Category Archives: What’cha Reading

Next Monday Boston’s Gay Men’s Book Club will meet in the Back Bay at the Trident Booksellers & Cafe on Newbury Street to discuss, Pale Fire, by Russian author, Vladimir Nabokov.

Nabokov’s 1962 999-line poem / novel titled “Pale Fire” is written by the fictional poet John Shade, with a foreword written by Shade’s neighbor and academic colleague, Charles Kinbote. Together these elements form a narrative in which both fictional authors are central characters.

I’m currently reading a great book that has captured my imagination called, A Discovery of Witches. It is an historical-fantasy novel by Deborah Harkness, that centers on Diana Bishop, an alchemical history professor at The University of Oxford who is compelled to embrace her magical heritage, which she has ignored and engage in a forbidden romance with a charming vampire.

If you’ve read anything lately that you enjoyed, please share it in the comments section of this blog, because at the rate I’m reading this book, I’ll be looking for suggestions very soon. I’m open to all genres.

Are you looking for an alternative to bars to get out and meet people? Boston’s Gay Men’s Book Club which meets each month at the Trident Booksellers & Cafe might be worth checking out. Each month this group gathers to socialize and discuss a different book in one of my favorite bookshops in Boston.

Later this month they will reconvene in the Back Bay to talk about the 2014 book by John Waters, Carsick: John Waters Hitchhkes Across America.  You can read The New York Times’ review here.

All are welcome to join when the group meets on Monday, January 23rd at 7:00 PM at the Trident Booksellers and Cafe located near Mass Ave at 338 Newbury Street.  Be sure to sign up to the “Meet Up” group and RSVP, here.

You can purchase a copy of the book on Amazon here.

With the holidays in full swing and Christmas in less than two weeks a lot of you may be hopping on planes and traveling to get back to family.  Should you be looking for recommendations for gay themed novels to pass the time while you are traveling or off from work, I wanted to point out the blog Gay Book Reviews.

Most of the reviews are of gay romance novels, which isn’t exactly my favorite genre but there are some mysteries and suspense novels interspersed. I want to see more LGBT-themed literature regardless of the genre so I wanted to give the site a shout out to encourage anyone looking for book suggestions to check out the blog.  Links are provided to Amazon.com for the books that are reviewed to make it easier to download to your kindle or order online for delivery.

Gay Book Reviews blog 
Gay Book Reviews is a permanent link in my Blogroll

By day I’m a marketing schmuck who works for a consulting firm where I address the role data plays (or should play) in organizations to help them gain better insights into everything they do so when I saw this word cloud I thought it was pretty cool. The website informationisbeautiful.net has a bunch of different word clouds on a wide variety of topics.

This word cloud was compiled from a consensus of top book lists and prizes. If you click on the link below you can interact with the word cloud by looking at the demographics and gender. Each book also provides a link to its page on Amazon.

Novels Everyone Should Read

My reading preferences err towards books few have read in part due to genre preferences so I was surprised to see that I read 37 of the suggested novels.

For those of you who are nervous about a Trump Administration, I would recommend you buy Michelangelo Signorile’s book, It’s Not Over. 

Signorile postulates that the progress the LGBTQ community has made during the Obama Administration has infuriated the Right and stiffened the resolve of social conservatives who are determined to win this cultural war.  He also turns a critical eye to many of our supposed “allies” in Washington, the media and Hollywood  who too often remain complacent and in the words of the book “become a roadblock to progress.”

While I doubt Signorile could’ve predicted a Trump victory, much of what he warns of happening in his book does appear to unfold. Take heart by taking a closer look at his suggestions for how to combat those darker forces in our society and politics, which now feel emboldened by a Trump Presidency. With roughly half of all Americans casting their vote for Donald Trump, the next two years must be spent building bridges with those who voted for Trump as a protest against Clinton but typically vote Democrat and also rallying those who opted not to go to the polls to ensure even more Americans vote in 2020.

Boston’s monthly book club, featuring literature by and about gay men has selected Salón de Belleza by Mario Bellatin for the November book.  All are welcome to the monthly get together on Monday, November 14th at 7:00 PM at the Trident Booksellers and Cafe on Newbury Street in the Back Bay.

Boston’s Monthly LGBT Book Club
Monday, November 14th at 7:00 PM
Trident Booksellers & Cafe at 338 Newbury Street
More information and to RSVP

ABOUT BEAUTY SALON: “Like much of Mr. Bellatin’s work, Beauty Salon is pithy, allegorical and profoundly disturbing, with a plot that evokes The Plague by Camus or Blindness by José Saramago.”–New York Times

Local author, Scott Pomfret, has a new book that looks ideal for summer reading. While I’ve yet to read the book, I liked the review Edge Media shared and thought I’d pass this along to anyone looking for some light summer reading.

“Give my boy ninety-nine solid choices and one disastrous one, and he’ll choose disaster every time.”

Those harsh words are spoken by Loretta Stone, not out of judgment but concern and pity for her son, Peyton, the subject of Scott Pomfret’s exciting, touching new romance, “The Second Half: A Gay American Football Novel.”

Click here to read Edge Media’s full book review for The Second Half: A Gay American Football Story. You can purchase the book on Amazon.com here.

Looking for an alternative to bars? Boston’s Gay Men’s Book Club which meets each month at the Trident Booksellers and Cafe might be the perfect option. Each month this group gathers to socialize and discuss a different book in one of my favorite bookshops in Boston.

Next Monday this group will reconvene in the Back Bay to talk about the 2014 fictionalized biography of E.M. Forster, Arctic Summer by Damon Galgut.  The New York Times’ Thomas Mallon wrote this piece in praise of the book back in September 2014, “A Closet With a View”.  

All are welcome to join when the group meets on Monday, June 20th at 7:00 PM at the Trident Booksellers and Cafe located near Mass Ave at 338 Newbury Street.  Be sure to sign up to the “Meet Up” group and RSVP, here.

You can purchase a copy of the book on Amazon here.

Looking for an alternative to bars? Boston’s Gay Men’s Book Club which meets each month at the Trident Booksellers and Cafe might be the perfect option. Each month this group gathers to socialize and discuss a different book in one of my favorite bookshops in Boston.

In May the group will reconvene in the Back Bay to talk about the 2015 Best Seller, 720-page A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara.  The New York Times’ Jon Michaud wrote this piece in praise of the book back in April 2015, The Subversive Brilliance of “A Little Life”. 

All are welcome to join when the group next meets on Monday, May 23rd at 7:00 PM at the Trident Booksellers and Cafe located near Mass Ave at 338 Newbury Street.  Be sure to sign up to the “Meet Up” group and RSVP, here.

You can purchase a copy of the book on Amazon here.