If you are wondering why I posted the Inside Reader list, that is a Friday appointment on Wednesday, the answer is simple: I will be not here Friday.
Do you remember the surgery I have to undertake? Well it's tomorrow and I decided that I will not bring with me the laptop. I will bring some books and I will probably read, but I will be not online. For various reason, I prefer to "travel" light, and then I will be most of the time out of the hospital room, in surgery and post exams, and it's not a private room, so there will be other people, patients, visitors... no better not risk.
I will stay away, hopefully, only 4 days, I should be home Sunday, in time to post a very nice post I was working on in these days. Wait and you will see. Meanwhile, read Eric Arvin's list and remember the Preditors&Editors poll ;-)
1 Comment | Post A Comment | Add to Memories | Tell a Friend | Link
 |
|
I have already said it in the past, Eric Arvin was probably one of the first authors that pushed me to search books outside my usually hunting grounds. I read a collection of short stories by him and one of that stories hinted to a novel, SubSurdity, that at the time Eric Arvin had self-published with a small indipendent imprint. I bought a strange type of .pdf file that, once I changed laptop, it didn't work (lucky me Eric sent me another copy). Anyway, all of this to let you understand how good that story was. So, enjoy Eric Arvin's Inside Reader list.
 1) In a Shallow Grave by James Purdy. I saw a film version of this years ago starring Michael Biehn (who I had a massive crush on) and Patrick Dempsey, and sought out the book it was based on. In doing so, I stumbled upon my favorite writer. Purdy, more than any other writer, echoes in my more serious work. This is surreal, Southern Gothic writing at its best. Moody, romantic, and eerie. The romance at the heart of the tale between a disfigured war vet and a hired hand is one of the most aching ever novelized, gay or straight.
Paperback: 140 pages
Publisher: City Lights Publishers (January 1, 2001)
Publisher Link: http://www.citylights.com/book/?GCOI=87286100443320
ISBN-10: 0872862348
ISBN-13: 978-0872862340
Amazon: In a Shallow Grave
"Purdy does not celebrate the wonders of our lives; he digs under the flesh, deals with the howling of our nighttime existence, the rough arithmetic of our dreams. He is also a very funny writer, one who captures the particular idiom of women and men talking in their sleep. It's when we apply our mundane logic to Purdy that we fail to read him. We want to stuff him in our clothes closets, make him familiar, have him entertain us like a dancing bear, but Purdy won't dance in the usual way. If we take the time to listen and are willing to leap out of our comfortable skin, we will discover some of the most startling fiction that has been written over the past thirty years." – Jerome Charyn
( books from 2 to 10 )
About Eric Arvin: Eric Arvin resides in the same sleepy Indiana river town where he grew up. He graduated from Hanover College with a bachelor’s degree in history and has lived, for brief periods, in Italy and Australia. He’s survived brain surgery and his own loud-mouthed personal demons.
Visit his blog at http://daventryblue.blogspot.com/
 Suburbilicious by Eric Arvin
Paperback: 236 pages
Publisher: Dreamspinner Press (September 18, 2009)
Publisher Link: http://www.dreamspinnerpress.com/store/product_info.php?cPath=55_59&products_id=1545
ISBN-10: 1615810439
ISBN-13: 978-1615810437
Amazon: Suburbilicious: Vignettes from Jasper Lane
Blurb: Take another turn down Jasper Lane, the well-off neighborhood where gay porn parties, fresh cheesecake, and friendly busybodies welcome newcomers while a dog named Gayhound helps with the landscaping. Cassie Bloom is thrilled her son Jason is home, but she's worried about the secrets buried around the house, especially when a scary-looking stranger starts spying on her! Rick and James are basking in the blush of love—or is it the flush of jealousy as Rick's rugby teammate starts hanging around?—and the flamboyantly gay Terrence is off bonding with his newly discovered son, Christian. Melinda, divorced from her stuffy husband, is looking to dip her toe in the dating pool, but she's got one problem: her potential date's embarrassing last name. Steve and Sandy Jones are now proud parents, but Sandy's got to find something to do with herself, and running for office in the Gay Porn Wives Club may be just the ticket. And remember, it's a do-unto-others mentality on Jasper Lane, so when lesbian couple Asha and Keiko move in and Sandy helps Keiko get a directing job at Steve's gay porn film company, it's par for the course!
