SF LGBT Book Club

October 2011 Pick: Drawn from the secret, never-before-seen diaries, journals, and sexual records of the novelist, poet, and university professor Samuel M. Steward, "Secret Historian" is a sensational reconstruction of one of the more extraordinary hidden lives of the 20th century.

August 2011 Selection: With buoyant humor and incisive, cunning prose, Rahul Mehta sets off into uncharted literary territory. The characters in "Quarantine"--openly gay Indian-American men--are Westernized in some ways, with cosmopolitan views on friendship and sex, while struggling to maintain relationships with their families and cultural traditions. Grappling with the issues that concern all gay men--social acceptance, the right to pursue happiness, and the heavy toll of listening to their hearts and bodies--they confront an elder generation's attachment to old-country ways. Estranged from their cultural in-group and still set apart from larger society, the young men in these lyrical, provocative, emotionally wrenching, yet frequently funny stories find themselves quarantined. Already a runaway success in India, "Quarantine" marks the debut of a unique literary talent.

June 2011 Selection: Begun as a "joke," Orlando is Virginia Woolf's fantastical biography of a poet who first appears as a sixteen-year-old boy at the court of Elizabeth I, and is left at the novel's end a married woman in the year 1928. Part love letter to Vita Sackville-West, part exploration of the art of biography, Orlando is one of Woolf's most popular and entertaining works. This new annotated edition will deepen readers' understanding of Woolf's brilliant creation.

April 2011 Selection: John Perry did two things on his 75th birthday. First he visited his wife's grave. Then he joined the army. The good news is that humanity finally made it into interstellar space. The bad news is that planets fit to live on are scarce--and alien races willing to fight us for them are common. So: we fight. To defend Earth, and to stake our own claim to planetary real estate. Far from Earth, the war has been going on for decades: brutal, bloody, unyielding. Earth itself is a backwater. The bulk of humanity's resources are in the hands of the Colonial Defense Force. Everybody knows that when you reach retirement age, you can join the CDF. They don't want young people; they want people who carry the knowledge and skills of decades of living. You'll be taken off Earth and never allowed to return. You'll serve two years at the front. And if you survive, you'll be given a generous homestead stake of your own, on one of our hard-won colony planets. John Perry is taking that deal. He has only the vaguest idea what to expect. Because the actual fight, light-years from home, is far, far harder than he can imagine--and what he will become is far stranger.

February 2011 Selection: "One of the most unforgettable characters in contemporary literature" ("Pittsburgh Post-Gazette"), Eilis Lacey has come of age in small-town Ireland in the hard years following World War Two. When an Irish priest from Brooklyn offers to sponsor Eilis in America, she decides she must go, leaving her fragile mother and her charismatic sister behind. Eilis finds work in a department store on Fulton Street, and when she least expects it, finds love. Tony, who loves the Dodgers and his big Italian family, slowly wins her over with patient charm. But just as Eilis begins to fall in love, devastating news from Ireland threatens the promise of her future.

December 2010 Selection: David Sedaris's beloved holiday collection is new again with six more pieces, including a never before published story. Along with such favorites""as the diaries of a Macy's elf and the annals of two very competitive families, are Sedaris's tales of tardy trick-or-treaters ("Us and Them"); the difficulties of explaining the Easter Bunny to the French ("Jesus Shaves"); what to do when you've been locked out in a snowstorm ("Let It Snow"); the puzzling Christmas traditions of other nations ("Six to Eight Black Men"); what Halloween at the medical examiner's looks like ("The Monster Mash"); and a barnyard secret Santa scheme gone awry ("Cow and Turkey").

October 2010 Selection: In a voice at once ironic, wistful, witty, and profound, Mordden investigates his suspicion that all of gay life is stories and that, somehow or other, all these stories are about love.

August 2010 Selection: From the author of The Big Book of Lesbian Horse Stories comes this wickedly-funny parody of gay and lesbian pulp classics that weaves sex, mystery, murder, and mayhem into a highly entertaining romp.

