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< Aftershock (Shaken Series) > < Night Call > < Partners > < Small Packages (Shaken series) > < Worth Every Step > < Without Warning (Shaken, Book 1) (Bk. 1) > KG MacGregor

price：~~$2.79~~
Bella Books
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customer 's review
(Fasten Your Seat Belts!)

(Tough Issues)

(A delightful sequel that continues and lends depth to the series and characters)

Intense followup to the author's terrific romance novel 'Without Warning' where - two women - 29 year old Anna Kaklis ("whose perfectly planned life never included falling in love with another woman--is thrown for a loop, but she doesn't doubt her heart") and 30 year old Lily Stewart ("abandoned too many times by people she trusted--won't let herself believe that Anna's love will endure"). They met during a earthquake in Los Angeles where they were trapped in a collapsed shopping mall and escape together.

This second novel finds them one year later. Anna is happier than she has ever been. Lily is wondering if Anna wants forever. Anna is given her dream job that requires her to work 12 hour days and Saturdays. Lily suffers a tragic loss that leads to all her insecurities taking control of her life. What follows is a very intense story where Lily does alot of growing up and Anna does her best to make sure Lily survives.

Still providing the laugh out loud moments we expect with this author and very passionate romance, this is a novel that shows it is not always happily ever after - right away.

Don't miss the fabulous third story in the series 'Small Packages'.

or miss the author's other novels
Mulligan
Worth Every Step
The House on Sandstone
Just This Once
Secrets So Deep
Sumter Point
Out of Love - 2007 Lambda Literary Award winner
It is no secret to anyone who has read my reviews that I love KG MacGregor (her work that is). She has never written a book I haven't liked. That said, I found this one a little hard to swallow. As it was originally published as part of "Shaken," this installment truly added to the story. However, as a stand-alone book it seems a little isolated. By that I mean it deals with alcoholism and workaholism, but otherwise doesn't take the protagonists, Anna and Lily, forward. For that reason, I won't go into any more detail in this review.

Note - I'm looking forward to installment 3 of the "Shaken" series (I think it's called "Small Packages"). One has to read "Aftershock" to bridge the gap between "Without Warning" and the final book. However, don't expect any revelations or peace from this second book in the series.

A good sequel maintains the tone of the original, versus trying to "outdo" the previous book by being more shocking, bigger, better, and ultimately introducing elements of the ridiculous. It treats the characters we've come to love and know with respect, versus creating manipulative situations just to keep the story going, or causing the protagonists to create their own uncharacteristic drama. A good sequel feels like a natural progression, breaking new ground with the characters and their lives.

Aftershock is a good sequel. A minor complaint of mine about Without Warning was that it ended too abruptly, but that was all right because I knew there were at least two more books in the series. Aftershock alleviates that annoyance well. We're returned in this book to the lives of Lily and Anna over a year after they first got together. Anna suddenly assumes a larger amount of responsibility at her family's Premier dealership as her father decides to finally retire, leaving her as CEO. Nearly simultaneously all her plans for growth become possible much sooner than she'd ever imagined as several other dealerships in the region go up for sale in an opportunity too good to pass up.

Unfortunately, this means working long hours, and making sacrifices in her life in order that her brother-in-law can be there for his wife and son. Lily is something of a workaholic herself, so maintains an understanding attitude. But she finds herself falling into self-destructive patterns, exacerbated by childhood insecurities, as some unhappy personal events in her life shake her foundations, and she unhappily turns to alcohol.

Anna struggles to be a supportive partner, while hiding their problems from the rest of the family, and finally has to make some tough decisions in order to stop enabling Lily. Lily finds herself drowning in her out-of-control life, and it takes extreme personal courage and the help from some friends to begin fighting her addiction. The compassionate and seemingly realistic ways these issues are handled makes what could be a very difficult story (read: a downer, something I don't necessarily like in my romantic, escapist fiction) end up being a very touching and life-affirming continuation of the lives of Anna and Lily.

An excellent novel. Can't wait for the next one.
Finally at peace with the mistakes of her disastrous first marriage, Anna Kaklis is ready to experience love again, and Lily Stewart is the woman she will fight to keep forever. Even as she gathers her courage to go to the next level with Lily, the future of Premier Motors is suddenly in her hands. It's an irresistible opportunity, and Lily's support is crucial. Believing she has it, Anna throws herself into her long-cherished dream of building the family business into a powerhouse empire.

Anna's good fortune thrills Lily, but the demand on Anna's time does not--the sacrifices required for Anna's success grow more and more difficult to make. Inevitably, Lily's lifelong insecurities leave her feeling a distant second best. When tragedy strikes, her old habits take over.

If life was perfect and the future a sure thing, Anna and Lily would walk off into the sunset together. Instead, they stand on shaky ground. Anna will fight to keep Lily forever, but what can she do when the fight isn't hers?
Rerations
< Aftershock (Shaken Series) > < Night Call > < Partners > < Small Packages (Shaken series) > < Worth Every Step > freaks

< As Nature Made Him: The Boy Who Was Raised as a Girl > < Do They Hear You When You Cry > < The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down > < What It Takes to Get to Vegas > < Jasmine > < A Child Called "It": One Child's Courage to Survive > John Colapinto

price：~~$14.95~~
Harper Perennial(2001-02-20)

customer 's review
(An intruging look at a life ruined by medical quackery and the personalities behind this famous case)

(Not what I thought)

(A different point of view)

(probably the best book I have read!)

(David died)

Whether your interest in this book is part of a social sciences or gender studies context, or you just want to read it for the sheer pleasure of reading, "As Nature Made Him" is captivating and entertaining. It is the story of a set of lives ruined by the quacky science and self-serving ego of one man, Dr. John Money, then-head of Johns Hopkins Psychohormonal Research Unit, a department Money founded and promulgated.

The chapters progress quickly and the book is filled with human drama and personalities. It is a quick read, helped by Colapinto's lucid prose and flowing journalistic writing style. It conveys warmth, depth, and intelligence and is a joy to read. Born as boy twins, Bruce suffered a circumcision accident that destroyed his penis. Following the advice of Money, his parents decided to raise him as Brenda, until age 14, when she made the decision to become a boy again. Taking the name David, a nod to the Biblical king who face seemingly insurmountable odds), he re-assumed the gender he always knew he was.

Chief among the good guys is Milton Diamond, the harried and tireless rival of Dr. Money who toiled for years in obscurity and pariahdom because of his opposition to the prominent nurturist theory of the time; and Dr. Mary McKenty, who helped Brenda/David towards healing.

Colapinto offers a rare and in-depth look into the lives of one family affected by his doctrinal obstinance. In the hands of a less skilled author, this sensitive and intensely painful experience may have not been handled as well. You will hate Dr Money as you read about his lack of medical scruples, self-serving deception, and unending arrogance. For 4 decades, he was the chief proponent and champion of the theory that gender identity was malleable and could be changed after birth. Boys with genital anomalies could be reassigned as girls, he insisted, and willfully deceived the scientific community for decades by reporting that the gender reassignment experiment was an unmitigated success.

