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Reading Group: Books Discussed Since 1997

BookThe next four LGBT Reading Group selecions are listed on the LGBT Literature Homepage. Below are all of the books discussed by the Reading Group since 1997, alternating each month between female and male authors, and encompassing classic and contemporary works of fiction, non-fiction, drama, and poetry.

Below, each title between 1999 and 2008 links to online resources for the author, that I selected after visiting all related sites. For books read between 1999 and 2004, there is also a summary of our discussion. Beginning in 2009, books are listed only by title and by author, although you can click on links to other works by those authors to find online resources. You can find general background information on authors at wikipedia, and specific GLBT connections to their lives and works at the glbtq encyclopedia.

Leave your own critique of these books, or any other items, at Amazon.com (no purchase necessary), where you will also find reviews, readers' comments, and sometimes excerpts.

Books & Resources: 2008 | 2007 | 2006 | 2005 | 2004 | 2003 | 2002 | 2001 | 2000 | 1999 || Books Only:  1998 | 1997 || Full Index

By Title

 

By Author

  • Giovanni's RoomAciman, Andre – Call Me by Your Name [discussed 2011-03]
  • Allison, Dorothy
    – Bastard Out of Carolina [discussed 2017-11 and 1997-05]
    – Cavedweller
  • Anshaw, Carol
    – Aquamarine [discussed 2013-04]
    – Carry the One [discussed 2015-04]
  • Arenas, Reinaldo – Before Night Falls [discussed 2010-01 and 2001-04]
  • Baldwin, James
    – Another Country
    – Giovanni's Room
  • Balzac, Honoré de – Lost Illusions [discussed 2016-09]
  • Barker, Pat
    – Regeneration
    – The Eye in the Door
  • Bannon, Ann – Odd Girl Out [discussed 2012-06]
  • Barnet, Andrea – All-Night Party: The Women of Bohemian Greenwich Village and Harlem, 1913–1930
  • Beach, Sylvia – Shakespeare and Company [discussed 2010-10]
  • Bechdel, Allison
    – Are You My Mother? [discussed 2014-12]
    – Fun Home
  • Beck, Kristen – Warrior Princess: A U.S. Navy SEAL's Journey to Coming out Transgender [discussed 2018-03]
  • Berendt, John – Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil [discussed 2018-04]
  • Bolaño, Robert
    – By Night in Chile
    – The Savage Detectives
  • Bornstein, Kate – A Queer and Pleasant Danger: The True Story of a Nice Jewish Boy Who Joins the Church of Scientology and Leaves 12 Years Later to Become the Lovely Lady She is Today [discussed 2017-07]
  • Bowen, Elizabeth – The Death of the Heart
  • Bowles, Jane – Two Serious Ladies [discussed 2009-10]
  • Bowles, Paul – The Sheltering Sky
  • Bradley, Marion Zimmer – The Catch Trap
  • Bram, Christopher
    – Eminent Outlaws: The Gay Writers Who Changed America [discussed 2015-08]
    – Gossip
    – Hold Tight     [discussed 2018-02]
    – The Notorious Dr. August
    arrow Christopher Bram Web Page
  • Bronski, Michael – A Queer History of the United States [discussed 2016-11]
  • Brown, Rita Mae – Rubyfruit Jungle
  • Burd, Nick – The Vast Fields of Ordinary [discussed 2010-01]
  • Burns, John Horne – The Gallery [discussed 2015-05]
  • Byatt, A.S.
    – Angels & Insects [discussed 2011-08]
    – The Children's Book     [discussed 2010-02]
    – Possession: A Romance
  • Burgess, Anthony – Earthly Powers
  • Cameron, Peter – Some Day This Pain Will Be Useful to You [discussed 2015-03]
  • Capote, Truman
    – In Cold Blood
    – Other Voices, Other Rooms
  • Carpenter, Dale – Flagrant Conduct: The Story of Lawrence v. Texas [discussed 2015-01]
  • Cather, Willa
    – Death Comes for the Archbishop [discussed 2012-03 and 2000-01]
    – A Lost Lady     [discussed 2013-10]
    – O Pioneers!     [discussed 2013-06]
    – One of Ours     [discussed 2014-04]
    – The Professor's House     [discussed 2016-02]
    – The Song of the Lark
    – Youth and the Bright Medusa     [discussed 2015-10]
  • Clarke, Gerald – Get Happy: The Life of Judy Garland
  • ClaudineColette
    – Cherí
    – Claudine
  • Conley, Garrard – Boy Erased: A Memoir [discussed 2018-10]
  • Crowley, Mart – The Boys in the Band [discussed 2010-07]
  • Cunningham, Michael
    – A Home at the End of the World
    – The Hours
  • D'Emilio, John – Lost Prophet: The Life and Times of Bayard Rustin
  • Dickinson, Emily – Poetry
  • Donoghue, Emma – Slammerkin
  • du Maurier, Daphne
    – Jamaica Inn [discussed 2014-08]
    – Rebecca [discussed 2012-08]
  • Durrell, Lawrence – Balthazar
  • Eleveld, Kerry – Don't Tell Me To Wait: How the Fight for Gay Rights Changed America and Transformed Obama's Presidency