March 2010 Selection: With an autobiographical afterword by the author, The Price of Salt is now recognized as a masterwork, the scandalous novel that anticipated Nabokov's Lolita.

January 2010 Selection: A classic of 20th-century fiction, Berlin Stories inspired the Broadway musical and Oscar-winning film Cabaret. This newly released paperback edition features an introduction by the acclaimed novelist Maupin.

November 2009 Selection: Twenty years have passed since Joseph left his family and his religious Israeli community where he fell in love with a man, the brilliant rabbi Yoel Rosenzweig. Now, for his 50th birthday, Joseph is preparing to have his five sons and the daughter-in-law he has never met spend the Sabbath with him in his Tel Aviv penthouse. This will be the first time he and his sons will have all been together in nearly two decades.

July 2009 Selection: Thom Creed is used to being on his own. Even as a highschool basketball star, he has to keep his distance because of his father. Hal Creed had once been one of the greatest and most beloved superheroes of The League--until the Wilson Towers incident. After that Thom's mother disappeared and his proud father became an outcast. The last thing in the world Thom would ever want is to disappoint his father. So Thom keeps two secrets from him: First is that he's gay. The second is that he has the power to heal people. Initially, Thom had trouble controlling his powers. But with trail and error he improves, until he gets so good that he catches the attention of the League and is asked to join. Even though he knows it would kill his dad, Thom can't resist. When he joins the League, he meets a motely crew of other heroes, including tough-talking Scarlett, who has the power of fire from growing up near a nuclear power plant; Typhoid Larry, who makes everyone sick by touching them, but is actually a really sweet guy; and wise Ruth, who has the power to see the future. Together these unlikely heroes become friends and begin to uncover a plot to kill the superheroes. Along the way, Thom falls in love, and discovers the difficult truth about his parents' past. This is a moving, funny, and wonderfully original novel that shows that things are not always what they seem, and love can be found in the unlikeliest of places.

April 2009 Selection: Originally published in 1982 as the first of Edmund White's trilogy of autobiographical novels, "A Boy's Own Story" became an instant classic for its pioneering portrayal of homosexuality. The book's unnamed narrator, growing up during the 1950s, is beset by aloof parents, a cruel sister, and relentless mocking from his peers, compelling him to seek out works of art and literature as solace and to uncover new relationships in the struggle to embrace his own sexuality. Lyrical and poignant, with powerful evocations of shame and yearning, this is an American literary treasure.

February 2009 Selection: From the bestselling author of "The Confessions of Max Tivoli," a love story full of secrets and astonishments set in 1950s San Francisco "We think we know the ones we love." So Pearlie Cook begins her indirect and devastating exploration of the mystery at the heart of every relationship, how we can ever truly know another person. It is 1953 and Pearlie, a dutiful housewife, finds herself living in the Sunset district of San Francisco, caring not only for her husband's fragile health but also for her son, who is afflicted with polio. Then, one Saturday morning, a stranger appears on her doorstep and everything changes. All the certainties by which Pearlie has lived are thrown into doubt. Does she know her husband at all? And what does the stranger want in return for his offer of $100,000? For six months in 1953, young Pearlie Cook struggles to understand the world around her, most especially her husband, Holland. Pearlie's story is a meditation not only on love but also on the effects of war--with one war just over and another one in Korea coming to a close. Set in a climate of fear and repression--political, sexual, and racial--"The Story of a Marriage "portrays three people trapped by the confines of their era, and the desperate measures they are prepared to take to escape it. Lyrical and surprising, "The Story of a Marriage "looks back at a period that we tend to misremember as one of innocence and simplicity. Like Ford Madox Ford's "The Good Soldier," Andrew Sean Greer's novel is a narrative tour de force that confirms him as "one of the most talented writers around" (Michael Chabon).

November 2008 Selection: "Mississippi Sissy" is destined to become an American classic In a book that echoes the time-honored fiction of Harper Lee and Flannery O'Connor and memoirs by Mary Karr and Augusten Burroughs, Kevin Sessums brings the American South and the experiences of a strange little Mississippi boy to life.