Gay and Lesbian Book Club Roundup: November
With help from readers, I've been able to expand the list of local gay/lesbian book clubs from 3 to 5 for November's roundup. If you know of any others that I have not included, please do let me know and I'll be happy to add them into future roundups.
All the clubs listed here welcome new members at any time, and you're under no obligation to go to every meeting in order to be a member.
Below the fold: upcoming selections for the Big Gay Book Club; Bookmen DC; Lavender Book Club; Lambda Sci-Fi book discussion group; and Literally Lesbians. I'm a bit behind the curve on getting this posted, so the Literally Lesbians meeting is tonight. Hopefully you've already read the book if you want to attend that one!
Big Gay Book Club: Wednesday, November 12th, 7 p.m. Location: Timberlake's Restaurant (1726 Connecticut Ave NW; between R St. and Florida Avenue); please send an e-mail to biggaybookgroup@hotmail.com if you plan to attend so that the group leader can give the restaurant an accurate count. Book: The City and the Pillar by Gore Vidal.
Bookmen DC: All meetings are held at 7:30 p.m. at the Charles Sumner School (1201 17th St., NW). Wednesday, November 5th. Book: Dude, You're a Fag by C.J. Pascoe. Wednesday, November 19th. Book: Freedom in This Village: Twenty-Five Years of Black Gay Men's Writing.
Lavender Book Club: Tuesday, November 18th, 7:30 p.m. Location: Borders, 18th and L St., NW. Book: Memoirs of Hadrian by Marguerite Yourcenar
Literally Lesbians: Monday, November 3rd, 6:30 p.m (discussion of book starts at 7 p.m.). Location: Teaism, Penn Quarter. Book: Trace Elements of Random Tea Parties by Felicity Luna Lemus.
Lambda Sci-Fi: Thursday, December 4th, 7:30 p.m. Location: Peter and Rob's house, 1425 S St., NW. Book: Wicked Gentlemen by Ginn Hale.
10 comments:
does anyone know of any gay or gay-friendly book clubs that don't just read gay-themed works?
Good point, Parker. I'd enjoy a book club that has a healthy mix of all kinds of stuff--gay themed, fiction, non-fiction, etc.
I can't speak for the other clubs (haven't been to them) but not all of LSF's selections are automatically gay-themed. While the majority of them are, the most important thing is finding selections that are good (and sf/fantasy/horror/speculative genre) over if there's a LGBT character or author attached.
I would "second" the comment that it would be great to find a gay/gay-friendly book club that read a wide variety of books from NYTimes best sellers to the classics and everything in between. Is there an interest in starting one? I would be up for it.
I would be interested in helping start something.
Ok...so we have two people interested in the "book club." How should we proceed? Pick a date and a book and post that info on the TNG and see who shows up? I am open for ideas but we have to start somewhere. It might be good to get something going the end of Nov. or the beginning of Dec. to avoid too many holiday conflicts. I noticed there is a google group for "TNG" maybe we can use that to communicate?
i don't know about just setting a date. it could wind up being just me and you, ryan, showing up. but i think it would be cool to start a book club under the TNG banner. maybe we should just meet somewhere so talk about, uh, when to meet? i am too DC . . .
Parker...good idea. We should meet, get an idea and then figure out a way to get more than two people in the "club." Why don't you (and anyone else who is interested) email me at dcguy007@hotmail.com. And we can go from there.
I've updated the post to include location information for the November 12th meeting of the Big Gay Book Group.
As much as I appreciate what Ryan and Parker are talking about creating in this comments thread (and, indeed, plans are afoot for a TNG book club -- not that this should stop you both from organizing one, too -- the more the merrier), I would like to re-encourage readers to give one of the GLBT book clubs listed in this post a shot.
I've attended meetings of the first three listed here (and used to attend the lesbian-centered Reading Between the Lines before it disbanded), and what I tend to find is great gay literature being discussed in a very open and intelligent way, by welcoming, friendly people -- but there are, on average, about 4-8 people in attendance.
Of just the books listed in this post, Yourcenar's Memoirs of Hadrian and Vidal's City and the Pillar are modern gay classics, while Freedom in This Village is the best one-volume assemblage of gsy black male writing yet gathered. While I haven't attended Literally Lesbians or Lambda Sci-Fi, I've seen their reading lists, and they're also reading wonderful, quirky genre fiction and intriguing modern lesbian work.
I understand the urge to read a diversity of types of books -- but there's a lot of diversity just within gay/lesbian literature, and if you aren't also giving these clubs a try, you're missing out.
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