Post A Comment | Add to Memories | Tell a Friend | Link
|
|
 Got Mistletoe it’s probably the dream of every salesman (or woman) out there: while the store is crazy with customers and crying kids, you lift your eyes and there, in front of you, there is your perfect man, and the perfect man is attracted to you as you are to him.
Ryan is a really sweet guy, all Christmas joy and pink cheek. At 23 years old he is working as a salesman since basically, I believe, he likes to be among people. If one wants to be grumpy, probably you can say that Ryan is not exactly a man driven by ambition, he is probably a man that would be content to find a boyfriend and play house for the rest of his life.
So yes, it’s probably a good thing that he finds Blake, 30 years old and successful at his construction business, but who still is, deep inside, a family guy. Blake is handsome, old fashioned and gay. He has the instinct to be one to provide for his family, to one to bring to bread at home, he is basically a protective man. Really, he is the perfect match for Ryan, like the missing piece of a puzzle.
Everything is perfect, nice, sweet and warm in this story, the perfect seasonal tale that probably would be the perfect read in front of a fireplace. There is no angst, just a touch of too much sugar to leave you the feeling of a tale, but not too make the story unrealistic, and obviously also a right dose of sex, since, well, even if in a fairy tale with Ryan who seems more an elf than a fairy (no pun intended) and Blake who is perfect in the role of prince charming, this is, after all, the story of two young guys in love.
http://www.dreamspinnerpress.com/store/product_info.php?cPath=55_184&products_id=1604
Amazon Kindle: Got Mistletoe?
Reading List:
http://www.librarything.com/catalog_bottom.php?tag=reading list&view=elisa.rolle
Post A Comment | Add to Memories | Tell a Friend | Link
The silver birches outside are laden with snow even on the skinniest little twigs. It looks lovely, though the rows of redbrick '70s houses rather spoil the scene of unbridled Nature.
Oxford in the 60s in a Victorian vicarage with no central heating. Snow meant chilblains (inflamed feet and hands due to cold and damp) which are bloody painful. Does anyone get them any more? I remember wearing 2 pairs of woollen socks to keep my toes warm. Now I have thermal socks which are much more comfy.
Thermals are one of the unappreciated joys of the 21st century. (Ok, they were available in the '80s and '90s but it's more dramatic to mention the 21st century.) They almost make up for the lack of jet-packs and hovercars.
1 Comment | Post A Comment | Add to Memories | Tell a Friend | Link
Take a dying man and his younger lover. Add a reckless, ambiguous boy. Already it sounds like a parody of What I Do.
Further add a chain that binds them all, and now it's like a parody of me and Daniel Fox together. Which is kind of apt, I guess...
Anyway. We have a story. More: we have more than one story, and so does Gail. Sean may not make it in tonight, being snowed up in snowy Forest Hall. No matter: we will fill an evening somehow. Don't know how much of an audience we'll get; the Lit & Phil was booked full yesterday, eighty willing bods, but some are starting to cancel. Snowpocalypse! Eight and a half inches out there, according to my trusty ruler thrust in where it's deep and crisp and even in the centre of the park. It's kinda like a parody of winter, in these global-warming days...
1 Comment | Post A Comment | Add to Memories | Tell a Friend | Link
http://www.reviewsbyjessewave.com/?p=14492  Title: Poker Night: Slow Play
Author: Carol Lynne
Publisher: Total-E-Bound
Genre: Contemporary
Length: Novella
Rating: 3.5 stars out of 5
A Guest Review by Aunt Lynn
THE BLURB
Charter Captain Bobby Quinn loves life on the water. What he hates is working for his brother.
Charter Captain Bobby Quinn loves life on the water. What he hates is working for his brother. After years spent restoring an aging wooden yacht, his brother bought it out from under him. In Bobby’s mind, if family will screw you at the drop of a hat so will everyone else so, except for his bi-weekly poker game, he sticks to the solitude of the boat he loves.
Dr. Jules Peters knows all about solitude. When not working endless hours as Head of Emergency Medicine, he’s tinkering in his garage. A collector of vintage cars in need of TLC, Jules has an impressive collection of cars but few friends.
Jules meets Bobby when he’s given a cruise around the San Francisco Bay as a gift. Although their mutual attraction is explosive, neither man is ready to move out of his comfort zone. It might take a meddling med student and an off-season football coach to get these two loners to see there’s more to life than caring for inanimate objects.
