THEGAYUK

Tag: Book Review

All the latest book reviews. Browse The THEGAYUK’s complete collection of for books.

  • BOOK REVIEW | Dr.a.g

    ‘Dr.a.g. isn’t what you wear and it isn’t who you are. It’s how you wear who you are.’

    Drag (a man who is ‘dressed as a girl’) has become a diverse form of expression that challenges, entertains and educates by pushing boundaries, while embracing beauty, comedy and glamour. The performers in this illustrated book are evidence of that diversity, captured by some of the top photographers working in the world today. All of them have graciously donated their work to make the book possible. What started as a small independent film fundraiser has grown into this beautiful coffee-table book.

    Actor and author Christopher Logan launched the ‘dr.a.g.’ book a few years ago, but the project stalled when his original publisher fell into bankruptcy. Logan believed in the project, garnered a loan, and kept the existing distribution contracts. Logan is bringing back the glamour with photography books. In a world when the printed word is easily downloaded, the book that survives is the photo book. “You just cannot experience the vibrancy of these photographs online. They are meant for the printed page,” says Logan.

    The ‘Bookthefilm Edition’ features famous faces from Frank Marino, Jackie Beat and Lady Bunny to Joey Arias, Jeffree Star and Jim Bailey. Additionally, several portraits from noteworthy drag queen photographers are included in this book, including Magnus Hastings, Austin Young and more. The book also features everyone’s favourite queens from RuPaul’s Drag Race including Chad Michaels, Courtney Act, Yara Sofia, Roxxy Andrews, Detox, Akashia, Tammie Brown, Nina Flowers, Bebe Zahara Benet, Jujubee, Morgan McMichaels, Shannel, Ongina and Raja.

     

  • BOOK REVIEW | Cross Country Daddy

    I have to admit I love the written word; I have a thing for it, which is strange as someone who is quite visual in their other work and trained in visual arts. I especially love it in erotica, simple sensuous phrases can have unexpected results and can prove more arousing than mere images – and that’s exactly what Jonathan Lemieux and his short story does.

    Just that one word ‘Daddy’ conjures up all sorts of images in the gay world… and this book doesn’t disappoint. The story is simple but full of such descriptive narrative. It gives you a hero of sorts, with a back-story and told in the first person so you feel part of the action.

    It follows our hero, Justin Waterston, on a journey of self-discovery and into the arms of his daddy, Mitch. He meets his hero online, and spends time on camera with his lusty counter-part.

    The relationship develops and, in time, the usual question rears its ugly head, the one about meeting in the flesh. I always find this amazing as only our generation must understand this – we’ve seen each other, hell, we’ve probably had sex online on camera but we’ve never met face to face.

    So Justin receives a ticket to ride, and ride he does!

    If you like your sex with a pinch of pig, if you like your erotica with a smidgeon of smut – Jonathan writes it just for you.

    This story has the desired effect in the pant department – it arouses and stimulates but also gives you characters you care about and want to know more about!

    I’m reliably informed that this is another in a long line of stories, so feel free to invest emotionally in these characters and storylines – think Harry Potter with a fetish and you wont be disappointed in this series!

    The story is available here as a download or an actual book:

    www.blurb.ca/b/5686764-cross-country-daddy?class=book-title

    store.blurb.ca/ebooks/502220-cross-country-daddy

    By Chris Jones

  • BOOK REVIEW | No Drum To Beat

    ★★★★ | No Drum To Beat

    Mansel Stimpson, co-author of the Film Review yearbook, has written a memoir, a memoir where he states that ‘he was born in 1978 at the age of 40.’

    The Film Review yearbook is the world’s longest-established movie guide and is the only guide that provides essential credits and reviews for all theatrically released films in the UK. Stimpson began co-authoring the book in 2007, but his own memoir, titled ‘No Drum to Beat’, was actually written thirty years ago. It’s not about Mansel’s life as a writer, nor is it about film, it’s about him recognising his sexuality for the first time, at the age of 40, and then embracing it, and immediately seeing it as an opening to the possibility of loving.

    Mansel says that ‘when I recognised that I was gay I immediately saw it not as a problem but as a solution to a problem.’

    ‘No Drum to Beat’ tells an extraordinary and unique story of one man’s realisation that he was gay a bit late in life, but it’s also a record of gay life in London from 1978 to 1981, a time when London was going through a significant period of social change.

    Mansel mentions that his book ‘was written for men who thought being gay was a problem, and it’s also written for women and straight men in the hope of promoting greater understanding.’

    Mansel Stimpson has previously written for the British Federation of Film Societies, What’s On in London, Capital Gay, Gay Times, and the Pink Paper. Throughout his career he has interviewed countless singers, actors, conductors, and directors.