Thankfully medical science has now swung in the favor of the naturist argument-- gender happens in the womb (hormonally determined by the presence or absence of testosterone in utero)-- and radical gender reassignment surgeries like those David suffered are now no longer being advocated.

Highly recommended for readers interest in true-life stories or topics of medical history and sociology/psychology or gender issues.
Interesting, but not really what I expected. Story was more about the doctors than the individual. Book was obviously written before the person killed themselves.
Maybe I'm the only one that feels this way, but the thing that I focused on, and that I thought about most even long after reading the book, was how easily this "case", and others like it (no, Brenda/David is not the only person to suffer from a "botched" circumcision that led to a pediatric sex-change) could be avoided. Perhaps it's because I'm the parent of two young boys? Anyway, my point is that if we simply stop circumcising our sons, especially in cases where it's not medically or religiously "necessary", tragedies like this could so easily be avoided.
Wow!!! What a read, my friend Phil was raised as a girl for the first 25 years of his life and even after so many therpists, years of counselling&several operations to re-correct "himself" he still feels more comfortable keeping his long hair and still deliberates whether he can ever make that leap and have his breast implants removed. I am so glad I have found this book, now Phil my friend I truly have an insight into what life has dealt you. I only wish I could give this book 6 stars.
David took his own life in 2004 at the age of 38. His twin brother died a couple of years before (maybe) also of a suicide. The story of David did not end well, as much as we hoped it would.

In 1967, after a twin baby boy suffered a botched circumcision, his family agreed to a radical treatment that would alter his gender. The case would become one of the most famous in modern medicine -- and a total failure. As Nature Made Himtells the extraordinary story of David Reimer, who, when finally informed of his medical history, made the decision to live as a male. A macabre tale of medical arrogance, it is first and foremost a human drama of one man's -- and one family's -- amazing survival in the face of terrible odds.

Once you begin readingAs Nature Made Him, a mesmerizing story of a medical tragedy and its traumatic results, you absolutely won't want to put it down. Following a botched circumcision, a family is convinced to raise their infant son, Bruce, as a girl. They rename the child Brenda and spend the next 14 years trying to transform him into a her. Brenda's childhood reads as one filled with anxiety and loneliness, and her fear and confusion are present on nearly every page concerning her early childhood. Much of her pain is caused by Dr. Money, who is presented as a villainous medical man attempting to coerce an unwilling child to submit to numerous unpleasant treatments.

Reading over interviews and reports of decisions made by this doctor, it's difficult to contain anger at the widespread results of his insistence that natural-born gender can be altered with little more than willpower and hormone treatments. The attempts of his parents, twin brother, and extended family to assist Brenda to be happily female are touching--the sense is overwhelmingly of a family wanting to do "right" while being terribly mislead as to what "right" is for her. As Brenda makes the decision to live life as a male (at age 14), she takes the name David and begins the process of reversing the effects of estrogen treatments. David's ultimately successful life--a solid marriage, honest and close family relationships, and his bravery in making his childhood public--bring an uplifting end to his story. Equally fascinating is the latest segment of the longtime nature/nurture controversy, and the interviews of various psychological researchers and practitioners form a larger framework around David's struggle to live as the gender he was meant to be.--Jill Lightner
Rerations
< As Nature Made Him: The Boy Who Was Raised as a Girl > < Do They Hear You When You Cry > < The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down > < What It Takes to Get to Vegas > < Jasmine > freaks

< Gendered Lives (Wadsworth Series in Communication Studies) > < You Just Don't Understand: Women and Men in Conversation > < Readings in Gender Communication (with InfoTrac ) > < More Work For Mother: The Ironies Of Household Technology From The Open Hearth To The Microwave > < Style Manual for Communication Studies - Updated Printing with 2002 APA Guidelines > < Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association > Julia T. Wood

price：~~$9.10~~
Wadsworth Publishing
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customer 's review
(Very Good)

(Totally biased)

(Not the book for me)

(Propaganda)

(Man Haters handbook)

The course that I took this book with in college was very interesting, entertaining, and all around good. This book was the key ingredient to our classwork and there is tons of information that will stick with you forever after you read it. It's very easy to read and get into, and should make for just about the best 3-credit class you've ever taken.
The overall theme of this book is man bashing, and bases too much on stereotypes. I used this book for class, and it was hell reading it.
I didn't like the book. I had to read it for class. It was interesting to read, but she put so much facts in there that I couldn't remember everything that she said. It needs to be more oraganized and maybe less man biased like the other two men said. Before bashing me or my review, I'm a woman.

Edit: I put two stars, but I meant one, I changed my mind.

While I don't doubt the author's intentions weren't honestly good, the prescence of society influenced bias is ever present.

Just to point out a lone example from the first chapter, "In general, African American women are more assertive than European American women, and African American men tend to be more communal than White men".

Notice how she cares to use extensive titles for women and African American men, but when she discusses European American males we are merely "White" males. So much for an unbiased presentaton :)
Julia Wood takes every chance she can to insult and denigrate men. In fact, the only men she will acknowledge in a positive way are those who have distinctly "feminine" traits. Many feminists may find this refreshing and validating, but it does little to foster better communication or interaction with members of the opposite sex. Wood is guilty of the same spiteful attacks on men that she portrays as happening to women.
Written by the leading gender communication scholar, Julia Wood's text introduces students to theories, research, and pragmatic information that demonstrate the multiple and often interactive ways in which our views of masculinity and femininity are shaped within contemporary culture. With the most up-to-date research, balanced perspectives of masculinity and femininity, a personal introduction to the field, and a conversational first-person writing style, GENDERED LIVES provides students with an engaging text that encourages them to think critically about gender and our society.
Rerations
< Gendered Lives (Wadsworth Series in Communication Studies) > < You Just Don't Understand: Women and Men in Conversation > < Readings in Gender Communication (with InfoTrac ) > < More Work For Mother: The Ironies Of Household Technology From The Open Hearth To The Microwave > < Style Manual for Communication Studies - Updated Printing with 2002 APA Guidelines > freaks

< Damron Mens Travel Guide (Damron Men's Travel Guide) > < Spartacus International Gay Guide 2008 (Multilingual Edition) > < Spartacus International Gay Guide > < Naked Places, A Guide for Gay Men to Nude Recreation and Travel, 5th edition > < Damron City Guide > < The Gay Vacation Guide: The Best Trips and How to Plan Them > Gina M. Gatta

price：~~$7.02~~
Damron Guides
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customer 's review
(Damrons Mens Travel Guide)

(Still the Gold Standard for Gay Travel)

(Useless if travelling outside the USA)

(Damron 2007 Men's travel Guide (Damron Men's Travel Guide))

(it's good--but there is better)

As always,right on the mark and current and up to date. Very glad I just got the current update for my vacation to Palm Springs as the list is very accurate with all the listings for the area,saving a lot of time searching for it.Very good buy.
Damron is still the gold standard for understanding gay travel and gay nightlife and gay-friendly businesses of interest. The 2009 edition is no different.

