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Event: The Launch of Shaun's New Book
Oct. 22nd, 2010 09:26 am
Date: Sunday, October 24 Time: 15.00 - 17.00
Place: King's Place
90 York Way, N1 9AG
London, United Kingdom
Please join Shaun Levin in celebrating his new book, based on moments in the life of the artist Mark Gertler, and published in a stunningly beautiful format by Sylph Editions (did someone say Christmas present material?).
Paperback: 32 pages
Publisher: Sylph Editions (September 15, 2010)
ISBN-10: 0956509258
ISBN-13: 978-0956509253
Amazon: The Bathers: Trees at a Sanatorium
The first edition of The Nobile Folios explores Bathers 1917-18 by the major British painter Mark Gertler (1891-1939). The painting is set alongside Shaun Levin’s original short story ‘Trees at a Sanatorium’.
Bathers 1917-18 was painted when Gertler was only 26 and dates from a period of intensive research into Cézanne. Bathers is amongst his seminal masterworks from the World War I period together with Gertler's iconic Merry-Go-Round 1916, (about which D. H. Lawrence said, to Gertler, that it ‘is the finest picture you have ever painted: it is the best modern picture I have seen.’)
Shaun Levin’s story ‘Trees at a Sanatorium’ was written specifically for this publication, and is part of his ongoing exploration of the lives of the artists Isaac Rosenberg, David Bomberg and Mark Gertler. Levin began work on his Whitechapel Boys trilogy working primarily in situ, writing in the places Gertler visited, whether out of choice or necessity, from the sanatorium at Banchory in Scotland, to Catalonia, Paris and the gardens at Garsington Manor. ‘Trees at a Sanatorium’ is a meditation on landscape and the importance of intimacy in artistic creation.
You can read a bit about the book by click on this link: http://www.sylpheditions.com/NobileFolios/Gertler/nf_1.html
Date: Sunday, October 24 
1.) Stone Butch Blues by Leslie Feinberg - Arrestingly plainspoken, deeply felt, passionate, heartbreaking, and yet profoundly consoling and hopeful. This book is also proof that not every novel now has to come out of a workshop or from someone with an MFA in Creative Writing. One shudders to think how a workshop might have sapped Feinberg's vision and passion. But we need not worry: s/he had the good sense to avoid it, and hir novel is better for it. 
2.) The Best Little Boy in the World by John Reid - My first "openly gay" book, and such a wonderful throwback. Good, old-fashioned self-hatred and inhibition are allowed, and it was even published under a pen name. ("John Reid" turned out to be finance guru and journalist Andrew Tobias.) And it's all so WASP-y, like me! Still closeted, I was scanning the shelves in a friend's apartment, and the second I saw the title The Best Little Boy in the World, I knew what it had to be about: the paralysis, the image-managing, always trying to say the right thing and do one's duty. And while we East Coast urbanites may think "all that's changed" for young gay men in 2010, it hasn't changed for any but the most privileged. (Not even: how privileged is Ken Mehlman?) I have not re-read Best Little Boy in years, but I am sure that today, 37 years after publication, it is still dead-on in terms of feelings. 
Bob the Book by David Pratt 
Since the first chapter I thought Hunter was not really up to his name; or maybe he was and for that reason he was also fated to experience a nightmare. A Demon Inside more than a paranormal novel is an horror: young and wealthy Hunter is all alone in the world; he is also heartbroken and of course he decides that he wants to detach himself from the world inside Beaumont House. Doesn’t matter that his parents died on the property, that his grandmother on her death bed told him to burn down the mansion, as soon as he is able to do that, he goes living there. And of course despite all the signs, and the proofs, that the mansion is haunted, he blindly searches for other reasons, almost driving off Michael, the one that probably is able to help him. 
Since the first chapter I thought Hunter was not really up to his name; or maybe he was and for that reason he was also fated to experience a nightmare. A Demon Inside more than a paranormal novel is an horror: young and wealthy Hunter is all alone in the world; he is also heartbroken and of course he decides that he wants to detach himself from the world inside Beaumont House. Doesn’t matter that his parents died on the property, that his grandmother on her death bed told him to burn down the mansion, as soon as he is able to do that, he goes living there. And of course despite all the signs, and the proofs, that the mansion is haunted, he blindly searches for other reasons, almost driving off Michael, the one that probably is able to help him.