On the battlefields of WWII Europe, Charlie Harris fell in love with Roger Black, and after the war, Roger marched home without a glance back. Ten years later, Charlie receives a cryptic summons and quickly departs for his former lover’s hometown of Whistle Pass. But Roger Black isn’t the lover of Charlie’s dreams anymore. He’s [...]
Filed under: 1950's, 2 stars, America, Fiction, KevaD, Reviews | 4 Comments »
Two stories, two couples, two eras, timeless emotions. “This Ground Which Was Secured At Great Expense” It is 1914 and The Great War is underway. When the call to arms comes, Nicholas Southwell won’t be found hanging back. It’s a pity he can’t be so decisive when it comes to letting his estate manager Paul [...]
Filed under: 1910's, 1940's, 1950's, 4½ Stars, Charlie Cochrane, detective, England, Essential Reads, Fiction, novella, Reviews, War, World War I | 1 Comment »
Mick Reese is a Korean War veteran turned private eye, making a living sifting through the seedy underbelly of 1953 Cincinnati. But the night he busts into the Shooting Gallery, a casino cum criminal hotbed, all that changes. Accidentally rescuing Julian Marion, only son of a notorious crime boss, doesn’t bode well for Mick’s life [...]
Filed under: 1950's, 3½ Stars, America, Fiction, Kate Roman, Reviews | 1 Comment »
Billy Bronner is, to all appearances, every inch the 1950s American dream: handsome, clever, captain of the high school football team, looks good enough in tight jeans that people can even forget he’s Jewish. Then the new guy on the block, the enigmatic Leonard Nachman, turns his head, and over the summer Billy discovers a [...]
Filed under: 1950's, America, Fiction, Reviews, three stars | Leave a Comment »
When Matt films a documentary of gay men living in New Orleans over the last fifty years, his first subject is none other than Sebastian LaGrange, his very own landlord. The elderly gentleman has lived through good times and bad, has seen and done it all, and Matt thinks he’s perfect for the project. Although [...]
Filed under: 1940's, 1950's, 4½ Stars, America, ebook, Lynn Lorenz, novella | Leave a Comment »
Stefan, a naive young Pole, meets Gunter, an artist in 1930s Berlin. Their passionate love affair is overshadowed by the rise of the Third Reich. Denounced to the Nazis, they are sent to Auschwitz as pink triangle prisoners. Some things even love cannot withstand. Forty years later Stefan returns to Poland with one question: when [...]
Filed under: 1930's, 1940's, 1950's, 1960's, 4 stars, Fiction, Fiona K Wallace, Reviews, World War II | Leave a Comment »
Baldwin’s haunting and controversial second novel is his most sustained treatment of sexuality, and a classic of gay literature. In a 1950s Paris swarming with expatriates and characterized by dangerous liaisons and hidden violence, an American finds himself unable to repress his impulses, despite his determination to live the conventional life he envisions for himself [...]
Filed under: 1950's, 4½ Stars, Essential Reads, Europe, Fiction, Reviews | 7 Comments »
In 1958 meteorologist Dr. Rob Lanard is in Las Vegas to observe the effects of the first nuclear test explosions on the weather. His boss on this job is Dr. Phillip Argent. The two men share more than just their boredom on the job; they are both pitching for the same team, so to speak. [...]
Filed under: 1950's, 4½ Stars, America, ebook, Parhelion, Reviews | 1 Comment »
On November 16, 1959, Truman Capote reads about the murder of a Kansas family. There are no suspects. With Harper Lee, he visits the town: he wants to write about their response. First he must get locals to talk, then, after arrests, he must gain access to the prisoners. One talks constantly; the other, Perry [...]
Filed under: 1950's, 1960's, 4½ Stars, America, films | 8 Comments »
In the 1950s Frankie Howerd, the famous radio and film comedian, meets a young waiter Dennis Heymer, who,like himself,is a closet homosexual. Their relationship blossoms into a partnership, rather than a purely sexual one, and Dennis becomes Frankie’s manager. By the early 1960s however things are looking bleak for Frankie. He has lost popularity with [...]
Filed under: 1950's, 3½ Stars, England, films, True Life | Leave a Comment »
Sal Mineo is probably most well-known for his unforgettable, Academy Award–nominated turn opposite James Dean in Rebel Without a Cause and his tragic murder at the age of thirty-seven. Finally, in this riveting new biography filled with exclusive, candid interviews with both Mineo’s closest female and male lovers and never-before-published photographs, Michael Gregg Michaud tells [...]
