it myself. I would encourage everyone to read this both family members and friends. Over all a good book on the subject. I would think in some ways it might be a bit too much of a read for some who just want a basic understanding of transgender phenomenon&transsexualism. I felt it very detailed and focused on a narrow portion of the continuum, specifically the male to female who is attracted to men. With that said, over all I think it's well written and an informative book. True Selves: Understanding Transsexualism--For Families, Friends, Coworkers, and Helping Professionals This book is full of information written in a professional and compassionate way. It is very helpful to anyone who is new to the concept of transexuality. It could also be used as a roadmap for transexuals trying to find a way to navigate their journey in a healthy way. Combines authoritative information and humanitarian insight into the transsexual experienceFilled with wisdom and understanding, this groundbreaking book paints a vivid portrait of conflicts transsexuals face on a daily basis--and the courage they must summon as they struggle to reveal their true being to themselves and others.True Selvesoffers valuable guidance for those who are struggling to understand these people and their situations. Using real life stories, actual letters, and other compelling examples, the authors give a clear understanding of what it means to be transsexual. They also give other useful advice, including how to deal compassionately with these commonly misunderstood individuals--by keeping an open heart, communicating fears, pain and support, respecting choices. Rerations < True Selves: Understanding Transsexualism--For Families, Friends, Coworkers, and Helping Professionals >
< She's Not There: A Life in Two Genders >
< Wrapped In Blue: A Journey of Discovery >
< The Transgender Child: A Handbook for Families and Professionals >
< Becoming a Visible Man >
freaks
< Boy Crazy: Coming Out Erotica >
< Daddies: Gay Erotic Stories >
< Surfer Boys: Gay Erotic Stories >
< Happy Onion >
< Object of Desire >
< Best Gay Erotica 2009 >
price:$4.78
Cleis Press
Usually ships in 24 hours customer 's review (Steamy and Explicit)     Labonte, Richard. "Boycrazy: Coming Out Erotica", C leis Press, 2009.
Steamy and Explicit
Amos Lassen
Seventeen authors have written coming out stories for Richard Labonte's new anthology about first sexual experiences. All of the stories celebrate lust, sex and love but the difference is the stories are about first encounters. Editor Labonte is something of a legend in the field of gay literature and especially erotica. This collection is a bit of departure for him in that it deals exclusively with the younger generation---it is a collection of first times; first time lust, first time in bed with another guy, first time discovering love. Some of the authors you may recognize and there is a lot of talent here. These are story about young men and the young men they are crazy about. We have college students,we have hook ups, we have crushes and we have lots of sex. I found all of the stories to be interesting and of course I have a few favorites. Ron Wolfsham's "The Viking" is one of those. It is the story of a college freshman (unnamed) who lusts for a tall, red-headed, tall guy who resembles a Viking and is a football player. In Jeffrey Rounds' "This is Not Your Country", Warden goes on a wild ride with a biker and in "A Beautiful Motorcycle" by Jere M. Fishback, a young guy shares a hotel room with his sister's boyfriend and learns a different meaning of room service. What all of the stories do is reawaken those feelings of what it was like to be fresh, young and gay and what that first time was like.
An explicit collection of young adult erotica,Boy Crazyexplores in heady detail the“first time:” the first time feeling lustful toward another boy, the first time falling into bed with a peer, the first time discovering love with another young man. This youthful collection relishes the thrill of being crazy for a certain boy, for a moment or for a lifetime. In Jere M. Fishback’s “A Beautiful Motorcycle,” a young man shares a hotel room with his sister’s boyfriend and experiences a whole new kind of room service. Guitar lessons give way to instructions of a more amorous variety in L.A. Field’s “Summertime Blues.” Mesmerized by two hot young bikers, Warden finds himself taking a ride on the wild side in Jeffrey Rounds’ “This Is Not Your Country.” These and other stories of sexual awakening vividly evoke the trembling, heart-pounding, sweaty-palmed excitement of the first time. Rerations < Boy Crazy: Coming Out Erotica >
< Daddies: Gay Erotic Stories >
< Surfer Boys: Gay Erotic Stories >
< Happy Onion >
< Object of Desire >
freaks
< Gender Outlaw: On Men, Women and the Rest of Us >
< My Gender Workbook: How to Become a Real Man, a Real Woman, the Real You, or Something Else Entirely >
< Stone Butch Blues: A Novel >
< Sexing the Body: Gender Politics and the Construction of Sexuality >
< Whipping Girl: A Transsexual Woman on Sexism and the Scapegoating of Femininity >
< GenderQueer: Voices From Beyond the Sexual Binary >
Kate Bornstein
 price: $4.78
Vintage(1995-04-25)
Usually ships in 24 hours customer 's review(Gender Outlaw)    (Comments on Gender Outlaw)      (Food for Thought)     (Gender Outlaw)      ('Trotskyist' TS)   This book is interesting to read, but I would not have chosen to read it, had I not had to read it for a class assignment.The subtitle of the book is, "on Men, Women and the Rest of Us." Bernstein's book is not just about a man becoming a woman, but it puts into doubt the whole sex/gender system. Bernstein does not use the term, "biological sex," but refers to all gender identity as "gender": biology does not have any primacy. She pokes holes in the binary gender system by questioning why one has to be one or the other of these, or even remain stable in one gender. This "fluidity" is different from ambiguity, in which it is not clear at a given moment which gender one is. This book is liberating for those who feel they might not fit in no matter what kind of operation they had.