  • BOOK REVIEW | Speaking Out

    ★★★ | Speaking Out

    Speaking Out is a collection of photographic portraits of LBGT young people (aged 14-24 years old). 65+ young people, mostly from the USA are photographed. On each portrait young people have shared their thoughts, feelings or an experience. The young people have been honest in sharing their joys and tribulations of being an LGBT youth in a heterosexual world.

    In Speaking Out photographer Rachelle Lee Smith took the portraits, handed young people a sharpie pen and left them to write what they wanted. Among other topics, young people wrote about: stereotypes, identity, homophobia, self-love and romantic love. Young people identify as gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender. It was great to see transgendered young people represented, however the vast majority of the young people identified as lesbian.

    Years later, some young people reconsidered their portrait. They wrote about how their lives had changed and what they would write now. It was enjoyable to read these reflections from young people and the book would have benefited from having more of these. Several pages of the book felt wasted as they contained quotes that either praised the photographer or the book its self. Never was there any praise for the young people who were actually brave enough to share their stories.

    Speaking Out is presented well, it’s a large book with 127 glossy pages in full colour. There is the odd page where a young person’s handwriting makes it difficult to read what they’ve written, but at no point is it unreadable.

    Speaking Out is an enlightening book that shows how we are all the same, rather than how we are different. It should be available in every school, college, library and youth club.

  • BOOK REVIEW | The Great Discovery, Jonathan Lemieux

    ★★★★★ | The Great Discovery, Jonathan Lemieux

    You know me and my love for erotic fiction – oh, you don’t? Ok, I love words, they are sensuous and arousing, they can make you conjure images that photographers and illustrators may not be able to.

    And as for erotica, I’m not talking heavy-handed Fifty Shades of Blagh either, I’m talking characters, plots and scenarios that you can relate to. This is where Jonathan Lemieux comes in.

    His first of a series of erotic stories centres on Victor, described as the love-child of an Otter, a Bear and a Pig and this sets the tone nicely for the rest of this story.

    Victor and his boyfriend Thomas have reached that point in their relationship where they either split or go down the “open relationship” route.

    Guess which they choose? And, thus opens the floodgates of the Daddy section of this story. Victor realises that this is where his particular fetish lies. Jonathan is very descriptive, and ensures his story has a good amount of sex sprinkled throughout to keep you flicking those pages.

    This leads Victor to online hook-ups and onwards to Bruce, his 50-ish year old bear conquest and his friend Matt. What follows is an interesting and descriptive threesome.

    Jonathan can write, boy can he write – his backgrounds make his characters real, give them depth – odd really for an erotic short story, but worth the investment.

    His background as a visual artist seems to have given him an ability to be very descriptive about the situations he puts his characters into, and these are very 18+ and ain’t for the kiddies! The whole scenario feels real and that adds a certain edge to the story.

    The story is available here as a download or an actual book – take your pick.

    http://www.blurb.ca/b/5413601-the-great-discovery?class=book-title

  • BOOK REVIEW | The Queen Of Clubs

    ★★★★★ |The Queen Of Clubs

    There’s a quote at the front of this book that states:
    “Some people are born drag queens.Some people become drag queens. And some poor sods have drag queens thrust upon them.”

    And so it starts…

    Riding on a wave of drag queen interest, everywhere from the Facebook controversy over users having to use their real name (but only seems to apply to drag queens?) to RuPaul, this book tells a story – and a bloody good one at that!

    Tobias has taken some characters that could have been drawn as complete clichés and given them life – these characters, like ‘em or loathe ‘em, are real.

    From the still-in-the-closet virgin to the seen-it-all barman, from the abusive relationships to the fading glamorous drag queen – it’s all here and written large.

    The story follows one of our cast, Oliver, as he pops his drag club cherry and visits Divas, a seedy, rundown club run by Chris (not me!) It’s here that Oliver meets the rest of the cast – from deluded Robert Davies Junior (aka Wendy WolfWhistle) to the trio of cabaret queens Wendy aspires to join.

    The storyline moves along in short, sharp bursts, each chapter leading you into the next in a clever and addictive way. I’m not one to spoil a good plot, but there is lost love, unrequited love, love on the rocks, self-love and self-loathe, drugs, bad cabaret, cops ‘n’ robbers, and bad drag.

    This isn’t Drag Race calibre, there’s no Sharon Needles or Bianca Del Rio here – and that’s its charm. This is Everytown or Anytown, and these are people you could walk past on the street any day of the week, these aren’t the polished performers that may have to lip-synch for their lives… these couldn’t lip-synch to save their lives!

    This really is one you’ll love – from start to finish, it’ll entice you in, make you feel you know these characters (or someone very like them) and leave you with a shocker of an ending! This is low rent, low end, real life, warts and all stuff and I for one love it!

  • BOOK REVIEW | Camp Carnage (Night Terrors) by Elliott Arthur Cross & Josh Winning:

    The tagline for this kindle edition runs: “Schools out, and so are they. This summer’s going to be killer…” and it does exactly what it says on the tin! If you like your slasher movies Scream style crossed with Eating Out humour and a smidgeon of Nancy Drew, you will love this book.

