![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
The Inside Reader: Felice Picano
Feb. 19th, 2010 10:15 amShow me the books he loves and I shall know the man far better than through mortal friends - Silas Weir MitchellWhen I started to browse the mainstream LGBT themed novels outside the Romance genre, there were some names that always popped out, like Edmund White, Andrew Holleran and Felice Picano. Probably for the "italian" sound of his name, that of Felice Picano was the one that rang again and again in my mind, above all when authors started to list his Ambidextrous in their Top 10. Recently I had also the chance to contact him about his reading in Los Angeles for the presentation of 50 Gay and Lesbian Books Everybody Must Read, and he was so kind to reply and tell me that, indeed, the reading went quite good and people attended (I hope someone in my friends list was among them ;-) I told you to go!). And so, obviously, I HAD to ask him for his Top 10, hadn't I? Probably Felice Picano gives us the most "classic" list of all posted till now, I'm sure many of you will enjoy it.
Felice Picano’s Ten Favorite GLBT Books (in aphabetical order by author)
1) Hindoo Holiday by J.R. Ackerley (1935). All of this early 20th Century Briton’s books are worth reading. But none are as complex and delicious as this memoir slash travel book. Ackerly was invited by the middle-aged, immensely wealthy, Shakespeare-obsessed Rajah of Chhondrapur in India to come tutor his teenaged actor boyfriend in English literature and to help run their version of the Royal Shakespeare Theater’s tour of India. The clash of cultures and personalities is by turns perplexing, hilarious and sour-sweet sad. Paperback: 320 pages
Publisher: NYRB Classics; First Edition. first thus edition (January 31, 2000)
Publisher Link: http://www.nybooks.com/shop/product?usca_p=t&product_id=16
ISBN-10: 0940322250
ISBN-13: 978-0940322257
Amazon: Hindoo Holiday
In the 1920s, the young J. R. Ackerley spent several months in India as the personal secretary to the maharajah of a small Indian principality. In his journals, Ackerley recorded the Maharajah's fantastically eccentric habits and riddling conversations, and the odd shambling day-to-day life of his court. Hindoo Holiday is an intimate and very funny account of an exceedingly strange place, and one of the masterpieces of twentieth-century travel literature.
( books from 2 to 11 )
About Felice Picano: Felice Picano is the author of 19 books, including the literary memoirs Ambidextrous, Men Who Loved Me, and A House on the Ocean, a House on the Bay as well as the best-selling novels Like People in History, Looking Glass Lives, The Lure, and Eyes.
He is the founder of Sea Horse Press, one of the first gay publishing houses, which later merged with two other publishing houses to become the Gay Presses of New York.
With Andrew Holleran, Robert Ferro, Edmund White, and George Whitmore, he founded the Violet Quill Club to promote and increase the visibility of gay authors and their works.
He has edited and written for The Advocate, Blueboy, Mandate, GaysWeek, Christopher Street, and Books Editor of The New York Native and has been a culture reviewer for The Los Angeles Examiner, San Francisco Examiner, New York Native, Harvard Lesbian & Gay Review, and the Lambda Book Report.
He has won the Ferro-Grumley Award for best gay novel (Like People in History) and the PEN Syndicated Fiction Award for short-story. He was a finalist for the Ernest Hemingway Award and has been nominated for three Lambda Literary Awards.
A native of New York, Felice Picano now lives in Los Angeles.
The Lure by Felice Picano Paperback: 267 pages
Publisher: Bold Strokes Books; Reprint edition (March 24, 2009)
Publisher Link: http://boldstrokesbookshop.com/products.php?product=Lure%2C-The-%252d-by-Felice-Picano
ISBN-10: 1602820767
ISBN-13: 978-1602820760
Amazon: The Lure
Noel Cummings’s life is about to change irrevocably. After witnessing a brutal murder, Noel is recruited to assist the police by acting as the lure for a killer who has been targeting gay men. Undercover, Noel moves deeper and deeper into the dark side of Manhattan's gay life that stirs his own secret desires—until he forgets he is only playing a role.
1) Hindoo Holiday by J.R. Ackerley (1935). All of this early 20th Century Briton’s books are worth reading. But none are as complex and delicious as this memoir slash travel book. Ackerly was invited by the middle-aged, immensely wealthy, Shakespeare-obsessed Rajah of Chhondrapur in India to come tutor his teenaged actor boyfriend in English literature and to help run their version of the Royal Shakespeare Theater’s tour of India. The clash of cultures and personalities is by turns perplexing, hilarious and sour-sweet sad. 
The Lure by Felice Picano