The key codes on the front back cover are an improvement, but a list of the codes in small type at the bottom of each double-page spread would be a positive tweak.
I bought this travel guide to assist in planning my trip to Europe. However, the guide is over 80% devoted to the USA and very few listings of anywhere else. A mere 50 pages of the available 716 pages is devoted to Europe. Spartacus would be a much better option if you are looking to travel anywhere outside the USA. For my purposes, I found this book very disappointing. I guess it may come in useful if I decide to tour the USA in the near future.
Unfortunately, I was looking for what I thought was the most comprehensive travel guide. I am traveling to Australia and Australia is not listed in this guide. I guess it is not so comprehensive. It is now worthless to me. :(
Settle on Damron if you'd like--but realize there is much better. Spartacus. For a few more US dollars, you get a much better picture of the entire globe. Buy Damron if you never travel internationally. Spartacus if you like to collect passport stamps.
The original gay travel guide! Formerly Bob Damron’s Address Book, published by and for gay men since 1964. Covers the U.S., Canada, Mexico, Costa Rica, the Caribbean, and major cities in South America, Europe&SE Asia. European cities now include Paris, London, Dublin, Berlin, Amsterdam, Vienna, Rome, Prague, and Barcelona, Madrid, and Sitges, Spain. In South America: Buenos Aires, Argentina; Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; and Santiago, Chile. In SE Asia: Bangkok, Tokyo and Sydney Quick facts on everything the gay traveler on the go needs. Over 13,000 listings of gay-friendly hotels, B&Bs, bars, nightclubs, bookstores, cafes, restaurants, gyms, men’s clubs. saunas&much more. Every single listing verified annually–many within weeks of publication! The International Calendar of Events features Circuit Parties, Gay Pride Celebrations, Gay Film Festivals, Leather, Fetish&Bear Events. The Tour and Travel Sections details gay Cruises, Tours&Vacations, including Cruises&Luxury Tours, Outdoor Adventures, Retreats&Conferences
Rerations
< Damron Mens Travel Guide (Damron Men's Travel Guide) > < Spartacus International Gay Guide 2008 (Multilingual Edition) > < Spartacus International Gay Guide > < Naked Places, A Guide for Gay Men to Nude Recreation and Travel, 5th edition > < Damron City Guide > freaks

< Deadly Vision > < The Unquiet: A Thriller (Charlie Parker) > < IM > < High Risk > < One Last Breath > < In the Absence of Honor > Rick R. Reed

price：~~$3.63~~
Quest
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customer 's review
(Repeat)

(Midwest Book Review - April 2008)

(What could be more horrifying?)

(Psychic Sleuth)

(A 'Vision' of Suspense...)

I am totally amazed by this author...High Risk was awesome and now Deadly Vision-I am left almost speechless! Kept me wanting more and more, could not put the book down!
Cass D'Angelo lives a regular life in small town, Ohio, with her seven-year-old son, Max. She works at a popular diner and has little unusual going on in her life except, initially, the lack of a girlfriend. Her whole life changes, however, after being struck on the head during a storm. When she wakes up in the hospital, she discovers that she's acquired psychic powers, specifically the ability to visualize the grisly deaths of local girls who have recently begun disappearing.

The killers are an insane, but handsome, psychopath and his smitten and spectacularly confused girlfriend. We find out very quickly that they worship a devil-like entity, "The Beast," and when they discover that Cass has directed the police to unearth one of their victims, they go after her and her family.

Like Charlaine Harris's Harper Connelly character, Cass D'Angelo is a psychic character who's fascinating to read about. She's thoughtful, smart, and capable. Unlike Harris's character, who travels around to use her gift, Cass is mostly happy and settled in her Ohio home and committed to family, friends, and her community. That makes her deadly visions and horror over the sick murders even more palpable. Everyone is at risk, even her own son.

Reed gives us alternate chapters from the perspective of the twisted killer's girlfriend and of our increasingly-stressed heroine. His secondary characters, particularly Cass's mother and Cass's journalist girlfriend, are lively, interesting, and essential. His use of tone, pacing, and atmosphere is masterful. A natural born storyteller, this author does an excellent job showing Cass's increasing panic in the face of the killers' single-minded murderous intent. With every page, the reader's tension level rises until the wild climax. At times graphic, always descriptive, and endlessly suspenseful, this novel takes you on a rocky ride through horror and anxiety. Will the killers be thwarted? Will Cass live to see another vision? Will she lose the one she loves the most?

Highly recommended for all who enjoy heart-pounding suspense, horror, and good old-fashioned fright within an expertly constructed narrative. ~Lori L. Lake, Midwest Book Review

What could be more horrifying than to have the psychic ability that forces you to witness the events in other people's lives but not be able to find your own son after he is kidnapped? With an intense plot and vivid detailed writing, Rick R. Reed has crafted a compelling, fast-paced thriller that would haunt any parent's nightmares.

www.AllTheseBooks.com
Reviewed by Tyler R. Tichelaar for Reader Views (2/08)

Rick R. Reed's new novel "Deadly Vision" is another page-turner from this masterly horror writer. The novel opens with Cass, a single mother, who also happens to be a lesbian, simply trying to make a life for herself and her son by working as a waitress in a diner. One day, she gets hit on the head by a tree branch during a storm, and when she wakes up, she begins to see strange visions, which she realizes are related to the recent cases of missing girls within the community. Cass is reluctant to be in the public light, but she knows she must use her knowledge to save lives. She has a difficult time trying to get help from the authorities and media, but eventually, she convinces them and one of the girls' bodies is found. When Cass's name appears in the paper for having helped the media find the missing girl's body, the killer decides he must stop Cass from revealing more. His revenge leads to an exciting showdown.

Unlike many horror, thriller and detective novelists who center the plot around a detective character searching for an unknown killer, Reed eliminates the mystery behind who the murderer is, and instead depicts the killer in alternate chapters. Reed did an exceptional job in his previous novel "IM" of getting into the killer's mind, and by doing so, while the mystery is absent, the excitement and adrenaline flow all the more. In "Deadly Vision" Reed writes in third person, so we do not understand as well what causes the villain, Ian, to act as he does; instead we view the action from the eyes of Ian's girlfriend, Myra. Ian is obviously crazy, talking about how he must sacrifice people to The Beast, yet Reed fully makes the reader understand why Myra remains with Ian for so long, first because he is gorgeous, secondly because he taught her how to lose weight and make herself attractive, and finally out of confused loyalty and eventually fear of Ian. Myra is forced into the role of accomplice to Ian while she continually tries to manipulate him to stop the crimes, and yet helps him out of fear. I personally thought Myra the most developed and interesting character in the novel.

Reed's characters are often homosexual, and in past books his characters' sexual orientation has added to the novels' plots. However, while the back cover includes Lesbian with Fiction/Mystery/Thriller as one of its genres, I didn't see any reason why Cass or Dani, her reporter friend, were depicted as lesbians. It was clear they were going to become a couple, but their sexual orientation was not detailed enough to advance the plot or motivate their actions, unlike the detective in "IM" who is himself homosexual and seeking to save his male lover from a killer bent on murdering gay men.

