Category: LGBT Discussion
Hey all, what are some of your favorite authors and/or book recommendations? How do you usually enjoy your lgbt related books? I don't find a lot available through the library for the blind.
One of my fave authors has been Ellen Hart. She writes a great detective series about a Minneapolis restaurateur, Jane Lawless, who gets herself into these misteries. Jane has this wonderful friend, Cordelia, who is described as... irrepressible sidekick, theatrical pal, uninhibited crony, saucy sidekick, best friend. These two are usually finding themselves in trouble or sticky situations. It says on Ellen Hart's website that some are calling the author the gay Agatha Christie.
The unfortunate side of this series, is I can't hardly find it in any form except print. Bookshare.org has 2 books. There is so many more in the series, though.
I have checked out a couple lesbian fiction from the library, but I'll need to go back through my list.
While I'm doing that, share some great stories or books of interest you've read.
Oh, a little PS, I blame my partner for introducing me to the Jane Lawless series...*grin* Now, the easiest way to get my hands on the stories, is to have her read them.
Ok, I'm going through my has had list through the library. Here are a few titles...
Fingersmith by Sarah Waters
Annotations
Victorian London. Orphaned Sue Trinder was raised by a caring family of petty thieves.
To repay them, she helps an elegant con man swindle a wealthy heiress. But the plan
is compromised when Sue begins to have feelings for the victim.
I quite liked this one. Though, I enjoy books set in this time period.
With Child by Laurie R King
Annotations
San Francisco detective Kate Martinelli is reeling from being left by her girlfriend,
when Jules, the twelve-year-old daughter of her work partner's fiancee, asks for
help. After assisting her. Kate inadvertently puts Jules in the path of a serial
killer, and Jules disappears.
I want to think I've read one before this one, but I can't find it. Either way, it was pretty good. Gall, looking at the date, it was a few years ago. I notice there is another one available now...wooh-hooh!
I'll look a bit further.
Wow, both of those sound awesome! I'll definitely be reading them when I can find the time.
Becky
I Knew You Would Call
by
Kate Allen
Brief Synopsis:
But who exactly did kill DJ's current live-in "wife?" Her ex? Her 4th grade daughter? Her father who had committed incest on the woman as a child? This lesbian mystery take place in Denver.
Long Synopsis:
At times hard to follow who is who and the relationships. Marta, coming out of a deep depression following an obsessive abusive relationship, gets innocently pulled into another similar dynamic via a woman she assisted on a psychic reading hotline. However, this relationship ends in a death and there is a child
involved. Marta is sure that Polly is innocent and sets about proving so. Meanwhile, there are periodic intrusions from the skinhead gang living across the street from the large lesbian household. Some violence and sex.
www.bookshare.org
Two books from nls that you might check out are Am I Blue? which is coming out stories, and Confessions of a rock lobster. That is the title I believe, and its a factual account of a man who while growing up, fought in court for the right to have a male date to the prom with him.
There are three books by Alex Sanchez that are really good. Rainbow Boys, Rainbow High and Rainbow road. Unfortunately, these books were scanned in, and I do not believe I have all of the files. Perhaps bookshare will have them, ir there might be a way to request that they be scanned and put together.
I must admit that i'm not familiar with how the site works.
Shawn
I think bookshare is the best place if you want lgbt-related reading matter. If you
haven't read all four of Sarah Waters' books, I would start there. But I think I'm
becoming something of a snob. I used to read anything that had lesbian content because it
was so wonderful that it existed. Now I find most of the lesbian so-called literature to
be rather unsatisfying.
A bit of history: Womyn's Braiile Press was founded in 1980 by a group of women, some of
them lesbian, who had tried to start a women's concerns committee within the NFB where
they were addressing issues like how to access the literature of the feminist movement
that wasn't being produced by places like NLS. What I remember of the story was their
being pushed out in favor of women who wanted to discuss fashion and makeup and then
deciding they could start their own project which worked to produce both feminist and
lesbian literature on tape and to some degree in Braille. I was involved with WBP from 1990
to 1993, shortly before it was dissolved. I had gone out to Minnesota to work for them
after the death of my partner under the wheels of a bus left me unable to continue my life
as I was living it and I needed something that felt more meaningful to do.
I was just poking around on-line to see if I could find the catalog, which I had thought
was posted somewhere and read a little synopsis that was done for an archive that has some
of the old WBP papers. They talked about the organization dissolving for financial
reasons. It was totally not the case. Well, we never had much money, and that was a
problem, but it's demise was precipitated by one of those awful soap opera-like human
interaction problems that I was in the middle of. Something I'd be happy never to
experience again. And a shame it ended. I know there was discussion about whether NLS and
RFB were, at that point recording a lot more of what we had been created to produce, and
if we were therefore not needed anymore, but there were things we could do as a small
organization that just doesn't exist now. Sort of like a remote women's bookstore. Like, I
remember getting a call from a doctor who was trying to find an accessible copy of a
specific book on childbirth for a blind patient or someone else looking for both reading
material and support for a blind woman who had just been raped. And being able to send the
requests to a reader with very speedy turn-around time. As well as making important human
connections. And I miss the newsletter which was the sort of forum that hasn't been around
for a while. I miss that a lot - the level of serious political discussion that doesn't
happen as much anymore, especially about blindness, the feeling that I was with other
blind people who were seriously looking at our place in the world in a thoughtful way and
trying to change it. Instead of the rather flat discourse it seems we sometimes fall into
these days. Some of us complain and others chide the complainers on not being polite or
grateful enough, somebody mentions a problem and then we all gang up and tell them they
are whining. An article I just found on the Ragged Edge web site:
Sally Rosenthal
says this better than I just did. Find it at:
http://www.raggededgemagazine.com/0100/c0100bkrev.htm
There had also been a smaller organization called Lambda
Resource Center for the Blind that recorded gay men's writing. I believe it was mainly one
guy who coordinated people to record books he wanted but then shared with others. When
that died WBP took over parts of the collection we thought were relevant. The original
collection had included things like gay porn that didn't fit with our purpose - what we did
circulate were things like gay history or the Tales of the city books.
After WBP died the collection was sent to a branch NLS library in Florida where there was
a librarian who was interested in making sure the books became part of the NLS collection.
We had been told that anyone could request the books and receive them via inter library
loan but it wasn't clear they would be listed in places people would even know about them.
I don't think the whole collection was useable. Our readers were individual women around
the country using their own equipment to record where ever they were able. We tried to give
them guidelines that would ensure decent quality but it didn't always work. A tremendous
number of amazing hours of effort went into that collection. I remember one woman who
recorded when she was on fire watch and another who was practically confined to her bed
who recorded about 80 books. And, while we had b been better than most small operations at
getting permissions for all the books we circulated, hundreds of books, there were some
where it had just not been possible, like those from small publishers that had gone out of
business.
OK, I just did a search on the NLS catalog and if you search for Womyn's as a keyword
(note the spelling), you get about 650 books out of what was originally about 800 books
in the collection. Not all have lesbian content, some are more in the feminist or general
"women's literature" categories, and some of the Lambda books are there also.