THE REVIEW
Slow Play is the second installment of Carol Lynne’s Poker Night series. Each story will cover one of each of a mixed-bag of six gay friends (Zac, Marco, Angelo, Trey, Kent, Bobby) who meet for a bi-weekly Saturday-night poker game. This second book is trawler captain Bobby and Dr. Jules Peters’ story, as well as setting up scenarios for the upcoming stories. My plan is to review one book each day or so this week until the final book is released on Sunday, January 10.
Opening about four days day after the end of Texas Hold ‘Em (reviewed here), Slow Play has Bobby arguing once again with his half-brother, Brad, who bought his pride and joy trawler, the Gypsy, out from under him at a financially weak time. Disgusted, he makes his way to his second boat, which is in the process of being renovated, figuring out how he will make his next-day cruise, a gift from Zac and Eric to Eric’s boss, Dr. Jules Peters, work with Brad’s demands of moving the Gypsy to another marina. Despite his being raised in a wealthy environment and being accused of being a “reverse snob” by his friends, he has preconceived notions of Jules even before he meets him as the assumption that the older doctor is just another rich person, and he is so not impressed by wealth. Jules, for his part, is a lonely workaholic, devastated by and still mourning the death of his partner, Morgan, sixteen years before, leaving relationships with other men alone and focusing on his job at the hospital and fixing up his classic cars. The two have an immediate attraction, but working out their issues will take time and effort on both parts.
I had some mixed feelings about this somewhat angstier second book. Don’t get me wrong; while I didn’t hate the story at all, I did several issues with it. After what I thought was a good start to the series with Texas Hold ‘Em, I was hoping for a little more, but ultimately I was a bit disappointed in the execution, especially around the smexxin/relationship ratio. There is an awful lot of smexxin for a 90-page book, and as a result, I think both the character development and relationship aspects suffered. I felt that we were given just glimpses of both men and their relationship with each other in between what seemed like perpetual hard-ons and getting it on (including immediately after Jules suffers a minor head injury, which seems improbable and perhaps even medically unsafe).
As with Texas Hold ‘Em, I thought both protags were generally likable, believable and sympathetic. Bobby and his family issues felt realistic and not overblown. I also liked — what we are shown, that is — watching lonely Jules try and work his way through the long-time grief and mourning over dead partner, Morgan, and his inability to save him. And not only loverless, he is also an orphan, with all of his immediate family dead, which also contributes to his lonely life. Much of what there is of the emotional aspect of this story focuses around this, but in the end it felt glossed over and seemed like it wasn’t enough for me to really get to know Jules. Related to this, Bobby has concern over being a replacement/rebound for Morgan and what his long-term options were with Jules, but again, some of what he feels is only mentioned, it seemed, in passing, either as thoughts or a little bit of discussion with Jules about it.
Additionally, Jules has spent the last fifteen plus years avoiding getting involved with men — even casually — because of his continuing grief, but he is almost instantly open to a possible relationship with Bobby, a man he just met? He could barely have sex with Bobby at first without Morgan coming between them. As a result, this just didn’t ring true to what we know of Jules’ character.
There are also two major conflict points that I felt could have been made use of to help define their relationship and create a bit of drama which I think were totally dismissed too easily. First is the whole Bobby can’t stand/doesn’t trust rich people thing, a major point that is brought up early on and which would bring to light the significant financial disparity between the two men. This goes just about nowhere and barely seems to be an issue. It is mentioned a very few times when they are together, and though Bobby talks with his friends a bit about it a bit, it ultimately just doesn’t seem to an issue for as much as it is a big part of Bobby.
Second is the age difference, which I was really hoping would be something to be in play here. Jules is forty-three and though we are not told how old Bobby is — Jules himself wishes he were fifteen years younger at one point when thinking about the younger man — it seems that the difference is over a decade. Once again, we are almost cheated of the real, possible tension/drama point around this issue. As someone who is in a long-term relationship with someone fifteen years older, I can say with clarity that it definitely can be an issue and it is common teasing that I am the baby of her group of friends. There is barely anything here at all about it.
Last point — and this is going to be snippy and picky and something I brought up in my review for Texas Hold ‘Em — but as a resident of the setting of this series, I feel need to speak up. There are numerous, blatant, draw-me-out-of-the-story, local reference errors that drove me batty. I had a whole paragraph here listing them one by one, but in the end, what I really want to say is that while I understand that this publisher (and author?) is British, and I have no issue with books set in other locales from the publisher/author home base, the lack of regional fact checking made the story seem sloppy from a resident reader point of view and detracted from the tale for me big time.