  • Ellis, Bret Easton – The Rules of Attraction [discussed 2014-07]
  • Eugenides, Jeffrey – Middlesex
  • Flagg, Fannie – Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe [discussed 2016-06]
  • Flanner, Janet – Paris Was Yesterday, 1925 – 1939 [discussed 2010-06]
  • Forster, E.M.
    – Howards End
    – Maurice     [discussed 2013-05]
    – A Passage to India
  • Frank, Judith – All I Love and Know [discussed 2018-01]
  • Gale, Patrick – Rough Music
  • Genet, Jean
    – Our Lady of the Flowers
    – Querelle [discussed 2012-03]
  • Gide, André
    – The Counterfeiters
    – The Immoralist [discussed 2013-01]
  • Ginsberg, Allen – Howl & Other Poems
  • Glass, Julia – Three Junes
  • Greene, Harlan – Why We Never Danced the Charleston [discussed 2015-11]
  • Greenwell, Garth – What Belongs to You [discussed 2017-01]
  • Grimsley, Jim – Dream Boy
  • Hajdu, David – Lush Life: A Biography of Billy Strayhorn [discussed 2017-04]
  • Hall, Radclyffe – The Well of Loneliness [discussed 2018-05]
  • Hamilton, Gabrielle – Blood, Bones & Butter: The Inadvertent Education of a Reluctant Chef [discussed 2012-12]
  • Hart, Moss – Act One: An Autobiography
  • Haslett, Adam – You Are Not a Stranger Here
  • Hellman, Lillian – The Children's Hour
  • Helms, Alan – Young Man From The Provinces: A Gay Life Before Stonewall [discussed 2014-05]
  • Hesse, Hermann – Narcissus and Goldmund [discussed 2009-01]
  • Highsmith, Patricia
    – The Price of Salt (also published as: Carol) [discussed 2016-04 and 1998-03]
    – Ripley Under Ground
    – Ripley Under Water [discussed 2010-02]
    – Strangers on a Train [discussed 2013-08 and 2002-07]
    – The Tremor of Forgery [discussed 2017-03 — postponed from 2017-02 re snow storm]
  • Hodgman, George – Bettyville: A Memoir [discussed 2016-11]
  • Hollinghurst, Alan
    – The Folding Star [discussed 2017-10]
    – The Line of Beauty
    – The Sparsholt Affair [discussed 2018-08]
    – The Spell [discussed 2012-01]
  • Hunter, Tab & Eddie Muller – Tab Hunter Confidential: The Making of a Movie Star [discussed 2013-09]
  • Hurston, Nora Zeale – Their Eyes Were Watching God
  • Berlin StoriesIsherwood, Christopher
    – Berlin Stories
    – Christopher and His Kind
    – A Single Man [discussed 2010-05]
  • Jackson, Shirley – Haunting of Hill House
  • Jaeggy, Fleur – Sweet Days of Discipline
  • Jafek, Bev – A Kind of Paradise [discussed 2018-11]
    – The Sacred Beasts [discussed 2017-09]
  • Jakobsen, Janet & Ann Pellegrini – Love the Sin: Sexual Regulation and the Limits of Religious Tolerance [discussed 2014-06]
  • James, Henry – What Maisie Knew
    – The Bostonians [discussed 2016-03]
  • Jelloun, Tahar ben – Sacred Night
  • Jewett, Sarah Orne – The Country of the Pointed Firs
  • Jimenez, Stephen – The Book of Matt: Hidden Truths About the Murder of Matthew Shepard [discussed 2015-09]
  • Kaufman, Moisés – Gross Indecency: The Three Trials of Oscar Wilde [discussed 2011-07]
  • Kerouac, Jack – On the Road [discussed 2009-09]
  • Kilmer-Purcell, Josh – I Am Not Myself These Days [discussed 2013-11]
  • Koestenbaum, Wayne – The Queen's Throat: Opera, Homosexuality, and the Mystery of Desire (1993) [discussed 2009-05]
  • Lahr, John – Tennessee Williams: Mad Pilgrimage of the Flesh [discussed 2017-08]
  • Laurents, Arthur – Original Story By: A Memoir of Broadway and Hollywood [discussed 2012-11]
  • Lawrence, D.H.
    – The Rainbow
    – Sons and Lovers
    – Women in Love
  • LeGuin, Ursula K. – The Left Hand of Darkness
  • Louis, Edouard – The End of Eddy [discussed 2018-06]
  • Lorca, Federico Garcia
    – Blood Wedding
    – The House of Bernarda Alba
  • Mahlsdorf, Charlotte von – I Am My Own Wife (original title: I Am My Own Woman)
  • Mann, Thomas
    – Death in Venice
    – The Magic Mountain [discussed 2009-03]
    – Tonio Kröger
  • Mann, William J. – Wisecracker: The Life and Times of William Haines, Hollywood's First Openly Gay Star [discussed 2012-07]
  • Mansfield, Katherine – Stories
  • Martin, Douglas – Branwell: A Novel of the Brontë Brother
  • Maugham, Somerset
    – Cakes and Ale
    – The Moon and Sixpence
    – Of Human Bondage
    – The Painted Veil [discussed 2014-03]
    – The Razor's Edge [discussed 2011-01]
  • Maupin, Armistead – Tales of the City
  • McCarthy, Mary – The Group
  • McCauley, Stephen – True Enough
  • The Heart is a Lonely Hunter McCullers, Carson
    – The Ballad of the Sad Cafe
    – The Heart is a Lonely Hunter
    – The Member of the Wedding
    – Reflections in a Golden Eye
  • McKeon, Belinda – Tender [discussed 2016-08]
