I’ve been a part of the LGBTQ+ community my whole life and have always been passionate about advocating for the people who identify as such. Furthermore, I have always had a fascination with emotional stories and the combination of a lack of many LGBTQ+ books with an abundance of romance and emotional thrillers out there makes it a ripe topic for stories. As a lesbian myself, it is very hard to write stories that don’t have those kinds of couples, so I tend to stick to that genre and I’m absolutely addicted to lesbian books.
While reading this book, I was impressed by the skillful ability of the author to make me sympathize with the characters and begin rooting for them.
Their masterful execution of character development and the way I wanted to jump into the story to help make it one of the most amazing I have ever read and I would highly recommend it to those who are struggling to find a way to overcome sadness.
"Schulze's depiction of the Victorian era is atmospheric and intense in conveying the persecution gay people faced." - Kirkus Review
England, 1881. Being gay is both a sin and a crime. Parents disowning their children is considered honourable. Consensual sex risks life in prison. Sodomy scandals ruin careers and reputations. Homosexuals have to choose between safety and happiness.
After an unspeakable incident gets him exiled from his idyllic Irish hometown, twenty-four-year-old Jack Branson rebuilds his life in fog-and-mould London as a house call prostitute for closeted members of the British aristocracy. His dangerous, lucrative profession makes him dependent on the…
In the small Greek village I grew up in, my father read poetry to me when I was too young to understand any of it, and likely because of this I was pulled to the sound of the words and to reading anything that came my way. In high school, I fell in love with Plato’s writings, and later, as an undergraduate, philosophy saved me from my official major: economics. I continued in my Psychology Master’s, with Paul Kline’s “exceptional abilities” course, a philosophy class about consciousness. I read tons of books and I am enticed by writers who search for life’s questions and self-awareness.
What's Left of the Night gives an imagined account of the young Cavafy's three-day visit to Paris in 1897. This trip proved to be an important journey for the then-unknown Greek poet who was in search of his poetic voice among other things.
The book is about the artist, as well as any ordinary human being, who yearns to reach his/her own higher potential or to live for something higher and for a moment he/she does. This literary work of genius is a hymn to the irremediable desire of the humble soul that reaches for the stars, despite the fact that in the majority, or almost all, of its life lives in the gutter.
"A perfect book."―Edmund White, author of A Boy's Own Story and Genet: A Biography
WINNER OF THE 2019 NATIONAL TRANSLATION AWARD
In June 1897, the young Constantine Cavafy arrives in Paris on the last stop of a long European tour, a trip that will deeply shape his future and push him toward his poetic inclination. With this lyrical novel, tinged with a hallucinatory eroticism that unfolds over three unforgettable days, celebrated Greek author Ersi Sotiropoulos depicts Cavafy in the midst of a journey of self-discovery across a continent on the brink of massive change. He is by turns exhilarated and…
This novel's central character is a fictionalization, not of another character, but of an author, Thomas Mann. Tóibín presents the known outer details of Mann’s
life well—his work, his fame, and the cultural and social upheavals of 20th-century Germany—but I find the intimate inner life of the great writer most fascinating.
Drawing on Mann’s
published works as well as his posthumously published diaries, Tóibín can enter Mann’s mind and heart as he interacts with his wife, his brother, his
children, particularly Klaus (nicknamed Essi), his sexuality, and above all,
with his forbidden love for the young Tadzio, the love interest of Mann’s novel
Death in Venice.
I found that Tóibín’s work has the quiet gravitas
and beautiful prose of Henry James.
THE SUNDAY TIMES TOP TEN BESTSELLER SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2022 RATHBONES FOLIO PRIZE
From one of our greatest living writers comes a sweeping novel of unrequited love and exile, war and family.
The Magician tells the story of Thomas Mann, whose life was filled with great acclaim and contradiction. He would find himself on the wrong side of history in the First World War, cheerleading the German army, but have a clear vision of the future in the second, anticipating the horrors of Nazism.
He would have six children and keep his homosexuality hidden; he was a man forever connected…
