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Top 100 Inside Readers List
Sep. 3rd, 2010 09:10 pmHere we are to the second yearly appointment with the Top 100 Inside Readers List, i.e. the top 100 books “my” Inside Readers compiled. At today the Inside Readers are almost 80, all LGBT authors of various experience. To assign the rank I again used LibraryThing, but all these books are recommendation from the authors and there is no limitation of release date or genre. So enjoy! Half a year ago I detailed the first 10 books, this time another 10...
1) Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides: Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides. This very funny book, which opens with “I was born twice: first, as a baby girl, on a remarkably smogless Detroit day in January of 1960; and then again, as a teenage boy, in an emergency room near Petoskey, Michigan, in August of 1974.” is about a good many things, including Greek relatives, genetics, gender, , silk worms, and Detroit. The main character is a hermaphrodite. Simply one of the best books I've ever read. --Lynn Flewelling
2) The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay by Michael Chabon: The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Klay by Michael Chabon. The characters in this novel are so real, so touching, and so heartbreaking. I get all verklempt just thinking about it. --Astrid Amara
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Klay by Michael Chabon. I forget exactly why I picked up this novel initially, but I wasn’t fifty pages in before I was preparing to shelve it next to American Gods as a favorite novel—and this was before I knew one of the main characters was gay. Somehow I managed to go into this story so cold that I discovered Sammy’s orientation right along with him, which is a gift I’ll always cherish. (I realize I’ve just ruined it for anyone reading this who didn’t know. Ah. Sorry!) But the Sammy’s sexual journey is just one facet of the novel. It’s set in the period around the second World War, and overall it is a story of loss and change and growth. Not growing up, exactly. Just growth. Growth of a country, of the comic book industry, of men, of families. Loss of innocence, loss of love, of life. There are missed opportunities and opportunities made out of sorrow. The book is just so big I don’t know how to describe it. It’s a rich tapestry of lives and character and hope built out of great loss. It’s also flat-out a wonderful novel about men. --Heidi Cullinan
3) The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin: I read this in college, as part of a class on science fiction literature. Not only is the writing superb, but the story just drew me right in. What I remember most, though, is this book presenting me with my first opportunity to really talk about what it means to be a woman or a man or neither or both, what it means to be straight or gay or bisexual. If nothing else, this book is the perfect starting point for some fascinating, NECESSARY conversations. –J.M. Snyder
I read all of her novels and stories as they come out, but this early book about a world of winter where people change -- seriously change -- with the seasons is one of her best still. LeGuin has this uncanny ability to make you feel, believe and at the same time be rapt in wonder at what she can write of. Sci-Fi for people who don’t usually read sci-fi. –Felice Picano
This was my first gender-bending book, and it had and has a deep appeal for me. What if people did change genders monthly? What a wonderful, equal world it would be! 'Nuff said! --Lynn Flewelling
4) A Separate Peace by John Knowles: While not blatantly a gay novel, any young gay man who read it in school knows its power. Knowles was a gay man and infused his writing with the pathos and desire that only gay people can know. This was the first gay romantic relationship I had ever read about, and the fact that teachers don´t comment on the underlying love affair when teaching is a true careless disservice to the book and gay youth. –Eric Arvin
But back in the day, I read a LOT of plays. So while everyone else might have been reading “A Separate Peace” in school, like my daughter, and discovering that they had questions about relationships that seemed to blur the lines between friendship and something more between two men or two women, I was reading “The Children’s Hour” and “Cat On A Hot Tin Roof” and wondering about the same thing. –Z.A. Maxfield
5) Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh: Ah, male costume drama! I saw the Masterpiece Theater series first, and forever imprinted on the cast. The book was lovely, fraught with not-so-thinly veiled homoeroticism, angst, and pathos. I remember the acerbic scenes between Charles and his father being a deliciously vivid contrast to his dreamy Oxford days with Sebastian and his teddy. Watching Sebastian's slow self destruction was heart breaking, as was Charles' projection of his forbidden feelings for Sebastian onto Julia, with tragic results. --Lynn Flewelling
6) Orlando by Virginia Woolf: A classic in so many ways, the history behind this book makes the meaning and the layers even more eloquent and opens up a whole new world of interpretation. Essentially a love letter to one of Woolf’s partners, Vita Sackville-West, Orlando is a coded lesbian romance. Orlando is a nobleman who simply decides through his own will that he will never grow old. He moves through the centuries, has many romances and even changes sex, becoming the Lady Orlando. It was because of the gender-bendering and ‘fantastical’ elements that Woolf could, at the time, explore gender and sexuality in a way that had never been done before. It is a brilliant work that should be read by everybody. –Sean Kennedy
7) Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe by Fannie Flagg: I´m a fan of the Southern gothic genre, as you will learn by the end of this post. Fannie Flagg captures the genre beautifully with a tale that centers on an "alternative family" in Depression-era Alabama. Whether you interpret tomboy Idgie and her best friend Ruth´s relationship as that of closet lesbians or nonsexual life partners, the unarguable fact remains that in raising a son and running a business together, these two women share a bond over several years that transcends both platonic and romantic love. I cry every time I read the book or watch the movie, yet I also laugh out loud throughout. This whimsical tale not only holds a place in my top ten GLBT reads, but in my top five favorite books, period. –Katrina Strauss
8) Dry by Augusten Burroughs: I did a lot of drinking in order to finish the manuscript of my most recent novel, “The Wolf at the Door”, in part, because the narrator heavily imbibes in order to survive his chaotic job at a guesthouse in New Orleans where he imagines he is seeing ghosts and angels and all sorts of oddities. Augusten Burrough’s memoir “Dry” is all about the author’s zeal to quench his addictive behavior with the bottle. It’s superbly crafted, full of angst and wit, particularly as the author seeks to remain sober and avoid a romance with an overly handsome crack addict. Another book readers might want to explore is Charles Jackson’s 1944 novel “The Lost Weekend”, about a man who cannot let go of his desire to drink. And note: all of the gay material in the novel was excised when it became the Oscar winning film. –Jameson Currier
Burroughs soul searing honesty regarding his alcoholism is what kept me turning page after page of this haunting memoir. There is no self pity here, no whining, just a blunt appraisal of the mess he was making of his life. Riveting. All his memoirs are exceptional reads, e.g. Running With Scissors, but Dry remains my favorite. –J.P. Bowie
9) Magical Thinking: True Stories by Augusten Burroughs: Rather than the more famous “Running With Scissors,” which I have to admit I haven't read, this is a hilarious series of essays in which the very gay Burroughs lets all his neuroses hang out. –Kyell Gold
10) Tipping the Velvet by Sarah Waters: In 2003-ish, there was a BBC miniseries based on this book. A good friend of mine called and invited herself over to watch it with me. I’d never even heard of Sarah Waters, but I genuinely enjoyed the miniseries, enough so that I went out and bought the book. I love a good Victorian epic, and I still think this is one of the best I’ve ever read. I think I also really identified with Nan, and it’s fun to watch her blossom over the course of the book. –Kate McMurray
( books from 11 to 100 )
1) Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides: Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides. This very funny book, which opens with “I was born twice: first, as a baby girl, on a remarkably smogless Detroit day in January of 1960; and then again, as a teenage boy, in an emergency room near Petoskey, Michigan, in August of 1974.” is about a good many things, including Greek relatives, genetics, gender, , silk worms, and Detroit. The main character is a hermaphrodite. Simply one of the best books I've ever read. --Lynn Flewelling 2) The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay by Michael Chabon: The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Klay by Michael Chabon. The characters in this novel are so real, so touching, and so heartbreaking. I get all verklempt just thinking about it. --Astrid Amara The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Klay by Michael Chabon. I forget exactly why I picked up this novel initially, but I wasn’t fifty pages in before I was preparing to shelve it next to American Gods as a favorite novel—and this was before I knew one of the main characters was gay. Somehow I managed to go into this story so cold that I discovered Sammy’s orientation right along with him, which is a gift I’ll always cherish. (I realize I’ve just ruined it for anyone reading this who didn’t know. Ah. Sorry!) But the Sammy’s sexual journey is just one facet of the novel. It’s set in the period around the second World War, and overall it is a story of loss and change and growth. Not growing up, exactly. Just growth. Growth of a country, of the comic book industry, of men, of families. Loss of innocence, loss of love, of life. There are missed opportunities and opportunities made out of sorrow. The book is just so big I don’t know how to describe it. It’s a rich tapestry of lives and character and hope built out of great loss. It’s also flat-out a wonderful novel about men. --Heidi Cullinan
3) The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin: I read this in college, as part of a class on science fiction literature. Not only is the writing superb, but the story just drew me right in. What I remember most, though, is this book presenting me with my first opportunity to really talk about what it means to be a woman or a man or neither or both, what it means to be straight or gay or bisexual. If nothing else, this book is the perfect starting point for some fascinating, NECESSARY conversations. –J.M. Snyder I read all of her novels and stories as they come out, but this early book about a world of winter where people change -- seriously change -- with the seasons is one of her best still. LeGuin has this uncanny ability to make you feel, believe and at the same time be rapt in wonder at what she can write of. Sci-Fi for people who don’t usually read sci-fi. –Felice Picano
