New and Noteworthy Books

'88x50: A Memoir of Sexual Discovery, Modern Music and the United States of America' by Adam Tendler

Here's a last-minute addition to the list that sounds fun!

Description:

A music school misfit escapes to the highway with a ramshackle recital tour called America 88x50—eighty-eight piano keys by fifty states—winging it from the front seat of his Hyundai and bringing free performances of seldom-heard, modern American music to some of the country's most isolated corners. It's an all-American road trip with a modern music twist, but behind the public façade is a musical Johnny Appleseed desperate to find himself and spiraling into a secret life that could lead just as easily from ultimate self-acceptance to ultimate self-destruction. In this pedal-to-the-metal literary debut, complete with a free online companion offering nearly 200 multimedia features, Adam Tendler takes readers for an unforgettable ride into the classical music odyssey that beat the odds, shaped an artist, and shook this nation one piano at a time.

Order HERE.

'Closets, Combat and Coming Out: Coming of Age as a Gay Man in the Don't Ask, Don't Tell Army' by Rob Smith

Keith Boykin calls this memoir "a riveting first-hand account of a shameful time in our recent history when courageous men like Smith were forced to serve their country in silence."

Description:

Rob is a young African-American man coming to terms with his sexuality amid the backdrop of the hyper-masculine, homophobic U.S. Army. After surviving the notoriously brutal Infantry basic training and then finding himself as a young gay man while remaining closeted to all but a few of his colleagues at his first duty station, he finds himself in dangerous territory after the United States declares war on Iraq and his unit is one of the first called in after the initial invasion.

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'Benedetto Casanova: The Roman Diaries' by Marten Weber 

Bet you didn't know Casanova had a gay brother.

Description:

After following the famous Giacomo Casanova through Europe for ten years, Giacomo’s gay brother Benedetto has settled down in Rome with his German lover. But the Eternal City bores him. He has no work and no friends. His lover is always busy and away on assignments for the Vatican secret service. Alone in a big new house, he is desperate for distraction. Just when idless and unfulfilled lust threaten to get the better of Benedetto, Carl Anton accepts an exciting secret mission to Portugal. Preparations for the long journey are in full swing when the head of the mission, a young priest, disappears, and the mutilated bodies of two young men are found. The couple is thrown into an adventure which tests their love like none before.  

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'I, a Man' by Jery Tillotson 

 A 73-year-old gay man uses a dating service in Asheville, N.C., to go on 150 dates in one year.

Description:

At 5, a cunning pedophile initiated him into the world of male-male sex. At 55, he had become a celebrated pioneer in queer writing. By 73, he enjoyed love affairs with over one hundred men in his new home in the mountain city of Asheville. Through seven decades, though, Jery Tillotson endured violent homophobia starting after World War II. That he lived to describe his tumultuous life is a testament to courage and steely determination. You'll find it all--shocking, unforgettable and passionate--in these no-holds-barred memoir.

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'The Mercury Waltz' by Kathe Koja

Kathe Koja's sequel to "Under the Poppy" is just out. It's available as an ebook, and she's also done a small run of physical limited editions, some of which she's inscribing and sending with puppets and tarot cards and "gorgeous things."

Descripton:

"We’re pursued by no one, now." Having fled their comfortably dangerous brothel-and-theater known as the Poppy, Rupert and Istvan have traveled far to land in a city of sepia and silver, where they make new allies and settle old grudges. Ancient families clash with municipal thugs outside and inside the doors of the Mercury Theatre: the home Rupert has always longed for, with a stage created for Istvan’s wildest tales. Kathe Koja’s compelling sequel to "Under the Poppy" continues the timeless love and passionate play of its heroes, who can never truly escape their past. As their lives intertwine with a young blue-eyed fortuneteller, a foxy street sharpster, and a poet from the provinces come to this city on the brink of combustion, the promise of the Poppy is played out to the tune of "The Mercury Waltz."

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'We Are Here' by Michael Marshall

Recommended by a friend who says this is a "a good, creepy thriller."

Description: It should've been the greatest day in David's life. A trip to New York, wife by his side, to visit his new publisher. Finally it looks as though the gods of fate are going to lift him from schoolteacher to writer. But on his way back to Penn Station, a chance encounter changes all of that. David bumps into a stranger who covertly follows him, and then, just before they board the train home, passes him by close enough to whisper: "Remember me." The stranger follows them back to where they live, and it isn't long before David realizes that this man wants something from him...something very personal, that he may have no choice but to surrender.

Order HERE.