I would gladly welcome a sequel to "Deadly Vision" where Reed further develops the relationship between Dani and Cass so their sexual orientations are more integrated into the plot. The two women make a great team, and I can definitely see possibilities for further adventures as Cass learns better how to use her psychic abilities. I would also like to know more about what became of Myra. I hope another Rick R. Reed book will soon roll off the presses.

Hot on the heels of his enjoyable gay serial killer novel - last year's "IM" - Rick Reed returns with another gripping thriller, "Deadly Vision." Reed is quickly developing his own unique formula that blends suspense, fast-moving narratives, fully-realized gay characters, and a touch of the occult. His seeming bid to become a gay hybrid of James Patterson and Dean Koontz will not be lost on readers with this latest offering.

Cass D'Angelo, single mother to seven-year-old Max, is toiling away as a waitress in a small, depressed river town in Ohio. When Cass goes off after Max when he wanders off one afternoon during a thunderstorm, she runs afoul of a lightning strike and a falling tree limb. She awakens days later in the hospital - relieved to find Max safe - and discovers that the resulting concussion has left her with a newfound psychic ability. Before you can say Psychic Friends Network, Cass receives disturbing images of several local girls gone missing - their grisly fates playing out behind her mind's eye. Fearing more deaths, the reluctant psychic reaches out to the police and to one of the missing girl's parents - all of whom are skeptical. But when the father of a second missing girl begs Cass' help in finding his daughter and her decomposing body is found along the Ohio River banks, Cass finds herself the center of unwanted attention from a pair of devil-worshipping killers desperate to find out how she found their carefully hidden grave. It's here that the story kicks into even higher gear with a kidnapping, a manhunt, and - to a lesser extent - hints of a budding romance with a sympathetic female journalist.

As in "IM," Reed again opts to tell his story through multiple points of view. And, again, it works surprisingly well even when minor characters like Cass' mother get their chance at the storytelling bat. Laying out the actions and motives of your villains for readers is a tricky proposition - give too much and risk predictability at the expense of the suspense. But Reed expertly walks the tightrope between disclosure and omission, crafting passages told from the killers' perspective that are appropriately chilling and give just enough away to readers so that their acquired insight translates into dread when the action switches back to Cass and company. It's foreboding at it s finest with readers left muttering, "If you only knew what I know" at the book itself.

Reed also imbues "Deadly Vision" with a strong sense of setting, creating in Summitville a bleak tableau of working class hardship. One gets a strong sense of inevitability for the fictional denizens of the town, like they surrendered master status of their own destinies somewhere between unplanned pregnancies and factory closings. He nails the idea of familiarity and disconnection as analogous functions of small-town life:

"When Sheryl McKenna's mother opened the door, Cass felt as though she had already seen her. And maybe she had. Summitville was, after all, a small town. She could have passed the tired-looking woman on the street downtown, or served her in the diner. The woman stared at her with bright gray eyes, looking her over as if Cass were something she had discarded in the yard that had managed to make its way back to the porch. Mrs. McKenna was small, with no fat on her bones; she looked almost skeletal. Her skin was weathered, the result of too much sun, too much smoke. Her skin, combined with straw-like bleached blonde hair and hard eyes made her, Cass was sure, look older than her years. She held a cigarette in her hand, and the smell of tobacco smoke came out of the house in a wave when she opened the door."

Unlike "IM," the lesbian romance is relegated to the background here, never even a glimmer of possibility until the third act - and even then it's only alluded to in a near future. This is the novel's only misstep - and a slight one at that - and an area where Reed missed an opportunity for deeper emotional investment in the reporter character of Dani Westwood. The lack of romantic connection to Cass keeps her at arm's length for much of the action, consigning her to stock character status.

The novel's supernatural elements are handled quite well, with Cass' understanding of her precognitive abilities evolving gradually over the course of the book and never coming off as forced or over-the-top. Only toward the end when Cass encounters the spectral vision of one of the victims does one get the sense that they're smack dab in the middle of an episode of "Cold Case" or "The Ghost Whisperer" - and that's either criticism or commendation depending upon your level of tolerance for either of those shows.

The literary equivalent of a hybrid vehicle, "Deadly Vision" powers forward on a combustion of supernatural suspense, murder mystery, and breakneck thriller. With psychics and serial killers rendered with the same deft hand in a propulsive narrative likely to increase respirations, it takes no psychic ability to see that Rick Reed is headed for the top of the suspense class.

What If You Suddenly Became Psychic and Could Stop Two Cold-Blooded Killers?
What if...No One Believed You?

Small-town single mom Cass D'Angelo's life changes when a thunderstorm sweeps into her small Ohio River town. Cass must venture out in it to hunt for her son, seven-year-old Max. Lightning strikes a tree near her and a branch to the head knocks her unconscious. When Cass awakens a couple days later, she sees into the deepest secrets of those around her. Worse, some teenage girls have gone missing, and Cass sees their grisly fates. The discovery opens the door to a whole new life. The police are suspicious. The press wants to make her a celebrity. And the killers are desperate to know how she found their carefully concealed grave. Cass finds an ally in Dani Westwood, a local reporter. The two women begin to probe into the disappearances/murders and start to forge a romance. When Cass's little boy, Max, disappears, Cass must race against the clock to find him...before it's too late.

Rerations
< Deadly Vision > < The Unquiet: A Thriller (Charlie Parker) > < IM > < High Risk > < One Last Breath > freaks

< Imperial Woman (Buck, Pearl S. Oriental Novels of Pearl S. Buck, 3rd,) > < Dragon Seed (Buck, Pearl S. Oriental Novels of Pearl S. Buck.) > < Pavilion of Women > < Three Daughters of Madame Liang (Buck, Pearl S. Oriental Novels of Pearl S. Buck, 4th,) > < Sons (Good Earth Trilogy, Vol 2) > < The Good Earth (Enriched Classics) > Pearl S. Buck

price：~~$3.01~~
Moyer Bell
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customer 's review
(A Good Read)

(Empress of the East)

(Fascinating)

(An excellent book...)

(Very interesting read)

This story is set as a biography of Yehonala/Yehenara/Tzu Hsi/Empress Dowager Cixi, and was overall a good read. But as a novel only, mind you.

The details of Tzu Hsi's life are largely unknown, and many people smeared her good name (like Edmund Backhouse), so this novel is meant to be just that - a novel. It should not be read as an actual biography of Tzu Hsi's life, though I still recommend this book as a good read.
Although the language at times was dry, and failed to fully engage me, I really enjoyed Imperial Woman by Pearl S. Buck.

