reading Currently Reading (non-GA)

[Page Scrawler]

What kind of stories are you reading beyond the web pages of Gay Authors? Tell us the title, author, a summary, and any other information you might want to add. Up-and-coming titles that have yet to be released are welcome, too!

[Page Scrawler]

Jack of Hearts (and Other Parts), by Lev A.C. Rosen.

Meet Jack Rothman. He's seventeen and loves partying, makeup and boys - sometimes all at the same time. His sex life makes him the hot topic for the high school gossip machine. But who cares? Like Jack always says, 'it could be worse'.

He doesn't actually expect that to come true.

But after Jack starts writing an online sex advice column, the mysterious love letters he's been getting take a turn for the creepy. Jack's secret admirer knows everything: where he's hanging out, who he's sleeping with, who his mum is dating. They claim they love Jack, but not his unashamedly queer lifestyle. They need him to curb his sexuality, or they'll force him.

As the pressure mounts, Jack must unmask his stalker before their obsession becomes genuinely dangerous...

 

Edited December 3, 2018 by Page Scrawler

[Thorn Wilde]

3 hours ago, Page Scrawler said:

Jack of Hearts (and Other Parts), by Lev A.C. Rosen.

Meet Jack Rothman. He's seventeen and loves partying, makeup and boys - sometimes all at the same time. His sex life makes him the hot topic for the high school gossip machine. But who cares? Like Jack always says, 'it could be worse'.

He doesn't actually expect that to come true.

But after Jack starts writing an online sex advice column, the mysterious love letters he's been getting take a turn for the creepy. Jack's secret admirer knows everything: where he's hanging out, who he's sleeping with, who his mum is dating. They claim they love Jack, but not his unashamedly queer lifestyle. They need him to curb his sexuality, or they'll force him.

As the pressure mounts, Jack must unmask his stalker before their obsession becomes genuinely dangerous...

 

 

That sounds like something I’d really like to read! Where did you find it?

[Page Scrawler]

2 hours ago, Thorn Wilde said:

 

That sounds like something I’d really like to read! Where did you find it?

At the local library. I also saw a copy at the bookstore downtown. 

[Thorn Wilde]

1 hour ago, Page Scrawler said:

At the local library. I also saw a copy at the bookstore downtown. 

Guess I have to google it.

[Page Scrawler]

@droughtquake Hey. Thought you might wanna get in on this.

[Former Member]

12 hours ago, Page Scrawler said:

He's seventeen and loves partying, makeup and boys - sometimes all at the same time. His sex life makes him the hot topic for the high school gossip machine.

Yes, that sounds exactly like me!  ;–)

 

 

I’ve been reading a few stories on Awesome Dude.

 

Rick Beck’s A Mann's World is an interesting mystery/crime thriller that’s just begun. Rick is a very skilled writer who weaves a complex tale with a satisfying ending. His characters and situations are not the typical ones we see so often in Gay fiction. His Gulf series seems to be posting on several different sites right now and is one of my favorites – I think it’s most complete on AD.

 

Grant Bentley is another AD author I enjoy. His Volunteered brought together a pair of unlikely friends and I’m always a sucker for stories that include the homeless as real people with feelings and goals. This is a topic I’ve thought was particularly useful for readers to ponder as they read.

 

Michael Arram is an author I first read on crvboy.org. His Alike in Dignity is the latest in a great series of stories that slowly shifted from being a college-themed friendship to a kind of fantasy/war tale (in the final stories only) as the protagonist and his friend became adults. This story has only the slightest hint of fantastical.

 

I was reading parts of Alan Dwight’s The Cabin in Maine as the smoke and ash from the Camp Fire was choking the Bay Area. It starts out seeming to be a fairly typical teenager-is-forced-to-move-to-live-with-his-never-met-before-father out in the woods. But he discovers a friend and learns about more his father.

 

And then there are the stories by Ivor Slipper, Altimexis, Colin Kelly, and others that I somehow missed on GA and find on AD!

Edited December 3, 2018 by Former Member

[Palantir]

I'm currently reading 'Silver on the Tree' the last book in The Dark is Rising series by Susan Cooper.

This is a beloved series I re-read every four or five years which always leaves me with a feeling of wonder that someone could write such stories.

[JamesSavik]

Nostromo by Joseph Conrad

 

Conrad is an author that grows in my regard every time I pick up one of his books. 

 

In fact numerous films have come from or been "reimagined" from his original works. 

 

Apocalypse Now was derived from The Heart of Darkness

 

Lord Jim  came from Conrad's Lord Jim

 

Nostromo was the name of the ship in the original Alien.

 

Conrad is a very good author to get to know. He'll teach you a lot as an author.

Edited December 4, 2018 by jamessavik

[Thorn Wilde]

3 hours ago, Palantir said:

I'm currently reading 'Silver on the Tree' the last book in The Dark is Rising series by Susan Cooper.

