Phillip Froelich and Tim Danelaw are irresistibly drawn to each other. Both are in every obvious respect what is generally considered masculine, and live and work in a completely normal man’s social and professional world. Other men respect and admire their courage and ability and even their physical prowess. Women are very much attracted to both of [...]
Filed under: 1940's, 4½ Stars, America, Essential Reads, Fiction, Reviews, World War II | 2 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 »
Assigned to baby-sit a loose-cannon colonel at remote Wheelus Air Base, Libya, handsome, hard-charging Captain Joe Harding spends his off-duty time bedding an enlisted medic and a muscular major, then begins a nurturing friendship with the American ambassador’s teenage son. The boy swiftly develops a crush on the man, feelings that Joe, a Southern gent [...]
Filed under: 1960's, Elliott Mackle, Essential Reads, Fiction, five stars, Middle East, Reviews, War, Western | 3 Comments »
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 | 5 Comments »
A very early gay novel, originally published in 1900, by a Belgian writer with the first English translation in 1908, set in 19th Century rural Flanders. A gay count returns after years abroad to an isolated uptight community where his love for a peasant boy brings furious attacks by fanatic and bigoted villages whipped up [...]
Filed under: 19th Century, Essential Reads, Europe, Fiction, novella, Reviews, three stars | 1 Comment »
Feckless, exasperating Alex Finch is a rich, handsome and talented singer/songwriter who longs for two things: a career as a professional rock singer, and to have his love for Sam Barrowdale reciprocated. But drifter Sam’s two aims are simply to earn enough money to pay his sister’s medical bills and to hide from the world [...]
Filed under: 1960's, 4 stars, America, Essential Reads, Fiction, Reviews | Leave a Comment »
HEROES IN HELLCATS Jack Hardigan’s Hellcat fighter squadron blew the Japanese Zekes out of the blazing Pacific skies. But a more subtle kind of hell was brewing in his feelings for rookie pilot Fred Trusteau. As another wingman watches–and waits for the beautiful woman who loves Jack–Hardigan and Trusteau cut a fiery swath through the [...]
Filed under: 1940's, Ensan Case, Essential Reads, Fiction, five stars, World War II | 7 Comments »
From Publishers Weekly “Kirmser’s was the underground queer bar in St. Paul, a hidden sanctuary for homosexual men and women in the 1940s. It was the haven I found in 1945 after being drummed out of the navy for being a homosexual.” This extraordinary memoir of postwar, pre-Stonewall Midwestern gay life is as historically crucial [...]
Filed under: 1940's, 4½ Stars, America, Essential Reads, Fiction, history, Reviews | 2 Comments »
Born into a stern farming family on the island of Keos, Simonides escapes his harsh childhood through a lucky apprenticeship with a renowned Ionian singer. Travelling through fifth century BC Greece, Simonides learn not only how to play the kithara and compose poetry, but also how to navigate the political intrigue surrounding his rich patrons. [...]
Filed under: 4½ Stars, Ancient Greece, Essential Reads, Mary Renault, Reviews | 7 Comments »
Having returned to Elizabethan London after an absence of two years, Hugh Seaton is happy to resume his old job as tailor to the company of actors known as Strange’s Men. He is less content when he finds himself looking for a murderer, and hiding his former lover, playwright Christopher Marlowe, who is suspected of [...]
Filed under: 17th Century, Elizabethan, England, Essential Reads, Fiction, five stars, K C Warwick, Reviews | 2 Comments »
Patrick, fabulously wealthy and with a good eye for pictures and young men, brings the impressionable Nicholas Milestone to London, intent on reducing him to utter dependence by playing on his naivety and greed. But Nicholas proves to be not quite as pliable as hoped, and a witty social comedy develops as he struggles with [...]
Filed under: 1940's, 4 stars, England, Essential Reads, Fiction, Michael Nelson, Reviews | 1 Comment »
A “who and why-done-it” mystery set in 1940s Florida, Dan Ewing is the manager of the Caloosa Hotel, which privately caters to the very special needs of its guests, and Bud Wright is a police detective whose passionate desire for Dan is in conflict with his desire to shut Dan’s business down. When one black [...]
Filed under: 1940's, Elliott Mackle, Essential Reads, Fiction, five stars, Murder Mystery, Reviews, World War II | Tagged: 1940’s, Elliott Mackle, Essential Reads, Fiction, five stars, Murder Mystery, Reviews, World War II | 10 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 »
Erotic slang words from Great Britain, Canada, the United States, Australia, and other English-speaking nations number well into the tens of thousands. But the history of terms used to describe the sexual activities of gays and lesbians have opposing sources: one, the discreet networks of gay men and lesbians who sought to come up with [...]