Tzu Hsi's was a character to be reviled and pitied. Her unequaled ambition led to her eventually claiming the throne for herself (as a Regent of her son) and and ruling all of China. She was spoiled rotten with the good life - she had excellent food, amazing clothing, a home of beauty I can't even imagine - yet in spite of all the indulgences she allowed to her body she never let herself have any spiritual indulgences. She was passionately in love with Jung Lu, her kinsman and her fiance before she was called to be the Emperor's consort, but throughout her life she denied those feelings again and again. It was so sad that for all her power she was lonely and often unhappy. I can't imagine making the choices she made, not because I find them repulsive but simply because I don't think I could have the willpower to be alone. She couldn't see her family because they weren't as socially prominent as she (how could they be when she was an Empress?) or corrupted by the Court. Indeed, in Court she could trust no one because there was intrigue in every heart. I don't think I could live such a isolated life; I would feel trapped like a bird in a cage.

As ruler of China, Tzu Hsi often made choices that seem terrible by today's standards. Again and again she sought to rid the country of foreigners, and refused to have them in her Court because men would not bow to the ground before her. She resisted anything to do with the West - she wouldn't even allow toy trains in her palaces. Near the end of her reign she even authorized the murder of all white foreigners currently living in China.
Yet at the same time, who could blame her? This was the age of Imperialism, when European nations sought to expand their borders and gain control over all of Asia. She needed to fight back to preserver her realm, which was chipped away at the edges all the time by ruthless Europeans hungry for territory. Many of her edicts seem cruel and harsh, but had the situation been reversed I'm sure Queen Victoria would have reacted in a similar manner. (Tzu Hsi was quite fond of Victoria, and often referred to her as the sister-Empress to the West.)

This Empress of the East was a fascinating woman, and this novel does an excellent job of introducing her to the western world.
Written in 1956, it is quite possible that this work is dated and that new information on this Empress and this era have come to light. Perhaps it is true that newer biographies exist which prove Pearl S. Buck's version inadequate or just plain wrong. But who is to say that modern biographies might themselves prove inadequate in another 50 years. This book is written as a novel. It does not contain footnotes or an index and it does not present historical documentation. But it tells an extraordinary story. I urge you not to pass it by entirely in favor of any modern version. Read this book first and then, if your interest is piqued (and it will be), go on to read a modern book like Sterling Seagrave's Dragon Lady, as one reviewer suggested.

This book is just too good to ignore.
...not a classic in the same sense as The Good Earth, but wonderful reading nonetheless. Pearl Buck had a way of telling stories and drawing characters like no one else. One is always sorry when the book comes to a close, and we wish we could be swept out of our chair and into wherever Mrs. Buck's stories take us. Tzu-Hsi was a fascinating woman that the reader can come very close to in this telling while also wondering what kind of human being she truly was. This book is well worth reading; in fact ANYTHING by Pearl Buck is rewarding and transporting.
Perhaps not one of Pearl Buck's best known novels, Imperial Woman is still fascinating. It gives the reader a glimpse of the Manchu period of Chinese history.

The story of Tzu Hsi is the story of the last Empress in China. In the novel Nobel Prize winner Pearl S. Buck recreates the life of one of the most intriguing rulers during a time of intense turbulence.

Tzu Hsi was born into one of the lowly ranks of the Imperial dynasty. According to custom, she moved to the Forbidden City at the age of seventeen to become one of hundreds of concubines. But her singular beauty and powers of manipulation quickly moved her into the position of Second Consort.

Tzu Hsi was feared and hated by many in the court, but adored by the people. The Empress's rise to power (even during her husband's life) parallels the story of China's transition from the ancient to the modern way.

Pearl S. Buck's knowledge of and fascination with the Empress's life are contagious. She reveals the essence of this self-involved and infamous last Empress, at the same time she takes the reader through China's struggle for freedom and democracy.

Rerations
< Imperial Woman (Buck, Pearl S. Oriental Novels of Pearl S. Buck, 3rd,) > < Dragon Seed (Buck, Pearl S. Oriental Novels of Pearl S. Buck.) > < Pavilion of Women > < Three Daughters of Madame Liang (Buck, Pearl S. Oriental Novels of Pearl S. Buck, 4th,) > < Sons (Good Earth Trilogy, Vol 2) > freaks

< Bennington's Place > < Diving in Deep > < Out Of My Mind > < Handyman > < Plain Brown Wrapper: Coming Home > < A Matter O f Necessity > Gabriel Gar,çonnière

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G's Spot
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customer 's review
(Meet Gabriel Garconniere)

Garconniere, Gabriel. "Bennington's Place", 2009.

Meet Gabriel Garconniere

Amos Lassen

I thought I new most of the gay writers in New Orleans but somehow I did not know Gabe. When he sent me a copy of his new book with a very sexy inscription I sat myself down and begin to read his "literary output" and Mon Dieu, he has a lot to say. "Bennington's Place" is a collection of eleven gay erotic stories that leave nothing to the imagination and either Gabe is a very lucky guy or else he has a very vivid imagination. Now let me state that this is not just smut but smut with literary value. Each of the stories is very well written. If that were not true then what they are about would hold your interest but when you have both, good writing and hot sex then you have a book worth reading. There is lots of man on man action and lust and love and everything in between. Here are stories for every taste be you an electro fisherman, a college guy or just into the leather scene. I can't recommend it enough.

A Go Go Boy gets lucky in a leather bar. A traveler goes cruising on a cruise ship and things heat up while sailing to Alaska.

Two college dorm mates hit more than the books during the holidays. An 18 year old gets lucky the first time he ever goes to a gay bar and ends up experiencing a night of many firsts.

A book nerd and a jock fall in love...in this life and after. Two baseball fans hit a home run with a major league player.

A Caribbean vacationer and a photographer escape to a lighthouse for some island fun. A dancer recalls how good he is at what he does, while everyone begs to watch him do it.

The US surfing team gets "tricked" by their Australian competition. A construction worker heads to happy hour and finds some hard earned wages he can't refuse.

And a bar fly falls for a shy rugged fisherman, who isn't as timid as he leads on to be.

Bennington's Place is a collection of eleven hot and steamy tales filled with man on man action. From lust to love, there's a story in here to appease everyone's desire. This book will definitely keep you "up" all night.

Visit the author online at http://gabrielgarconniere.blogspot.com/.

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< Bennington's Place > < Diving in Deep > < Out Of My Mind > < Handyman > < Plain Brown Wrapper: Coming Home > freaks

< Epistemology of the Closet > < Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity (Routledge Classics) > < Bodies That Matter: On the Discursive Limits of Sex > < The History of Sexuality, Vol. 1: An Introduction > < Between Men: English Literature and Male Homosocial Desire > < Touching Feeling: Affect, Pedagogy, Performativity (Series Q) > Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick

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University of California Press
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customer 's review
(Looking at Classic Gay Texts)

(The Closet Isn't Where It Ued To Be-)

(The "Problem" with Conceptual Schemes, New and Old)

(Deep wading)

(...Theory should always be so good)

Sedgwick, Eva Kosofsky. "Epistemology of the Closet", University of California Press, 2008. (2nd edition).