Filed under: 1930's, 1940's, 1950's, 1960's, Biography, five stars | 1 Comment »
A sweeping saga, Farewell my Concubine runs the gamut of China’s modern history, from 1924 to the 1980′s, and takes the revered Peking Opera as its centre stage. Xiao Douzi and Xiao Shitou become friends under the harsh training regime of the opera (a mix of martial arts, deprivation and singing) and continue friends through [...]
Filed under: 1920's, 1930's, 1940's, 1950's, 1960's, 3½ Stars, China, Reviews | Leave a Comment »
In 1955, Sam Coles is Hollywood’s newest rising star, and his latest role in Gordon Palmer’s movie, The Devil Inside, promises to send his popularity into the stratosphere. But Sam is less interested in the potential boost to his career, and more interested in his gorgeous co-star, Hollywood’s latest bad boy, Elijah McKinley. Their careers [...]
Filed under: 1950's, 2 stars, America, ebook, Fiction, Jamie Craig, novella, Reviews | Leave a Comment »
It’s 1955, Las Vegas is swinging, and David Lonergan has the chance of a lifetime when he accompanies his cousin to be the headlining act at the Thunderbird Casino. A pianist who cut his teeth in the jazz clubs of Chicago, David is dazzled by the lights, the music, and the anything goes attitude of [...]
Filed under: 1950's, 3½ Stars, America, ebook, Fiction, Jamie Craig, novella, Reviews | Tagged: 1950’s, 3½ Stars, America, ebook, Fiction, Jamie Craig, novella, Reviews | 3 Comments »
Complementing each other on the dance floor isn’t enough to form a relationship. Is it? It’s 1953, and Hollywood is booming with extravagant musicals. Coming off a string of hits with MGM, Paul Dunham couldn’t be hotter. Hoping to capitalize on Paul’s popularity, the studio announces its attention to pair him with the latest actor [...]
Filed under: 1950's, 4½ Stars, America, ebook, Fiction, Jamie Craig, Reviews | Tagged: 1950’s, 4½ Stars, America, ebook, Fiction, Jamie Craig, Reviews | 4 Comments »
A colorful novel of the circus world of the 1940s and 1950s, rich in detail, bursting with power and emotion. Mario Santelli, a member of the famous flying Santelli family, is a great trapeze artist. Tommy Zane is his protege. As naturally and gracefully as they soar through the air, the two flyers find themselves [...]
Filed under: 1940's, 1950's, 4 stars, America, Essential Reads, Fiction, Marion Zimmer-Bradley, Reviews | 12 Comments »
Some Gave All – Four stories in honor of those who made the ultimate sacrifice. Review by Vashtan Calling this anthology a “mixed bag” is the best I can say for the whole anthology. It brings together stories of four authors: “Memorial Meeting” by Aline de Chevigny, “Flyover” by Jefferson Dane, Thanet Blake’s Memorial” by [...]
Filed under: 1950's, 4 stars, Anthology, ebook, J M Snyder, Korean War | Leave a Comment »
The “American hunk” is a cultural icon: the image of the chiseled, well-built male body has been promoted and exploited for commercial use for over 125 years, whether in movies, magazines, advertisements, or on consumer products, not only in America but throughout the world. American Hunks is a fascinating collection of images (many in full [...]
Filed under: 1900's, 1910's, 1920's, 1930's, 1940's, 1950's, 1960's, 19th Century, America, five stars, Leslie H Nicoll, Photography, Resources, Reviews | Leave a Comment »
1957. Gorgeous, 23-year-old Simon heir to a peerage, meets and falls in love with a Cumbrian sheep farmer, disappointing his parents and flying in the face of the social mores of a period when gay relationships risked a life prison sentence. Told from the perspective of his lover who acts as narrator throughout, the story [...]
Filed under: 1950's, 1½ stars, England, Fiction, Nick Heddle, Reviews | Tagged: 1950's, 1½ stars, book review, Nick Heddle | 2 Comments »
In the shadow of the 1954 nuclear bomb tests on the Bikini atoll, two sailors begin a tender, passionate affair that will carry them all around the USA: to San Francisco, Manhattan, Fire Island and Washington DC. The lovers learn, with fumbling hands and lips, how to satisfy one another, but the erotic heat of [...]
Filed under: 1950's, 4 stars, America, Fiction, Reviews | Leave a Comment »
With Queen Elizabeth newly established on her throne, the now elderly secret agent is reaching the end of his scandalous career. Despite his fast-approaching retirement, queer events leave Box unable to resist investigating one last case…Why have pillars of the Establishment started dying in bizarrely reckless accidents? Who are the deadly pay-masters of enigmatic assassin [...]