  • McNally, Terrence – Love! Valour! Compasion! [discussed 2010-07]
  • Meaker, Marijane
    – Highsmith: A Romance of the 1950s [discussed 2009-08]
    – Shockproof Sydney Skate [discussed 2013-02]
  • Melville, Herman
    – Billy Budd, Sailor
    – Moby-Dick [discussed 2012-09]
  • Merlis, Mark – American Studies [discussed 2014-09]
  • Messud, Claire – The Emperor's Children [discussed 2014-12]
  • Miller, Isabel – Patience & Sarah
  • Mishima, Yukio – Confessions of a Mask
  • Monette, Paul – Becoming a Man
  • Moore, Honor
    – The Bishop's Daughter [discussed 2009-12]
    – The White Blackbird: A Life of the Painter Margarett Sargent by Her Granddaughter [discussed 2010-04]
  • Murdoch, Iris
    – An Accidental Man [discussed 2011-10]
    – The Bell
    – The Black Prince
    – A Fairly Honorable Defeat
    – The Good Apprentice [discussed 2011-04]
    – The Sandcastle [discussed 2009-02]
    – The Sea, The Sea
    – A Severed Head
    – Under the Net
  • Myles, Eileen – Chelsea Girls
  • Musil, Robert – Young Törless
  • Naylor, Gloria – Mama Day [discussed 2010-08]
  • Nicolson, Nigel – Portrait of a Marriage: Vita Sackville-West and Harold Nicolson [discussed 2013-03]
  • Nin, Anaïs
    – Delta of Venus
    – Henry and June
  • At Swim, Two BoysO'Neill, Jamie – At Swim, Two Boys
  • Oates, Joyce Carol – Wild Nights!: Stories About the Last Days of Poe, Dickinson, Twain, James, and Hemingway [discussed 2009-06]
  • Packer, Vin – Spring Fire [discussed 2012-10]
  • Pasolini, Pier Paolo – Roman Nights and Other Stories
  • Penney, Stef – The Tenderness of Wolves (2004) [discussed 2009-04]
  • Picano, Felice – Onyx [discussed 2010-09]
  • Plato – Symposium
  • Proulx, Annie – Close Range : Wyoming Stories (includes "Brokeback Mountain")
  • Proust, Marcel – A Remembrance of Things Past (aka In Search of Lost Time) — read in the now-concluded Proust Discussion Group
  • Purdy, James – In a Shallow Grave
  • Rechy, John – City of Night
  • Renault, Mary
    – The Charioteer [discussed 2014-02]
    – The Last of the Wine
    – The Mask of Apollo
    – The Persian Boy
  • Rice, Christopher – A Density of Souls [discussed 2017-06]
  • Russell, Paul – The Coming Storm
  • Sacks, Oliver – On the Move: A Life [discussed 2016-07]
  • Selvadurai, Shyam – Funny Boy
  • Sarif, Shamim – I Can't Think Straight
  • Sharratt, Mary – Summit Avenue [discussed 2015-07]
  • Sheeley, Robert – Rainbow Plantation Blues [discussed 2014-11]
  • Shilts, Randy – The Mayor of Castro Street: The Life and Times of Harvey Milk [discussed 2009-07]
  • Sinclair, Jo – The Changelings
  • Smith, Patti – Just Kids [discussed 2011-06]
  • Sontag, Susan – In America
  • Spring, Justin – Secret Historian: The Life and Times of Samuel Steward, Professor, Tattoo Artist, and Sexual Renegade [discussed 2011-11]
  • Three LivesStein, Gertrude – The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas [discussed 2019-01 and 1998-07]
    – Three Lives
  • Stone, Elizabeth – A Boy I Once Knew [discussed 2014-10]
  • Strachey, Lytton – Eminent Victorians [discussed 2009-11]
  • Susann, Jacqueline – Valley of the Dolls [discussed 2012-04]
  • Tóibín, Colm
    – Love in a Dark Time: And Other Explorations of Gay Lives and Literature [discussed 2013-07]
    – The Master
  • Toklas, Alice B. – The Alice B. Toklas Cook Book [discussed 2010-12]
  • Truong, Monique – The Book of Salt
  • Vidal, Gore – Julian
  • Warren, Patricia Nell – The Front Runner [discussed 2016-12 and 1997-01]
  • Waters, Sarah
    – Affinity
    – Fingersmith
    – The Night Watch
    – Tipping the Velvet
  • Waugh, Evelyn – Brideshead Revisited
    – Vile Bodies [discussed 2009-09]
  • Weinberg, J.L. – True Religion [discussed 2016-05]
  • Weiss, Andrea – In the Shadow of the Magic Mountain: The Erika and Klaus Mann Story [discussed 2015-06]
  • White, Edmund – City Boy [discussed 2011-05]
    – Our Young Man [discussed 2018-12]
  • Wilde, Oscar – De Profundis [discussed 2011-07]
  • Wilder, Thornton – The Bridge of San Luis Rey [discussed 2012-05]
  • Williams, Tennessee
    – Cat on a Hot Tin Roof
    – Suddenly Last Summer
  • Winterson, Jeanette
    – Lighthousekeeping
    – The Passion (also 11/1998)
  • Woolf, Virginia
    – Flush: A Biography
    – Jacob's Room
    – Mrs. Dalloway [discussed 2015-02 and 1998-05]
    – Orlando [discussed 2012-02]
    – A Room of One's Own
    – To the Lighthouse
    – The Waves
  • Woolrich, Cornell – Rendezvous in Black
  • Yanagihara, Hanya – A Little Life [discussed 2017-05]
  • Yourcenar, Marguerite
    – Memoirs of Hadrian     [discussed 2011-12 and 1998-09]
    – Two Lives and a Dream [discussed 2018-09]
   