Looking at Classic Gay Texts

Amos Lassen

Eva Kosofsky Sedgwick is one of the pioneering voices in the field of gay studies and queer theory. Her book, "Epistemology of the Closet" has been regarded as a classic since it first appeared in and now it has been re-released by the University of California Press. The book is a literary analysis of classic texts of American and European writers among whom are Herman Melville, Marcel Proust, Henry James and Oscar Wilde. Sedgwick's basic thesis is that there was a historical moment when sexual identification became an important sign of self as did gender.
What she does with this thesis is analyze and examine literature by seeing how sexual preference shapes almost all aspects of modern contemporary thought. Sedgwick is provocative and her book is more than a literary analysis; it is also a study of culture and a political analysis. The book deals with the modern AIDS epidemic as well and shows how it influenced texts.
Kosofsky writes beautifully and as the "mother" of queer theory she has a great deal to say. She maintains that gay men and lesbian women are represented in society and in literature as if homosexuality is deviant and perverse when compared to the larger society. Homosexuals have tended to remain closeted and it exists as a secret that wants to come out but dare not. This is a sensible argument and Sedgwick uses literature to bear this out. In doing so she looks at how it is that we came to our ideas about sexuality and why is it that we classify everyone as having either heterosexual or homosexual and ignoring any middle ground. She is an important thinker who cannot be ignored and whether we agree or not, we cannot deny that Sedgwick has something to say and it is important. She does show that the closet is impossibility because there is always someone who knows. It is easy to see how this book gained the status it has and it is good to have it back in print.

Most surveys of sexual variations seen in the historical context fail to take into account that sexuality has been defined and categorized differently in almost every era and culture. In western cultures, the current sexual categories became defined somewhere between the Civil War and world War I. In other words, there were no homosexuals (in the modern sense) before the Civil War. There were men who loved, and sometimes slept with, other men, but they didn't form a separate category. Social opprobrium was reserved for the practice of sodomy, whether it was practiced between men or men and women. Having sex with other men was simply something that wasn't discussed in public, although it happened all the time.
Ms. Sedgwick has taken on the task of seeking to discover just how it is that we came by our current ideas of sexuality, why, for instance, that we seem to think that everyone is either heterosexual or homosexual, ignoring the reality that according to Kinsey, the vast majority are bisexually attracted, to at least some degree.
She also examines the ways in which the public discussion of sexuality has changed and developed in the critical years between the two wars, using literature of the period for her sources.
She contends, in my opinion successfully, that the gay/straight debate is the key issue for western culture, in terms of defining person-hood. Western culture has become obsessed with sex.
It follows then, that issues of the conflict between the private and public spheres is central to her discussion.
On the minus side, her prose is uneven, sometimes beautiful, sometimes turgid to the point of constipation. Her analyses are uneven, as well. I would have preferred a more thorough analysis of fewer examples, Billy Budd in particular.
Taken on the whole, it's an important work by an important thinker who has added substantially to the discussion of sexuality and gender studies, well worth the effort required to read it with comprehension.
The August 11, 1999 "a reader" comments about Sedgwick's prose is especially valuable. The tendency to "abuse" language, in J. L. Austin's famous phrase, seems pronounced in Francophile and postmodernist writings, as if obscuritanism is a measure of profundity rather than a measure of obscuritanism. Several critics have justly claimed that unintelligibile writing and ideation only expose unintelligibility.

What could have been a provocative inquiry into the uniqueness of each human being (a novel, but now confirmed, fact, originating in Darwinian theory), once again reverts to a series of ideological templates to overlay the diversity of being and experience to "fit" a new paradigm. The dominant template here is the binary homosexual/heterosexual dichotomy, which Sedgwick insists is the prism by which we come to have knowledge of our world (I hope my effort at intelligibility does not misrepresent her views.)

Of course, the use of ideological templates laid over an inquiry is nothing new. Critical theory, Marxist theory, Freudian theory, and now Queer theory are variants of the same methodology. If one accepts the ideological template, then the subsequent examination under that template achieves a knowledge (i.e., epistemology) within the limits of that template, but generates a new conceptual scheme. Ironically, the ostensible purpose of the ideological template is to liberate thought from the status quo by forcing thought through an alternative sieve. The "insight" derived from this process becomes subversive of the status quo, but only to impose an different status quo that is putatively superior to the existent one.

According to psychology and anthropology, humans "by nature" impose categorical thinking on experience in order to "frame the reference" and "give order" to chaotic particularism of individual experience. This notion is no longer controversial, indeed, it is "obvious," with aetiology as far back to Hebraism and Hellenism, differing only in the templates used. So, instead of breaking the mold, the new theorists create new ones. Akin to Kuhn's paradigm shift applied outside science, we are prodded to look anew at the old phenomena.

But one of Darwin's keenest insights is the uniqueness of all living things, despite similarities. Instead of the essentialist thinking we inherited from Greek metaphysics and epistemology, we're told by Darwinians that we must use "population thinking," where "grouping" of things is by common descent, not our morphological, behavioral, or ideological similarities. I suggest this same motif applies to sexual populations, sexual expressions, and sexual orientation. Kinsey and others who have insisted on a continuum of orientation differences along a line between the polarities of opposites is truer to the truth than a "homosexual essence" or "heterosexual essence." The appellation of "gay" and "straight" are nominalist, not essentialist, groupings, where each appellation picks out a wide variety of differences by our conceptual schemes of categorization and understanding of populations, not by any essence. If true, and I believe it is, why revert to binary templates of essences to lay over the variety of differences as if one aspect, however shared, must then define many others as well?

Same-sex and opposite-sex relations are not as "neat and tidy" as theorists want us to believe, nor do they exist only in polarity, but rather along a continuum with yet another point between any other two points. Within different populations one finds vast varieties of sexual orientation and expression, not to mention vast differences in other facets of the human being, that homo- and hetero-sexual appellations conflate. To then use these conflated nominalisms as departure points (i.e., templates) for further inquiry only boxes in the subject further, thus undermining difference itself. Instead of nominalist pluralism one becomes both a reductionist and an essentialist to further categorize what is already tenuous at best. This paradigm shift in turn becomes its own raison d'etre further undermining uniqueness so that a new consensus of a new conceptual scheme can be forged.

Consequently, these projects have their own slippery slopes I'd prefer not to slide into. They all strike me as yet another "ideology" in the service of liberation, subverting one status quo for another, categorizing more categories, until we fit the new paradigm. I think we have had enough experience with this methodology to stop it before it starts.

Indeed, the courage to be authentic suggests the enterprise is not only subversive of the status quo, but subversive of our authenticity as well. Being unique, and therefore different, is both a starting and ending point, not a place to begin new essentialist programs to "fit" yet another putatively "new" conceptual scheme.
Ugh, a tough, tough book to read. I found myself really bogged down by this book and looked more forward just to getting through it than actually getting anything out of it. Sedgewick's style is definately not for me, but if you can get past the thick writing style you may be able to glean some interesting points from it.
According to the writer Avital Ronell, in his youth Kant wanted to be a poet. Fortunately for us, perhaps, he turned to philosophy instead. Through this turn Kant ended up setting the standard towards which most academics currently strive: a zero-degree style (which Lyotard both attempts to mime and identifies as naive in the preface to The Differend). What this does, essentially, is provide the rather stupid (and perpetually misrecognized) effect that an author is objective, sound, and important. Most of the time, authors are none of these.