Filed under: Essential Reads, five stars, history, Resources, Reviews, textbook, Writing | Tagged: book review, gay interest, resource, textbook, wriitng | 3 Comments »
When Harry Watson, an attractive and personable ex-Guardsman, becomes involved with the young novelist Martin Murray, he is quick to assimilate Martin’s left-wing views. He fits readily into Martin’s circle, along with the earl’s daughter and communist Lady Nellie Griffiths, her playboy nephew Pugh, and the unconfident Oxford undergraduate Gavin Summers. But then Harry’s enthusiasm [...]
Filed under: 1930's, England, Essential Reads, Fiction, five stars, Reviews, Spanish Civil War | Leave a Comment »
Lambda Award finalist Josh Lanyon takes you step-by-step through the writing process: from how to find fresh ideas and strong hooks, to how to submit your carefully edited manuscript. With help from the genre’s top publishers, editors, reviewers, and writers – experts in the field of M/M and gay romantic fiction – Lanyon offers insight [...]
Filed under: Essential Reads, five stars, Resources, Reviews, textbook, Writing | Leave a Comment »
Review by Leslie H. Nicoll It was the first great explosion of gay writing in history. These books were about gay characters. They were written mostly by gay writers. Above all, they were for gay readers. And, as this entertaining chronicle of the emergence of gay literary pride makes clear, it was a revolution that [...]
Filed under: Essential Reads, five stars, history, Leslie H Nicoll | Tagged: gay history, non-fiction | 4 Comments »
Set in 1920s Chicago, The Folded Leaf follows two very different boys who find themselves forming an unlikely friendship. Lymie is thin, clever and terrible at sport. Spud is athletic and quick to fight and blithely accepts Lymie’s passionate devotion to him. The bond between them is obsessively close, until they leave home for college [...]
Filed under: 1920's, 4½ Stars, America, Essential Reads, Fiction, Reviews | 6 Comments »
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 »
The story of the climactic last seven years of Alexander the Great’s life through the eyes of his lover, Bagoas. Abducted and gelded as a boy, Bagoas was sold as a courtesan to King Darius of Persia, but found freedom with Alexander after the Macedon army conquered his homeland. Taken as an attendant into Alexander’s [...]
Filed under: Alexander, Charlie Cochrane, Essential Reads, Fiction, five stars, Reviews | 14 Comments »
When Myron Brinig arrived in Taos in 1933, he thought he was just passing through on his way to a screenwriting job in Hollywood. But, Brinig fell in love – with the landscape, the burgeoning art colony that centred around Mabel Dodge Luhan, and especially with Cady Wells, a talented young painter who had left [...]
Filed under: 1930's, Essential Reads, Fiction, five stars, Reviews, True Life | 1 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 »
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: 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 »
Reviewed by Hayden Thorne FROM THE PUBLISHER: In this novel based on the life of the masters and boys at Harrow school, two boys compete for the love of a third. Lord Horace Vachell was an English novelist who introduced polo to Southern California when he moved there in 1882. REVIEW: I must say right [...]
Filed under: 4 stars, Essential Reads, Victorian | 4 Comments »
Review by Erastes Wow. What a read! I had few expectations of this book – I’d seen it around here and there, in this limited genre the same books are bound to crop up from time to time – but the cover always put me off. However, eventually I ordered a copy and it arrived (and it’s a [...]
Filed under: 19th Century, American Civil War, Erastes, Essential Reads, Fiction, five stars, Reviews | 1 Comment »
Review by Alex Beecroft First published in 1992 by GMP Books. A Second, Revised and Enlarged edition published in October 2006 by Chalfont Press (Tempus Publishing, UK). Available through Amazon, or via Rictor Norton’s site HERE which is a great place to go for a more detailed run down of the contents. It’s also a [...]
Filed under: 18th Century, 19th Century, Alex Beecroft, Essential Reads, five stars, history, Resources, textbook | 7 Comments »
Gaywyck is the first gay Gothic novel. Long out of print, this classic proved that genre knows no gender. Young, innocent Robert Whyte enters a Jane-Eyre world of secrets and deceptions when he is hired to catalog the vast library at Gaywyck, a mysterious ancestral mansion on Long Island, where he falls in love with [...]
Filed under: 4 stars, Essential Reads, Reviews, Victorian | 2 Comments »
It’s hard for me to do a review of this book for many reasons. It seems a bit cheeky for me to even try – and it’s been around for so long I would imagine that just about everyone I know has read it, but if this review tempts one person who hasn’t to give [...]
Filed under: Essential Reads, five stars, Reviews, World War II | 10 Comments »
Wilde Oats celebrates gay and bisexual fiction, embracing the joys and agonies of life for gay and bisexual men,
"Military veteran Mackle's resonant story, set with Catch-22 authenticity against the backdrop of the Six-Day War, spans an emotional spectrum from lusty horniness to nuanced romance with literary polish and story-telling punch." - Richard Labonte, Bookmarks.
Speak Its Name Five Star Read
Buy the book - Captain Harding's Six-Day War
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