Books you’ve read in 2021

In all seriousness when it comes to Hollinghurst I would strongly recommend The Line of Beauty and The Swimming Pool Library. I do believe The Spell is considered to be the runt of the litter so no surprise there.

Both @RaspberrySwirl and I really enjoyed EM Forster's Maurice.
But which one is the WORST? :disco:
 
Yes but there's a reference to jungle music being 'hip' and one of the characters even has sex to a drum & bass song.
"Hip" really has become one of those words like "modern" which mean QUITE the opposite

Very daring on the drum & bass front :tongueout:
 
Well it's a ZU 2 NO to most of the vast majority of that apart from 'Bedtime Story' obviously :disco:

Wonderful to hear that homosexual youngsters are listening to the Rolling Stones and Frescobaldi though :tongueout:
 
:side-eye:

Any GOOD queer fiction anyone can recommend? Although I'm quite tempted to read this one for reasons of sheer awfulness
Barracuda by Christos Tsiolkas is a nice, depressing queer novel I read several years back. it involves a REPRESSED SWIMMING PRODIGY at an all boys school, and is told in two timelines. I cried a lot at the end but it was also a really uncomfortable and sad read, so I guess it depends how much MISERY you DESIRE
 
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Yes :disco:
 
I read Exquisite Corpse years ago, I don't think it's anything special. I really wanted to like it, but none of the characters rang true. I tried a few other books by Poppy Z. Brite, but they're just not for me - Lost Souls felt very YA and Liquor was insufferable.
If I want gore I'd rather read Jack Ketchum and if I want queer Southern Gothic I'd rather read some of Anne Rice's early novels again.
 
The City and the Pillar went down a storm at book club!

However, a YA book is winning the next poll and I'm less that enthusiastic about it. :|
 
I just finished this (disclaimer: not my bookshelf)

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tore through a joyful first 100 pages, and then it started to fall apart by entering flashbacks galore, flashbacks within flashbacks (this book is the Dutch middle-class literary Inception), and generally losing steam. not a single likeable character either, which I usually need... and it goes for an unreliable narrator approach that didn't really work for me. grade: B
 
I just finished this (disclaimer: not my bookshelf)

ANP-225671842.jpg


tore through a joyful first 100 pages, and then it started to fall apart by entering flashbacks galore, flashbacks within flashbacks (this book is the Dutch middle-class literary Inception), and generally losing steam. not a single likeable character either, which I usually need... and it goes for an unreliable narrator approach that didn't really work for me. grade: B

Hateful characters and some really pretentious writing. I read it in 2013 while I was interrailing (via Amsterdam) and absolutely hated it.
 
Oooooh. There’s a brand new bookshop in Manchester!

 
Oooooh. There’s a brand new bookshop in Manchester!


I went last week. It was cute!
 
Finished Swimming in the Dark. It was ok, I found it to be very by the numbers, the whole bit of love making in the forest by the lake made me roll my eyes.

The stuff dealing with Poland was a lot more interesting but I’m so over these sanitized overly romantic gay love stories.
 
Finished Swimming in the Dark. It was ok, I found it to be very by the numbers, the whole bit of love making in the forest by the lake made me roll my eyes.

The stuff dealing with Poland was a lot more interesting but I’m so over these sanitized overly romantic gay love stories.

glad I’m not the only one
 
oh come on. They meet for two seconds and then spend a week by a magical lake where they fuck and forage for food in the forest. It’s so twee.
From the perspective of a teenage boy with no experience it seems great yes. Until it all ends in misery and he gives into there being no real future for them or most Polish gay boys.

It isn't!
 

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