People may disagree with me, but I find Sedgwick's style gorgeous and memorable. This may make the book difficult to read, but it also can make it quite a pleasure, and what else could one want from a well-informed, well-argued, politically necessary academic intervention?

For people deterred by Sedgwick's prose, I suggest you go pick up something more simple-minded. Whoever thought that reading a book shouldn't be a challenge? Who actually believes that one shouldn't struggle with difficult and new ideas?

The Epistemology of the Closet is a necessary book. Sedgwick's thoughts on ignorance and power (in response to Foucault's coupling of knowledge/power) are incredible. Her readings of Bowers v. Hardwick, the homosexual panic defense, and figurations of homosexuality are more than insightful: they are powerful critiques and exposes of the way that homophobia operates and is legitimated in contemporary American culture. Please please read this book. Read it twice or three times. Try it again and again. Each time you return, I promise you, you'll be startled by the ideas that come out, and hopefully, they'll mobilize you to do something more with them.

Take it to the next level and keep reading.
Since the late 1980s, queer studies and theory have become vital to the intellectual and political life of the United States. This has been due, in no small degree, to the influence of Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick's critically acclaimedEpistemology of the Closet.Working from classic texts of European and American writers--including Melville, James, Nietzsche, Proust, and Wilde--Sedgwick analyzes a turn-of-the-century historical moment in which sexual orientation became as important a demarcation of personhood as gender had been for centuries. In her preface to this updated edition Sedgwick places the book both personally and historically, looking specifically at the horror of the first wave of the AIDS epidemic and its influence on the text.
Since the late 1980s, queer studies and theory have become vital to the intellectual life of the U.S. This has been, to no small degree, due to the popularity of Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick's critically acclaimedEpistemology of the Closet. Working from classic texts of European and American writers--including Herman Melville, Henry James, Marcel Proust, and Oscar Wilde--Sedgwick delineates a historical moment in which sexual identity became as important a demarcation of personhood as gender had been for centuries.

Sedgwick's literary analysis, while provocative and often startling (you will never readBilly BuddorThe Picture of Dorian Graythe same way again), is simply the basis for a larger project of examining and analyzing how the categories of "homosexual" and "heterosexual" continue to shape almost all aspects of contemporary thought.Epistemology of the Closetis a sometimes-dense work, but one filled with wit and empathy. Sedgwick writes with great intelligence and an eye for irony, but always makes clear that her theories and critical acumen are in the service of a politic that seeks to make the world a better and more humane place for everyone. An extraordinary book that reshapes how we think about literature, sexuality, and everyday life.--Michael Bronski
Rerations
< Epistemology of the Closet > < Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity (Routledge Classics) > < Bodies That Matter: On the Discursive Limits of Sex > < The History of Sexuality, Vol. 1: An Introduction > < Between Men: English Literature and Male Homosocial Desire > freaks

< Playing Hard to Get > < Heavenly Bodies > < Players > < Watermark > < Lifeguard on Duty > < Champions > Corbin Fisher

price：~~$19.98~~
Bruno Gmunder Verlag Gmbh
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This title presents outdoor erotica at its best. Corbin Fisher presents young, tight-bodied men in erotic encounters in which they seldom drop the last pieces of clothes. The genuineness of Fisher's photos is what makes this book so alluring.
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< Playing Hard to Get > < Heavenly Bodies > < Players > < Watermark > < Lifeguard on Duty > freaks

< Covering: The Hidden Assault on Our Civil Rights > < Becoming a Visible Man > < Queer Theory: An Introduction > < Outliers: The Story of Success > < The Trouble with Diversity: How We Learned to Love Identity and Ignore Inequality > < Readings for Diversity and Social Justice: An Anthology on Racism, Antisemitism, Sexism, Heterosexism, Ableism, and Classism > Kenji Yoshino

price：~~$16.85~~
Random House(2006-01-17)

customer 's review
(Great book, easy to read, but problematic central premise)

("Covering," a term used for the coerced hiding of crucial aspects of one's self--in his case his homosexuality)

(Not Much There)

(interesting read, somewhat inconclusive)

(This Poet Has Done It Well)

While I like the book and find it to be VERY well written, I find it thought provoking in that I seriously disagree with its central premise.

We had this as assigned reading in a class on Asian American issues. The author is law professor who started out as grad student in creative writing. Having previously attended law school myself, I have got rank this as one of the best written books on a legal topic I've ever read. The book charts the authors personal path, both as an Asian American negotiating his other status in American society, struggling between his parents wish for him to be more Japanese and the pressures of American society, his struggles to be a writer of poetry and find his voice, and in the process his coming out (recognition of his own gayness).

His essential argument is that folks like him, who are insecure about owning a self identity that conflict with the norms around them, need legal protections to make it safer for them to 'own' (slang term: to unflinchingly accept as one's own responsibility) their own identities, above and beyond any civil rights law that already exists. That there should be laws to protect them from having to conform to local standards, even if their overall civil rights are already protected.

I disagree. I found myself going through the book yelling at the author and demanding that he "grow a pair" be it with his parents or with regards to his gayness. I was relieved to see him admitting that he envied the people around him who could courageously own their inner selves, and wished he could be more like them. His ultimate judgment however is that it is the role of government to protect the weak so that they don't have to fight for themselves. This is a stand I can't support, as ultimately it will result in a bunch of Lilly livered whimpering weakling. Its like the worst form supporting people who refuse to work.

Civil rights, in the grand American tradition and in my own opinion, should be given to anyone (assuming they above the age of 16) with enough backbone to stand up and fight for them. This is true at both the group and personal level. If you can't do that than clearly thats your own problem. It is not the role of law to made up for cowardice or laziness. Parents who overprotect their children end up with bunch of spoiled brats who can't hold down a job, as a society this does not benefit us.

Being American is about being willing to 'own' (stand up for) your independence. It is, as some have put it, a form of government designed for adults, not for coddling children.

Oh, and I'm a democrat.

There have been several struggles in civil rights in the USA. Women suffrage, African American civil rights, and finally the Gay, Lesbian, Transgender, and Bisexual cause.

Yoshino, a law professor at Yale and a gay, Asian-American man, masterfully melds autobiography and legal scholarship in this book, marking a move from more traditional pleas for civil equality to a case for individual autonomy in identity politics. Seldom has a work of such careful intellectual rigor and fairness been so deeply touching.

In questioning the phenomenon of "covering," a term used for the coerced hiding of crucial aspects of one's self--in his case his homosexuality--Yoshino thrusts the reader into a battlefield of shifting gray areas. Yet, at every step, he anticipates the reader's questions and rebuttals, answering them not only with acute reasoning, but also with disarming humility.

What emerges is an eloquent, poetic protest against the hidden prejudices embedded in American civil rights legislation--legislation that tacitly apologizes for "immutable" human difference from the white, male, straight norm, rather than defending one's "right to say what one is." Though Yoshino recognizes the law's potential to further (and hinder) liberty's cause, he admits that his "education in law has been an education in its limitations." Hence, by way of his unsparing accounts of self-realization, he reveals that the struggle against oppression lies not solely in fighting an imagined, monolithic state but as much in intimate discourse with the mother, the father, and the colleague who constitute that state. It deals with the ability to "blend" with the society who is yet to give the GLBT community the rights and respect it deserves.