This was my first gender-bending book, and it had and has a deep appeal for me. What if people did change genders monthly? What a wonderful, equal world it would be! 'Nuff said! --Lynn Flewelling
4) A Separate Peace by John Knowles: While not blatantly a gay novel, any young gay man who read it in school knows its power. Knowles was a gay man and infused his writing with the pathos and desire that only gay people can know. This was the first gay romantic relationship I had ever read about, and the fact that teachers don´t comment on the underlying love affair when teaching is a true careless disservice to the book and gay youth. –Eric Arvin But back in the day, I read a LOT of plays. So while everyone else might have been reading “A Separate Peace” in school, like my daughter, and discovering that they had questions about relationships that seemed to blur the lines between friendship and something more between two men or two women, I was reading “The Children’s Hour” and “Cat On A Hot Tin Roof” and wondering about the same thing. –Z.A. Maxfield
5) Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh: Ah, male costume drama! I saw the Masterpiece Theater series first, and forever imprinted on the cast. The book was lovely, fraught with not-so-thinly veiled homoeroticism, angst, and pathos. I remember the acerbic scenes between Charles and his father being a deliciously vivid contrast to his dreamy Oxford days with Sebastian and his teddy. Watching Sebastian's slow self destruction was heart breaking, as was Charles' projection of his forbidden feelings for Sebastian onto Julia, with tragic results. --Lynn Flewelling 6) Orlando by Virginia Woolf: A classic in so many ways, the history behind this book makes the meaning and the layers even more eloquent and opens up a whole new world of interpretation. Essentially a love letter to one of Woolf’s partners, Vita Sackville-West, Orlando is a coded lesbian romance. Orlando is a nobleman who simply decides through his own will that he will never grow old. He moves through the centuries, has many romances and even changes sex, becoming the Lady Orlando. It was because of the gender-bendering and ‘fantastical’ elements that Woolf could, at the time, explore gender and sexuality in a way that had never been done before. It is a brilliant work that should be read by everybody. –Sean Kennedy 7) Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe by Fannie Flagg: I´m a fan of the Southern gothic genre, as you will learn by the end of this post. Fannie Flagg captures the genre beautifully with a tale that centers on an "alternative family" in Depression-era Alabama. Whether you interpret tomboy Idgie and her best friend Ruth´s relationship as that of closet lesbians or nonsexual life partners, the unarguable fact remains that in raising a son and running a business together, these two women share a bond over several years that transcends both platonic and romantic love. I cry every time I read the book or watch the movie, yet I also laugh out loud throughout. This whimsical tale not only holds a place in my top ten GLBT reads, but in my top five favorite books, period. –Katrina Strauss 8) Dry by Augusten Burroughs: I did a lot of drinking in order to finish the manuscript of my most recent novel, “The Wolf at the Door”, in part, because the narrator heavily imbibes in order to survive his chaotic job at a guesthouse in New Orleans where he imagines he is seeing ghosts and angels and all sorts of oddities. Augusten Burrough’s memoir “Dry” is all about the author’s zeal to quench his addictive behavior with the bottle. It’s superbly crafted, full of angst and wit, particularly as the author seeks to remain sober and avoid a romance with an overly handsome crack addict. Another book readers might want to explore is Charles Jackson’s 1944 novel “The Lost Weekend”, about a man who cannot let go of his desire to drink. And note: all of the gay material in the novel was excised when it became the Oscar winning film. –Jameson Currier Burroughs soul searing honesty regarding his alcoholism is what kept me turning page after page of this haunting memoir. There is no self pity here, no whining, just a blunt appraisal of the mess he was making of his life. Riveting. All his memoirs are exceptional reads, e.g. Running With Scissors, but Dry remains my favorite. –J.P. Bowie
9) Magical Thinking: True Stories by Augusten Burroughs: Rather than the more famous “Running With Scissors,” which I have to admit I haven't read, this is a hilarious series of essays in which the very gay Burroughs lets all his neuroses hang out. –Kyell Gold 10) Tipping the Velvet by Sarah Waters: In 2003-ish, there was a BBC miniseries based on this book. A good friend of mine called and invited herself over to watch it with me. I’d never even heard of Sarah Waters, but I genuinely enjoyed the miniseries, enough so that I went out and bought the book. I love a good Victorian epic, and I still think this is one of the best I’ve ever read. I think I also really identified with Nan, and it’s fun to watch her blossom over the course of the book. –Kate McMurray ( books from 11 to 100 )
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