Top Ten Tuesdays is a weekly meme hosted by The Broke and The Bookish. This week we’re sharing ten books we “wouldn’t mind” getting for Christmas.
- How to Be Gay by David M. Halperin
: I need this book on my shelf so I can a) reference it at any time b) try to push it on friends and c) use it for writing inspiration. The library could never lend it to me for a long enough period of time.
- Almost President: The Men Who Lost the Race But Changed the Nation by Scott Farris
: I am just a nerd.
- All We Know: Three Lives by Lisa Cohen
: Biographies of three “forgotten” but culturally important lesbians? A Publishers Weekly’s Top 10 Best Books of 2012?
- Moving Politics: Emotion and ACT UP’s Fight against AIDS by Deborah B. Gould
: I am so fascinated and inspired by the amazing activism and work ACT UP! has done, and I’m hoping this book provides a good history of the organization.
- Eminent Outlaws: The Gay Writers Who Changed America by Christopher Bram
: Hopefully Grand Central’s Twelve imprint will also publish a similar book about gay women writers? Perhaps?
- Celluloid Activist: The Life and Times of Vito Russo by Michael R. Schiav
: My love for Vito Russo’s classic The Celluloid Closet: Homosexuality in the Movies (Triangle Classics)
knows no bounds; now I’d just like to know more about the man who wrote it.
- Hard Times: The Adult Musical in 1970s New York City by Elizabeth L. Wollman
: I missed this title when it was up on Netgalley and, yeah, it needs to be on my bookshelf.
- Transgressive Tales: Queering the Grimms (Fairy-Tale Studies) by Kay Turner
: I am really into ABC’s Once Upon a Time, but it is severely lacking in non-sub-textual gay characters (not to mention non-villainous characters of color, but that’s another story). Queer retellings of fairy tales from a University press? Much needed.
- Before the Storm: Barry Goldwater and the Unmaking of the American Consensus by Rick Perlstein
: I keep talking about my love for Perlstein’s NIXONLAND but I’ve yet to read his other book about Barry Goldwater. My library doesn’t even have it.
- Fire in the Belly: The Life and Times of David Wojnarowicz by Cynthia Carr
: I guess Christmas to me=long biographies of queer luminaries?
You might notice that this list is, um, all non-fiction. I am weird with the books I keep on my bookshelves: favorite novels, non-fiction about politics or biographies, and LGBT/queer books of any kind. When it comes to gifts, though, I’m open to most things, particularly books other people enjoyed that I might not have picked up on my own.
While writing this post, I purchased The Patriarch: The Remarkable Life and Turbulent Times of Joseph P. Kennedy
How To Be Gay just got added to my reading list this weekend. I’m utterly fascinated with the concept of learned queer culture, especially since I’m usually painfully aware I’m outside of it. And I should probably hit up The Celluloid Closet soon—I have seen the documentary based on it. Which would you suggest over the other?
The documentary has nothing on the book. For selfish reasons I’d recommend reading How to Be Gay first–I want to discuss allllllll of it. But The Celluloid Closet is a classic and full of awesome critical analysis of film… Basically, you can’t go wrong with either book.
Have you thought about going into politics?
Hello, my name is Cass, and I am in love with politics.