As healing as it is polemical, this book has tremendous potential as a touchstone in the struggle for universal human dignity.

No offense to Yoshino, but in truth, he doesn't make many actual points. This is a great book if you want to hear about his personal journey, but it's not very enlightening overall.
A mix of professional experience, glimpses of personal experience, poetic imagination and some interesting ideas for America's future. I am glad I've read it. The only regret is that the book doesn't lead to a powerful, clear vision for the country. The very interesting ideas from the introduction are just briefly repeated at the end. Maybe someone else will build upon this material? The book certainly encourages a discussion. Maybe that was the whole point?
The Publisher's Weekly review says it all, but I cannot let the opportunity pass to add my voice to those honoring this book. Yes, it's a simple concept, elaborated over 200 pages, but there is nothing monotonous about it. The academic monotony characteristic of similar monographs is thwarted through the simplest of means: the scholar-author is also a poet. He writes on the minutiae of civil rights law with the compression and unexpected image that make strong poetry memorable. I heard the author speak on the concept of Covering on the Maine Public Radio broadcast of the Chataqua Program. The discussion was interesting enough, but when he read the Epilogue, I immediately thought, "I have to have that in my Commonplace Book." As a politically active gay man and 15-year conductor of a gay men's chorus, I've often meditated on the meaning of cultural appropriation, assimilation, and accommodation and the resulting effect on actualization and abnegation of the individual. So, Kenji Yoshino's orderly discussion of coversion, passing, and covering is immediately attractive to me. But it is not my habit to read 'brainiac' books. I'm put off by the customary tone, talking down to me, especially when the subject of the discussion is, by inference, me and the people I know and love. This one is the exception. I feel like Yoshino and I have just spent a long evening, with a wide variety of friends, talking about something of immediate concern to all of us. And then there's that Epilogue. Talk is one thing, but how we live it out is usually quite another. And it's never simple. That's why it's best left to the hands of a poet, and this poet has done it well.
In this remarkable and elegant work, acclaimed Yale Law School professor Kenji Yoshino fuses legal manifesto and poetic memoir to call for a redefinition of civil rights in our law and culture.

Everyone covers. To cover is to downplay a disfavored trait so as to blend into the mainstream. Because all of us possess stigmatized attributes, we all encounter pressure to cover in our daily lives. Given its pervasiveness, we may experience this pressure to be a simple fact of social life.
Against conventional understanding, Kenji Yoshino argues that the demand to cover can pose a hidden threat to our civil rights. Though we have come to some consensus against penalizing people for differences based on race, sex, sexual orientation, religion, and disability, we still routinely deny equal treatment to people who refuse to downplay differences along these lines. Racial minorities are pressed to“act white” by changing their names, languages, or cultural practices. Women are told to “play like men” at work. Gays are asked not to engage in public displays of same-sex affection. The devout are instructed to minimize expressions of faith, and individuals with disabilities are urged toconceal the paraphernalia that permit them to function. In a wide-ranging analysis, Yoshino demonstrates that American civil rights law has generally ignored the threat posed by these covering demands. With passion and rigor, he shows that the work of civil rights will not be complete until it attends to the harms of coerced conformity.
At the same time, Yoshino is responsive to the American exasperation with identity politics, which often seems like an endless parade of groups asking for state and social solicitude. He observes that the ubiquity of the covering demand provides an opportunity to lift civil rights into a higher, more universal register. Since we all experience the covering demand, we can all make common cause around a new civil rights paradigm based on our desire for authenticity–a desire that brings us together rather than driving us apart.
Yoshino’s argument draws deeply on his personal experiences as a gay Asian American. He follows the Romantics in his belief that if a human life is described with enough particularity, the universal will speak through it. The result is a work that combines one of the most moving memoirs written in yearswith a landmark manifesto on the civil rights of the future.

“This brilliantly argued and engaging book does two things at once, and it does them both astonishingly well. First, it's a finely grained memoir of young man’s struggles to come to terms with his sexuality, and second, it's a powerful argument for a whole new way of thinking about civil rightsand how our society deals with difference. This book challenges us all to confront our own unacknowledged biases, and it demands that we take seriously the idea that there are many different ways to be human. Kenji Yoshino is the face and the voice of the new civil rights.” -Barbara Ehrenreich, author ofNickel and Dimed

“Kenji Yoshino has not only given us an important, compelling new way to understand civil rights law, a major accomplishment in itself, but with great bravery and honesty, he has forged his argument from the cauldron of his own experience. In clear, lyrical prose,Coveringquite literally brings the law to life. The result is a book about our
public and private selves as convincing to the spirit as it is to the
mind.” -Adam Haslett, author ofYou Are Not A Stranger Here

“Kenji Yoshino's work is often moving and always clarifying.Coveringelaborates an original, arresting account of identity and authenticity in American culture.”
-Anthony Appiah, author ofThe Ethics of Identityand Laurance S. Rockefeller University Professor Of Philosophy at Princeton University

“This stunning book introduces three faces of the remarkable Kenji Yoshino: a writer of poetic beauty; a soul of rare reflectivity and decency; and a brilliant lawyer and scholar, passionately committed to uncovering human rights. Like W.E.B. DuBois'sThe Souls of Black Folkand Betty Friedan'sThe Feminine Mystique, this book fearlessly blends gripping narrative with insightful analysis to further the cause of human emancipation. And like those classics, it should explode into America's consciousness.”
-Harold Hongju Koh Dean, Yale Law School and former Assistant Secretary of State for Human Rights

“Coveringis a magnificent work - so eloquently and powerfully written I literally could not put it down. Sweeping in breadth, brilliantly argued, and filled with insight, humor, and erudition, it offers a fundamentally new perspective on civil rights and discrimination law. This extraordinary book is many things at once: an intensely moving personal memoir; a breathtaking historical and cultural synthesis of assimilation and American equality law; an explosive new paradigm for transcending the morass of identity politics; and in parts, pure poetry. No one interested in civil rights, sexuality, discrimination - or simply human flourishing - can afford to miss it.”
-Amy Chua, author ofWorld on Fire

“In this stunning, original book, Kenji Yoshino demonstrates that the struggle for gay rights is not only a struggle to liberate gays---it is a struggle to free all of us, straight and gay, male and female, white and black, from the pressures and temptations to cover vital aspects of ourselves anddeprive ourselves and others of our full humanity. Yoshino is both poet and lawyer, and by joining an exquisitely observed personal memoir with a historical analysis of civil rights, he shows why gay rights is so controversial at present,
why“covering” is the issue of contention, and why the “covering demand,” universal in application, is the civil rights issue of our time. This is a beautifully written, brilliant and hopeful book, offering a new understanding of what is at stake in our fight for
human rights.”
-Carol Gilligan, author ofIn a Different Voice
Rerations
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