This is a beloved series I re-read every four or five years which always leaves me with a feeling of wonder that someone could write such stories.

 

OMG, I love those books! I should reread them soon... They're in my bookshelf.  

[Page Scrawler]

2 hours ago, Thorn Wilde said:

 

OMG, I love those books! I should reread them soon... They're in my bookshelf.  

Alex Ludwig was a cutie in the movie. 

Still reading Jack of Hearts right now. Once that's finished, I'm going to read Two Roads, by Joseph Bruchac.

Edited December 5, 2018 by Page Scrawler

[Thorn Wilde]

4 minutes ago, Page Scrawler said:

Alex Ludwig was a cutie in the movie. 

Still reading Jack of Hearts right now. Once that's finished, I'm going to read Two Roads, by Joseph Bruchac.

 

...there was a movie? 

[Page Scrawler]

Well, I finished reading Jack of Hearts. Best teen book I've read in quite a while. My plan to read Two Roads by Joseph Bruchac fell through, because the book I ordered from the statewide lending service was borrowed by someone else. Anyway, now I'm reading Choir Boy, by Charlie Anders. I was quite surprised to learn that this book was published in 2005, a very long time ago for a Millennial like me. 

 

"Thirteen-year-old Berry loves nothing more than singing in the church choir. It's the only thing he can depend on; certainly more so than his bickering parents. Desperate to stop his voice from changing and prevent his exile from the choir, Berry attempts to injure himself, and then convinces a clinic to give him hormone-blocking supplements. Unfortunately, this results in a pair of B-cups pushing out from his chest, causing an uproar everywhere he goes. How will poor Berry find a place to belong now?"

@droughtquake I'm sure you'd get a kick out of this book. 

Edited December 21, 2018 by Page Scrawler

[Former Member]

5 minutes ago, Page Scrawler said:

the statewide lending service

We have one here in California too – I believe it serves parts of Nevada also. I think it started with university libraries, but spread to public libraries. I’ve had them order books for me because some little libraries have some of the most interesting books. They won’t ship DVDs around though (Berkeley and Oakland have great LGBTQ selections).  ;–)

 

I have cards from four different library systems in this part of the East Bay area. One is for my own city’s library system, another is for the system that serves most of the rest of my county (because the closest library to the country-run shelter was part of that system). I also have one from Oakland where I used to live, and one for Berkeley where I stayed some of the time when I was homeless. I used to have one for Alameda County, San Diego, and even Honolulu. My parents started us on libraries when we were very young and libraries were free!  ;–)

 

 

These are great services!  ;–)

[Former Member]

19 minutes ago, Page Scrawler said:

Thirteen-year-old Berry loves nothing more than singing in the church choir. It's the only thing he can depend on; certainly more so than his bickering parents. Desperate to stop his voice from changing and prevent his exile from the choir, Berry attempts to injure himself, and then convinces a clinic to give him hormone-blocking supplements. Unfortunately, this results in a pair of B-cups pushing out from his chest, causing an uproar everywhere he goes. How will poor Berry find a place to belong now?

Choir Boy sounds like an interesting and unusual story. If it didn’t involve leaving my apartment, I’d try to find the book at the library. But I’m struggling to catch up on stories I’ve found on GA and AD as it is!  ;–)

 

 

Personally, I’m too attached to my ‘bits’ and the hormones they produce to ever consider something like that. But I know there are people for whom that would be preferable to what would otherwise happen. I hope we can someday soon arrive at a future where no one will be teased or ridiculed for making a decision like that.  ;–)

[Page Scrawler]

I'm reading one of my new Christmas prezzies, called The Wishmakers, by Tyler Whitesides. Twelve-year-old Ace finds a genie in a peanut butter jar. Unlike most genies of legend, this one can grant an UNLIMITED number of wishes. Unfortunately, these wishes have...consequences. The bigger the wish, the more serious the repercussions. Soon, Ace finds himself caught in a situation that means more than having pogo sticks for legs or running naked (albeit invisibly) in public: he'll have to save the universe itself from catastrophe.

[Page Scrawler]

This one will be available Tuesday the 15th. I already have my copy pre-ordered. It's called The Whispers, by Greg Howard.

 

Eleven-year-old Riley believes in The Whispers, magical fairies that will grant you wishes if you leave them tributes. Riley has a lot of wishes. He wishes bullies at school would stop picking on him. He wishes Dylan, his 8th grade crush, liked him, and Riley wishes he would stop wetting the bed. But most of all, Riley wishes for his mom to come back home. She disappeared a few months ago, and Riley is determined to crack the case. He even meets with a detective, Frank, to go over his witness statement time and time again.

Frustrated with the lack of progress in the investigation, Riley decides to take matters into his own hands. So he goes on a camping trip with his friend Gary to find the whispers and ask them to bring his mom back home. But Riley doesn't realize the trip will shake the foundation of everything that he believes in forever. 