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Mrs Dalloway 1998

December Palimpsest – Gore Vidal's 1995 memoir
November The Passion – Jeanette Winterson's 1987 novel
October Go Tell It on the Mountain – James Baldwin's 1953 novel
September Memoirs of Hadrian – Marguerite Yourcenar's 1951 novel
August The Dreyfus Affair – Peter Lefcourt's 1992 novel
July The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas – Gertrude Stein's 1933 novel
June Labyrinths – Jorge Luis Borges's 1964 collection of stories and essays
May Mrs. Dalloway – Virginia Woolf's 1925 novel
April The Picture of Dorian Gray – Oscar Wilde's 1890 novel
March The Price of Salt – Patricia Highsmith's ("Claire Morgan") 1952 novel
February Invisible Life – E. Lynn Harris's 1991 novel
January Nightwood – Djuna Barnes's 1936 novel

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Angels in America 1997

December Kiss of the Spider Woman – Manuel Puig's 1976 novel
November Another Mother Tongue – Judy Grahn's 1984 memoir
October The Lost Language of Cranes – David Leavitt's 1986 novel
September Virtual Equality – Urvashi Vaid's 1995 political study
August Angels in America (Part I: Millennium Approaches & Part II: Perestroika) – Tony Kushner's 1992 play
July Sexing the Cherry – Jeanette Winterson's 1989 novel
June Gay New York: 1890-1940 – George Chauncey's 1994 history
 

Thanks to Howard L for the following five titles read earlier in 1997, before I joined the group:
May Bastard Out of Carolina – Dorothy Allison's 1992 novel
April Father of Frankenstein – Christopher Bram's 1995 novel. (SPECIAL: Mr. Bram appeared for questions & answers)
March The Leather Boys – Gillian Freeman's 1966 novel
February Let the Dead Bury Their Dead – Randall Kenan's 1992 short story collection
January The Front Runner – Patricia Nell Warren's 1974 novel
 

Although this page includes all books discussed since 1997 by the G&L Reading Group, it was originally founded circa 1982 — making it one of the longest continuously-meeting LGBT organizations in New York.
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