In the Spotlight: Bob Smith

The Book: When a burned-out Hollywood sketch show writer named Nelson Kunker meets and falls for Roy Briggs, a part-time salmon fisherman/full-time archaeology student who's visiting from Alaska, hilarity, love, and debauchery ensue.

Bob Smith has the distinction of being the first openly gay comedian to appear on The Tonight Show and also have his own episode of HBO Comedy Half-Hour. He lives in New York.

Amazon: Selfish and Perverse
Paperback: 370 pages
Publisher: Alyson Books (September 1, 2009)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1593501498
ISBN-13: 978-1593501495

Other Books in the List:

Remembrance of Things I Forgot: A Novel by Bob Smith
Amazon: Remembrance of Things I Forgot: A Novel
Hardcover: 224 pages
Publisher: University of Wisconsin Press; 1 edition (June 9, 2011)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0299283402
ISBN-13: 978-0299283407

The Author: Bob Smith is an American comedian and author. Smith, born in Buffalo, New York, was the first openly gay comedian to appear on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson and the first openly gay comedian to have his own HBO half-hour comedy special. Smith, along with fellow comedians Jaffe Cohen and Danny McWilliams, formed the comedy troupe "Funny Gay Males" in 1988.

With Funny Gay Males, Smith is the co-author of Growing Up Gay: From Left Out to Coming Out (1995). Smith is also the author of two books of biographical essays. Openly Bob (1997) received a Lambda Literary Award for best humor book. Way to Go, Smith! (1999) was nominated for a Lambda in the same category. Smith published his first novel, Selfish and Perverse, in 2007. (Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Smith_(comedian))

Top 100 Gay Novels List (*)

External Link to the Top100 Gay Novels List (simple - without photos)

External Link to the Top 100 Gay Novels List (wanted - with photos)

*only one title per author, only print books released after January 1, 2000.

Note: I remember to my friends that guest reviews of the above listed books (the top 100 Gay Novels) are welcome, just send them to me and I will post with full credits to the reviewer.

Other titles not in the top 100 list:

http://www.librarything.com/catalog/top50MM

Gay Knights and Horny Heroes by Michael Gouda

This was for sure an unexpected novel; I have to admit, I opened it lured by the cover and the title, expecting to read a light tale and instead I closed it with a bittersweet taste in my soul and maybe even a tears or two wanting to fall down.

Sure, the story starts in the most “naughty” way, imagining an all male court of Camelot, where the mighty Knights of King Arthur enjoy the naked beauty of young servants; the same King Arthur has an open and joyful relationship with Sir Lancelot and so his various knights with squires or peasants, depending on each man preferences.

Each chapter is a tale of a different knight, Lancelot, Gareth, Peveril, Ulric, Quentin and so on; while introducing the different knight, the author maintains a light tone, focusing on the different relationship each knight intertwines with their chosen partner. But more or less at the middle of the book, with the starting of the betrayal of Sir Morion, the previous favourite knight of King Arthur before the newly arrived Sir Lancelot took his place, the tone suddenly change, so suddenly that I almost didn’t have the time to realize it, and the end was even more a punch in the gut for that reason.

I’m not saying it was a full drama, but it resembles more some troubadour tale (and sometime they were not happily ever after tale) than the light romance I thought I was reading. In a way I think this change in tone made the story more epic and poetic, so that it will probably appeal to a more literary reader than a full romance would have been. Now don’t think this is an historical tale, the author took plenty of licenses on the history, for example having the court of Camelot in a Norman era, while, like the same author highlighted in the postnote and I also remembered from my own study, King Arthur if indeed existed, probably lived in the 6th century.

I know it’s stupid to feel sad for fictional characters, but some of them, like Gareth and Ulric, where so kind and tender, that I was hoping for them to have their own happily ever after within the main story that is the one of King Arthur with Sir Lancelot. More since I think the author wanted to write a satirical story, a farce, and he was doing it quite well, the stories of Peveril is, for example, very funny, but also the same introduction to the book, with the description of the court and its inhabitants. For this and other reasons when the tragedy struck, I was not prepared.

http://www.dreamspinnerpress.com/store/product_info.php?products_id=2268

Amazon Kindle: Gay Knights and Horny Heroes: Tales from the Court of King Arthur
Publisher: Dreamspinner Press (April 12, 2011)

Reading List:



http://www.librarything.com/catalog_bottom.php?tag=reading list&view=elisa.rolle


Cover Art by Paul Richmond

Gay Knights and Horny Heroes by Michael Gouda

This was for sure an unexpected novel; I have to admit, I opened it lured by the cover and the title, expecting to read a light tale and instead I closed it with a bittersweet taste in my soul and maybe even a tears or two wanting to fall down.

Sure, the story starts in the most “naughty” way, imagining an all male court of Camelot, where the mighty Knights of King Arthur enjoy the naked beauty of young servants; the same King Arthur has an open and joyful relationship with Sir Lancelot and so his various knights with squires or peasants, depending on each man preferences.

Each chapter is a tale of a different knight, Lancelot, Gareth, Peveril, Ulric, Quentin and so on; while introducing the different knight, the author maintains a light tone, focusing on the different relationship each knight intertwines with their chosen partner. But more or less at the middle of the book, with the starting of the betrayal of Sir Morion, the previous favourite knight of King Arthur before the newly arrived Sir Lancelot took his place, the tone suddenly change, so suddenly that I almost didn’t have the time to realize it, and the end was even more a punch in the gut for that reason.

I’m not saying it was a full drama, but it resembles more some troubadour tale (and sometime they were not happily ever after tale) than the light romance I thought I was reading. In a way I think this change in tone made the story more epic and poetic, so that it will probably appeal to a more literary reader than a full romance would have been. Now don’t think this is an historical tale, the author took plenty of licenses on the history, for example having the court of Camelot in a Norman era, while, like the same author highlighted in the postnote and I also remembered from my own study, King Arthur if indeed existed, probably lived in the 6th century.

I know it’s stupid to feel sad for fictional characters, but some of them, like Gareth and Ulric, where so kind and tender, that I was hoping for them to have their own happily ever after within the main story that is the one of King Arthur with Sir Lancelot. More since I think the author wanted to write a satirical story, a farce, and he was doing it quite well, the stories of Peveril is, for example, very funny, but also the same introduction to the book, with the description of the court and its inhabitants. For this and other reasons when the tragedy struck, I was not prepared.

http://www.dreamspinnerpress.com/store/product_info.php?products_id=2268

Amazon Kindle: Gay Knights and Horny Heroes: Tales from the Court of King Arthur
Publisher: Dreamspinner Press (April 12, 2011)

Reading List:



http://www.librarything.com/catalog_bottom.php?tag=reading list&view=elisa.rolle


Cover Art by Paul Richmond