OVERALL
Slow Play was somewhat of a disappointment as the second installment of Poker Night, but one that I think readers should not miss as part of this series. Book three, Pocket Pair, is the story of Trey, the dramatic situation that ends Slow Play, and his relationship with school principal Cole.
Post A Comment | Add to Memories | Tell a Friend | Link
We've got snow. Not too bad at the moment, the roads are passable around here. Certainly not as bad as my sister's area (Usk, near Abergavenny, in Wales), where she and her partner have been unable to go to work today, and it was only due to help from a nearby farmer with his snow-plough that the road near them was passable at all. (And now it's snowed again!)
Post A Comment | Add to Memories | Tell a Friend | Link
Am I the only one who finds the following both ironic and hypocritical? (And funny, of course.) From Publisher's Marketplace Deals Listing:
NON-FICTION: HOW-TO
April Hamilton's THE INDIE AUTHOR GUIDE, revised, a comprehensive reference to self-publishing and managing a career in indie authorship, to Jane Friedman at Writer's Digest Books, by Rita Rosenkranz at Rita Rosenkranz Literary Agency (World).
2 Comments | Post A Comment | Add to Memories | Tell a Friend | Link
Snow in Dorset is like hen's teeth, but we actually had some today. Must be, ooh, nearly an entire centimetre now. (I can just hear the rest of you sniggering from the back seats...)
Anyway, I made the most of it by walking 20mins to my doctor's appointment, though I did use my common sense and wear hiking boots and take my walking poles. ( I'm still recovering from a bug, so didn't want to risk a fall)
I quite enjoyed it. The only annoying bit is when the snow blows right into your face.
I suspect I might not have been so keen if it was several inches deep.
4 Comments | Post A Comment | Add to Memories | Tell a Friend | Link
Meanwhile, back at the Sphere...
( DuQuesne, bearer of wierd tidings... )
It's tough to prepare for a journey that could be to ANYWHERE, really.
1 Comment | Post A Comment | Add to Memories | Tell a Friend | Link
 |
|
As there's a doom-laden BBC News Special on about it.
Yo! Wake up, southern jessies! We've fucking been buried under this shit since mid-December! It's winter, not the fucking Blitz.
Oh, and I see my gas pilot light has gone out, which means I now have to waste more money trying to get some - yes, waste, for I have an electronic prepayment thingy, and switched to Npower a couple of years ago. Unknown to us until a couple of months ago, Npower apply a daily standing charge (43p or 34p I forget which, which is supposed to come off the money you put on the card. Since we don't even switch the system on between about April and October, this means we're £140-odd in arrears by not fucking using it.
Which means for every £10 I put on the card, I get £3 of gas. Last Thursday I put on £20, got £6 worth of gas, and it ran out this morning even though I'm only using it as a booster for about two hours a day (cos it's also take the daily charge, daily, off that £6, as well the £14 up front).
Which means I'm running the heating off the immerser for the sake of the pipes, which will be endless fun come electricity bill time. (that's also those thieving cunts at NPower)
Arse.
Why, yes, I would like to get off the prepayment thing and onto a normal meter, but until some sort of book contract appears, I can't afford to pay up the arrears that I owe them for having not used them, or whatever they charge for doing the swap...
*headdesk*
4 Comments | Post A Comment | Add to Memories | Tell a Friend | Link
 |
|
I was fooled by the dim light this morning and assumed it would be grey and raining. But in fact it's white and still snowing. It was tiny flakes earlier, but now it's big and fluffy flakes and the tyre tracks in the snow are getting covered ... and our postman has just come past walking his bicycle, bundled up in a big coat and wearing shorts. Yes. He always wears shorts.
(Ah, well, the timing wasn't quite right, but honest, those are shorts)
But ... we are saved! A bread lorry has just gone past, presumably from re-stocking the co-op down the road. Not that I actually eat much bread and thus I didn't even walk down the aisle last night in Tesco. I went out to fill up the car, in case I need to make runs to Wells to help out my parents and had to de-ice it then at 8pm. As I was in the Tesco petrol station I thought I'd pop into the store and get the few things I needed - veggies mostly - and was totally flummoxed by the empty shelves on at least half the fruit and veg aisles.
When I got home and started to read friends' LJ entries about snow, it occurred to me that I'd better check the met office web site and found pretty much the whole country subjected to warnings. And Dorset (into which the bottom right hand corner of Yeovil intrudes) is one of the 'red' counties.