 

@droughtquake Continuing the theme of wishes...

 

Edited March 2, 2019 by Page Scrawler

[Thorn Wilde]

It's all YA with you, isn't it @Page Scrawler?  I got Jack of Hearts on Audible, looking forward to listening to it. I'm so busy reading and writing things online that reading physical books is nigh impossible. Audiobooks are good for commuting, though.

[Former Member]

1 hour ago, Thorn Wilde said:

It's all YA with you, isn't it @Page Scrawler?

Compared with an ancient person like me, Page is a young adult! I’m closer to the age of many of your grandparents than your parents. Back when I was your ages a Walkman was the latest tech!  ;–)

[Page Scrawler]

1 hour ago, Thorn Wilde said:

It's all YA with you, isn't it @Page Scrawler?  I got Jack of Hearts on Audible, looking forward to listening to it. I'm so busy reading and writing things online that reading physical books is nigh impossible. Audiobooks are good for commuting, though.

Well, The Whispers is categorized as a middle-grade book, not YA. So was The Wishmakers.  Semantics, I know. But anyway, I do read some stuff for older audiences, too. Laura Joh Rowland's Sano Ichiro Mysteries are a favorite of mine, and Bernard Cornwell is also an excellent writer. 

[Thorn Wilde]

32 minutes ago, droughtquake said:

Compared with an ancient person like me, Page is a young adult! I’m closer to the age of many of your grandparents than your parents. Back when I was your ages a Walkman was the latest tech!  ;–)

How old are you, then? Cause my grandfather was born, I believe, in the 1910s, and I kind of doubt you're that old... My dad was born in '48.

 

32 minutes ago, Page Scrawler said:

Well, The Whispers is categorized as a middle-grade book, not YA. So was The Wishmakers.  Semantics, I know. But anyway, I do read some stuff for older audiences, too. Laura Joh Rowland's Sano Ichiro Mysteries are a favorite of mine, and Bernard Cornwell is also an excellent writer. 

Hey, I'm not judging. I read fantasy, sci-fi, and YA novels. I find most 'grown up books' dreadfully boring.  

 

EDIT: Plus some classics. I will readily admit that I love Jane Austen. 

 

EDIT EDIT: My bookshelf.

Edited January 11, 2019 by Thorn Wilde

[Page Scrawler]

4 minutes ago, Thorn Wilde said:

Hey, I'm not judging. I read fantasy, sci-fi, and YA novels. I find most 'grown up books' dreadfully boring.  

OMG, same!  I can't stand Clive Cussler or R.A. Salvatore. I really prefer kid's books. 

[Thorn Wilde]

10 minutes ago, Page Scrawler said:

OMG, same!  I can't stand Clive Cussler or R.A. Salvatore. I really prefer kid's books. 

Genre books, YA, and superhero comics is where it's at with me. 

[Former Member]

19 minutes ago, Thorn Wilde said:

Plus some classics.

Ah, the classics: The Hobbit, Douglas Adams, and Ugly Betty!  ;–)

 

20 minutes ago, Thorn Wilde said:

How old are you, then? Cause my grandfather was born, I believe, in the 1910s, and I kind of doubt you're that old... My dad was born in '48.

Okay, you got me. I’m not quite as old as your father. But at nearly 60, I could just about have had a grandchild the age of someone like Wesley8890.  ;–)

 

 

When I was in my 20s, I read primarily science-fiction/fantasy. Then I added Gay fiction. When I worked in a bookstore, I read a ton of LGBTQ biographies.  ;–)

 

But at the same time I was reading tons of magazines. Over the years, I have subscribed to more than a dozen car magazines (for the style and design, not the mechanical aspects); early video game (Atari 2600 era) and computer magazines (Apple II then Macintosh); Advocate, Out, and Noodle (a short-lived, San Francisco-based Gay Asian title) magazines, and model railroading magazines. Oh, and Gay porn magazines (for the literary articles, naturally!).  ;–)

[Thorn Wilde]

20 minutes ago, droughtquake said:

Ah, the classics: The Hobbit, Douglas Adams, and Ugly Betty!  ;–)

 

Okay, you got me. I’m not quite as old as your father. But at nearly 60, I could just about have had a grandchild the age of someone like Wesley8890.  ;–)

 

So you're about my mum's age. She's 60 next year.

 

Also, you can't see it in that photo (I have more bookshelves; I'm a bibliophile), but I do have some much older books as well, some physically much older. Such as a beautiful copy of Shakespeare's Sonnets from 1903. (It was given as a Christmas gift in 1904 from one woman to another, and I choose to believe they were lovers.) I also have the complete works of Henrik Ibsen in huge, old leather-bound tomes that are about my grandfather's age... 

Edited January 11, 2019 by Thorn Wilde