As the New York Times says, instead of being hostile about gender liberation, Bornstein is sweet, sincere, lucid. Her sometimes anthropological point of view is useful in lifting up age-old cultural assumptions about gender and orientations in a section she jocularly calls "The Rulebook." Gender can be assigned, attributed, there can be gender roles or an experienced identity. Bernstein suggests fifteen other models in addition to the usual gay, straight or bi- orientations. The list is fascinating, including: multiple partners models, differently-abled bodies models, reproductive models, models based on sex act preference...leading up to the heading of sex without gender.
After setting up the rules, Bornstein enthusiastically dismantles them. Are there solid definitions of male and female? In addition to the usual two sets of chromosomes there are five other sets. If gender equals what hormones you have, you could buy your gender at any pharmacy. In addition, she tells us several times that in some other cultures it is normal for someone born one gender to assume the gender of the other. She mentions more than once that a gender transformation often accompanies the process of becoming a tribal healer or shaman.
Bornstein namedrops many people of transgressive gender that you can look up - many of whom have written books. In addition, she provides a fascinating bibliography. Her questions are possibly the most interesting part of the book. "Do you `feel like a man'? Do you `feel like a woman'?" she asks. "What does a man feel like? What does a woman feel like?"
There are many other considerations like gender and politics, oppression, etc., but the list is too long for a short review. There is a play included which I did not think was very good although parts were interesting. Nevertheless, I would enthusiastically recommend this book to anyone interested in transgressive gender issues. You know this is not a subject that I know a whole lot about...though I do profess some interest and curiosity about the reasons why people choose gender reassignment surgery. Mostly I was interested in exploring the why's and if's about gender and the myriad of choices and ways of being that people encounter and deal with or embrace in their lives. I wasn't sure what to expect...and I'm still not entirely sure how I feel about this book, but I've finished reading it and it's time to write down my thoughts about it. First and foremost, this is a book that doesn't just rehash the same debates one sees nearly everywhere these days about how little Tommy can play with dolls and Sally can play with cars or how Molly can be a doctor and Biff can be a nurse...this goes beyond what's considered politically correct or "allowable" excursions outside the comfort zone of the tribe. In Gender Outlaw Borenstein really tries to examine why we need gender at all and how gender is really determined in today's societies, she looks both backward and forward with regards to this issue in a way that is both informative and entertaining. Gender Outlaw is a strange blend of biography and gender theory written with a theatrical flair. The author is really not looking to redefine gender so much as she is looking to toss it out altogether, in favor of a gender model that is more dynamic and fluid. Now for what I didn't like about the book...well, I do understand that the author is an artist and performer at heart, but I read because I LIKE to read and while I like most of what I read to be entertaining and informative, I DON'T like to have to struggle to read it because the author thought it would be interesting and creative to create columns and make the reader have to read from side to side skipping about on the page. There is a serious lack of continuity in the format of the text that makes it a bear to read. Everything does not have to be performance; everything does not have to be art. Sometimes a book should just be a book. Outside of that, I enjoyed reading Gender Outlaw, I think the author wanted to reach the mainstream and this book is certainly readable and accessible to the general public...now if we could just get them to read it and open their minds to the ideas presented. Borenstein certainly got there with me, as I had no quarrel with the gender I've been assigned, but it certainly gave me lots of food for thought and I'll probably never think of gender the same way again. I give it a 4 stars (3.5 really, but since Amazon doesn't allow½ stars, I'll settle for 4, round up instead of down).I so wish I had read this book at 30 years of age. I so wish everyone would read this book. Kate Bornstein is right. There simply is no gender. Anima, animus. Sometimes we do need to have our ideas challenged. I am happy to have had my old ideas changed by this book. It seems to have given me answers for so many vague questions I had in my mind. Valuable book for heterosexual ppl and homosexual ppl. Valuable book for ppl.Gender Outlaw is considered a classic and a step forward. And it is, annoyingly.
A lot of her fearless theory, proto-GenderQueer, I believe is totally right on - and certainly harmonizes with my ideal of Permanent Transition. Yet Bornstein, with her conventional SRS, might not the most compelling proponent of smashing the binary chains. Like Trotsky, Bornstein has a populist (often gimmicky) style in which to place her epistemology and, like Trotsky, Bornstein is a tireless self-publicist: Just how many times does the reader need to know she appeared on the Geraldo Show?
Kinda the right book, by the wrong author.Part coming-of-age story, part mind-altering manifesto on gender and sexuality, coming directly to you from the life experiences of a transsexual woman, Gender Outlaw breaks all the rules and leaves the reader forever changed.26 black-and-white illustrations.
Rerations < Gender Outlaw: On Men, Women and the Rest of Us >
< My Gender Workbook: How to Become a Real Man, a Real Woman, the Real You, or Something Else Entirely >
< Stone Butch Blues: A Novel >
< Sexing the Body: Gender Politics and the Construction of Sexuality >
< Whipping Girl: A Transsexual Woman on Sexism and the Scapegoating of Femininity >
freaks |