So, we have snow, a couple of inches so far, but I've just seen the first totally-unable-to-cope car abandon its attempt to get, front wheels spinning, to the top of the road. It's not too bad as long as you start slowly to get traction and then keep some momentum up. But, of course, the more cars stick and spin their wheels, the less traction there is.
Oh, look ... a car jam! We now have, effectively, a single track road because everyone's driving in the slushy tracks. and we have traffic calming measures which mean that people have to stop and negotiate humps in the road under the snow. And stopping means loss of momentum and yes, having to start again. Wheel spin! :) At least there are plenty of people out walking in it to give a push.
In fact, as the snow has stopped for the moment, I'll probably go out with the camera myself, in a bit.
1 Comment | Post A Comment | Add to Memories | Tell a Friend | Link
Spot the Morris Minor:
My latest construction project was a wood shed (for storing firewood logs). ( Read more... )
3 Comments | Post A Comment | Add to Memories | Tell a Friend | Link
Warning - KEEP BEVERAGES AWAY FROM YOUR COMPUTER BEFORE YOU READ THIS!
Just to clarify a few things before anyone asks: - I'm not suggesting a Marthawood or that Martha join permanently, she's only in it because I wanted to take things back to where IMHO everything started to go wrong (s2ep6) Resetting to Reset.
- I am a Janto shipper but I think Ianto needs to lay down the law
- If Ianto ever comes back, he needs to have some backbone and not an insecure jack-sexual.
Happy New Year everyone!
Post A Comment | Add to Memories | Tell a Friend | Link
|
|
 The Book: A collection from David Sedaris is cause for jubilation. His move to Paris has inspired hilarious pieces, including Me Talk Pretty One Day, about his attempts to learn French. His family is another inspiration. You Cant Kill the Rooster is a portrait of his brother who talks incessant hip-hop slang to his bewildered father. And no one hones a finer fury in response to such modern annoyances as restaurant meals presented in ludicrous towers and cashiers with 6-inch fingernails. Compared by The New Yorker to Twain and Hawthorne, Sedaris has become one of our best-loved authors.
( Reviews )
Amazon: Me Talk Pretty One Day
( Other Books in the List )
 The Author: David Sedaris (born December 26, 1956) is a Grammy Award-nominated Greek-American humorist, writer, comedian, bestselling author, and radio contributor.
Sedaris was first publicly recognized in 1992 when National Public Radio broadcast his essay The SantaLand Diaries . He published his first collection of essays and short stories, Barrel Fever , in 1994. Each of his five subsequent essay collections, Naked (1997), Holidays on Ice (1997), Me Talk Pretty One Day (2000), Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim (2004), and When You Are Engulfed in Flames (2008), have become New York Times Best Sellers.
As of 2008, his books have collectively sold seven million copies. Much of Sedaris's humor is autobiographical and self-deprecating, and often concerns his family life, his middle class upbringing in the suburbs of Raleigh, North Carolina, Greek heritage, various jobs, education, drug use, homosexuality, and his life in France with his boyfriend, Hugh Hamrick. (From Wikipedia)
Top 100 Gay Novels List (*)
External Link to the Top100 Gay Novels List (simple - without photos)
External Link to the Top 100 Gay Novels List (wanted - with photos)
*only one title per author, only print books released after January 1, 2000.
Note: I remember to my friends that guest reviews of the above listed books (the top 100 Gay Novels) are welcome, just send them to me and I will post with full credits to the reviewer.
Other titles not in the top 100 list:
http://www.librarything.com/catalog/top50MM
8 Comments | Post A Comment | Add to Memories | Tell a Friend | Link
I took Rob in to work this morning. Earlier I was beginning to wonder if I'd be able to get in to collect him this evening - on the way back into the village, the roads that had been clear on the way out were beginning to acquire a covering of snow -, but the clouds seem to be breaking up now, so with any luck things will have thawed a bit by mid-afternoon.
Also, it's bin day, so the bin lorrymay have an effect too :-)
In a bit I shall venture down into the village (with my trusty stomping boots and walking pole) and see if there are any picturesque views to be photied.
5 Comments | Post A Comment | Add to Memories | Tell a Friend | Link
|
|
|
|
|
![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small}
![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/syndicated.gif){kind=small}
![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/community.gif){kind=small}
chipper
pondering