Filed under: 1950's, 4½ Stars, detective, Fiction, Reviews | Leave a Comment »
The Private Pictures of Montague Glover. A Class Apart is a selection of photographs and letters culled from the archive of Montague Glover (1898-1983) documenting the intimate, rarely recorded lives of gay men in Britain from the First World War to the 1950s. The book features Glover’s three obsessions: the Armed Forces, working-class men, and [...]
Filed under: 1900's, 1920's, 1930's, 1940's, 1950's, Erastes, Essential Reads, five stars, Photography, Resources, Reviews, True Life, World War I, World War II | 10 Comments »
Harvey Kramer shipped home from the European front with a damaged leg and memories of a man he couldn’t have. Ten years later, on the first official Veterans Day holiday, that man knocks on Harvey’s door and turns his world upside down. Zach Jones never forgot Sergeant Harvey Kramer. Though he made it through the [...]
Filed under: 1950's, 3½ Stars, America, ebook, novella, Reviews, World War II | Leave a Comment »
They’re Britain’s ‘Wild Ones’ – the motorcycle cowboys who live for gas machines and faster girls – who ton-up along the Motorways, terrorising drivers and defying the law. Who experience sex too young, marry unthinkingly and live only for the next kick – whatever or whoever it is. The Leather Boys is a savage, brilliantly [...]
Filed under: 1950's, 4½ Stars, Erastes, Essential Reads, Fiction, Reviews | Leave a Comment »
On Saturday, January 14, 1950, at 6:18PM, Cadet Richard Cox left his room at theU.S. Military Academy at West Point to goto dinner with an unidentified visitor. The man was supposedly someone Cox knew when he served in Germany. Cox never returned from that meeting. Thirty five years later, a retired history teacher named Marshall [...]
Filed under: 1950's, 4 stars, detective, Erastes, history, Reviews, True Life | 6 Comments »
Like the comic books that animate and inspire it, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay is both larger than life and of it too. Complete with golems and magic and miraculous escapes and evil nemeses, even hand-to-hand Antarctic battle, it pursues the most important questions of love and war, dreams and art, across pages [...]
Filed under: 1940's, 1950's, Erastes, Fiction, Reviews, three stars | 6 Comments »
NAPOLEON’S PRIVATES 2,500 Years of History Unzipped by Tony Perrottet Harper Entertainment, ISBN 978-0-06-125728-5 From the blurb on the author’s website: What were Casanova’s best pick-up lines? (They got better as he got older). Which Italian Renaissance genius “discovered” the clitoris? (He could have just asked the Venetian nuns). What was the party etiquette at [...]
Filed under: 13th Century, 14th Century, 15th Century, 17th Century, 18th Century, 1900's, 1920's, 1930's, 1940's, 1950's, 19th Century, 4 stars, Age of Sail, Ancient Egypt, Ancient Greece, Early Middle Ages, history, Reviews, Victorian | 3 Comments »
It is Christmas Eve, 1956, and the reclusive Mr Page is remembering a dream from thirty years ago. The dream is about the rich and wild Mr Clive, a man who could have been Page’s twin, and what really happened to the beautiful white-haired boy who served in his house. And the dream is about [...]
Filed under: 1920's, 1950's, Erastes, Essential Reads, five stars, Reviews | Leave a Comment »
Review by Hayden Thorne BOOK DESCRIPTION: A brilliant, lunatic tale filled with black humor and decadence, The Carnivorous Lamb is a compelling family saga of power, love, and politics. Into a shuttered house, haunted by ghosts of past rebellion and Franco’s regime, Ignacio is born. His mother despises him; his failed father ignores him; his [...]
Filed under: 1940's, 1950's, 1960's, five stars | 6 Comments »
Review by Hayden Thorne BOOK DESCRIPTION: It is the beginning of the summer, and Paul has just left school. Estranged from the people around him and unable to communicate with his parents, he feels lonely and unloved. But his life suddenly changes when he meets a young medical student whom he renames Gary. Their relationship [...]
Filed under: 1950's, Fiction, Reviews, three stars | 5 Comments »
Review by Hayden Thorne BOOK DESCRIPTION: This is the classic French literary novel, banned for 30 years, now translated for the English market. Wicked Angels is the English translation of the classic 1955 French literary novel Les Mauvais Anges, banned for 30 years for what was called its ‘subversive’ subject matter. It is the story [...]
Filed under: 1950's, 4 stars, Essential Reads, Fiction | 2 Comments »
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