Book Chat

I keep meaning to write about what I've been reading and somehow I never get around to doing it! I can't even keep track of how many books I've wanted to talk about in the past few months which I haven't ended up writing a single word about.

I'm just going to do sort of a general book post today on some of the more recent things I've read.

Over the last month or so, I've devoured all five books in Ethan Mordden's 'Buddies' series, collections of short stories centered around the same group of gay friends in Manhattan published from the early 1980's through 2005, when the final one came out.

I completely fell in love with the characters in these books. In the first two books, I've A Feeling We're Not in Kansas Anymore and Buddies, the stories really aren't in any sort of chronological order, so things jumped back and forth quite a bit between time periods. Usually I wouldn't be too thrilled with that, just because I'm close to being obsessive compulsive about chronological order! I won't watch shows or movies (if they have sequels) out of order, and if one book is connected to another in any way, I've got to read them in the right order. I thought reading stories about the same characters that didn't really go in order would drive me mad.

It ceased to matter, though, as soon as I started reading the books. I was just enjoying them too much to be bothered by unimportant details like that. It was really nice to read books about gay men that weren't focused on hooking up or even romance (though both occur, of course), but rather on gay friendships. They're also incredibly funny books that had me laughing out loud constantly.

Starting somewhat with the third book and moving through to the last one, the stories began to flow in chronological order, but even if they hadn't it wouldn't have mattered. I was hooked. The books (the last three are: Everybody Loves You; Some Men Are Lookers; and How's Your Romance?) move the characters from the beginning of the Stonewall era through to the present day. The main characters (the narrator Bud; his best friend Dennis Savage; Dennis Savage's partner Little Kiwi; their friend Carlo, who is the epitome of Stonewall sexiness; and young Cosgrove, a street kid looking for a place to belong, along with several secondary characters who pop up throughout the series) age and change with the times, but most importantly they remain a family.

It was especially interesting to read this series, given that a lot of what I've read about this particular time period,as far as gay fiction goes, has been set in San Francisco. It was really nice to get the New York point of view.

I was so sad to come to the end of the books and to have to say goodbye to these characters! Of course, the third book was originally supposed to be the final one, but after a gap of several years, two more were written. So I can only hope that Mr. Mordden will change his mind again and add another book (or several!) to the series.

I also read Kristin Chenoweth's memoir, A Little Bit Wicked, a few weeks ago. I'm not that big on celebrity memoirs these days (back during junior high and the early years of high school, I read quite a few, mostly about golden age Hollywood stars), but I really enjoyed Kristin's book. It was a quick, funny read. Her sense of humor really appeals to me and her whole outlook on life is just one that I really respect. If you want a fun non fiction read this summer or if you're a fan of Kristin's (and if you aren't, why not?!) and haven't picked it up yet, you should look for it.

Last month (or was it in March?) I read Stephen Fry's novel Making History and wanted to write a whole post on that, but now too much time has passed. I really enjoyed it, though. Fry has to be one of the funniest men alive, I just love his wit. Needless to say, I laughed a lot while reading the novel.

I also liked the premise of the book, which is that a physicist and a graduate student in history, who is writing his thesis on Hitler's early years, team up to change history by making sure that Hitler is never born.

It turns out, though, that we should be careful what we wish for, even where the existence of Adolph Hitler is concerned! It's a really enjoyable book (with some gay characters, by the way) and if you've never read any of Fry's books, I think this would be a good one to start with.

Currently, I'm reading a collection of gay themed short stories from the Men on Men anthology series. I'm enjoying it, though walking around with the book on campus the other day did earn me a few interesting looks. I'm sure the title of the series had people picturing something quite different than literary fiction!