    Set in the late ’80’s at a remote summer camp with a difference… this isn’t all macrame pot holders, shared showers and Eskimo rolls… this is more seething hormones, furtive fumbles and aversion therapies! This camp is for gay teens to straighten themselves out, or so their parents hope. Under the puritanical leadership of Katherine Creevey, Billy and his friends settle in for 6 weeks of therapy, tasks and campfire tales.

    However, someone has other ideas, and one by one, the campers disappear. Billy, the lead character, joins up with budding lesbian Jem to solve this mystery – a mystery that leads them back 3 years to a mysterious fire at the original Camp Genesis.

    There is plenty of horsing around, teen angst and slasher action. This is one very well written book, with decent, rounded characters, few (if any) stereotypes, comedy aplenty and a plot that draws you right in! The era is well recreated, the tense pitched just right.

    For me, the sign of a good fiction book is when I can see it clearly in my head? If the author has done their job, it appears like good cinema – and this did that perfectly.

    Do yourself a favour, buy it, toast some marshmallows on the fire pit and keep one eye firmly over your shoulder… just in case!

  • BOOK REVIEW | Gaysia – Adventures in the Queer East by Benjamin Law

    ★★★★ | Journalist Benjamin Law is an Australian with Asian roots. In Gaysia, he takes us on a tour of Asia showing us all things gay across the continent.

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  • BOOK REVIEW | Best Gay Romance 2014 Edited by Timothy J. Lambert & R.D Cochrane

    ★★★★ | Best Gay Romance 2014 Edited by Timothy J. Lambert & R.D Cochrane

    Best Gay Romance 2014 is a superb collection of fictional short stories about love and romance. Characters in this book are all in different places: some are single, some have just met a special man and some are in a relationship.

    Each of the 15 stories is exceptionally well written, gripping and heart warming. Best Gay Romance 2014 has contributions from some of the best gay Writers out there. One or two of the stories did lack depth, but only because they were too short. Three amazing stories in this anthology were:

    Strange Propositions by Eric Gober
    Strange Propositions is the opening story in Best Gay Romance 2014. The story starts with Kenny ending an unhappy long distance relationship. Then he meets Nate through work and they hit it off. The ending of this story is funny and leaves the reader with a smile.

    Sight by Jordan Taylor
    In Sight, Noah and Archer have been together since their teen years. Now in their twenties, Archer proposes and Noah says no. It’s a clever story about insecurity and getting over it. It shows the reader what a man will do for someone they really love. When life knocks you off your feet, a good man will be there to help you up. This beautiful story will reignite even the most pessimistic readers hope for love.

    Shep: A Dog by Alex Jeffers
    Isaac has unrequited love for Jackson. But he is about to learn that men can come along in the most unexpected of situations. Isaac rescues a dog called Shep from drowning in the sea, but can’t find his owner. Unknown to Isaac is that Shep is about to transform into more than he could ever have imagined. A sweet and imaginative story.

    All of these short stories share the theme of vulnerability. To be in love and loved back means you sometimes need to be emotionally vulnerable.

    If you enjoy romantic tales reads then Best Gay Romance 2014 will delight you. Even if you don’t, Best Gay Romance 2014 will still give you hope that Mr. Right out there; that is, if you haven’t already found him.

  • BOOK REVIEW | The Wolf in His Arms (Runes Trilogy Book 2) by Adrian Lilly

    ★★★ | The Wolf in His Arms (Runes Trilogy Book 2) by Adrian Lilly

    The first book is The Wolf at His Door, which I reviewed here

    Alec & Jared the gay, werewolf lovers are back. With Lucy, Alec’s sister, they set out to reveal the truth about what happened to them by decoding documents they found in a underground lab and to find their pack. But they are not the only ones looking for their pack. The Wolfs are hunting members their pack and offering them a choice: join them or they’ll kill them and their family.

    Along the way, Alec & Jared are at it like rabbits while Lucy is coming to terms with her new inner wolf. They track-down other members of their pack including: Maxwell another gay werewolf and his best friend Haley, and Nadia and her mother Helena.

    Alec, Jared & Lucy discover the Wolfs have much bigger ambitions, than just recruiting their pack. The Wolfs are bent on world domination and already have a plan set into action. Alec, Jared & Lucy decide they must stop them. They learn about the elusive Tutelars, protectors of humans. Will the Tutelars recognise that Alec, Lucy and Co are trying to help or just seem them as another pack of werewolfs?

    The story builds to a fantastic ending as the Wolfs set their plan into full motion, sending human society into panic and disarray. Can Alex, Jared and Co stop them or is it too late? This is where the book ends and it leaves the reader wanting more.

    The Wolf in His Arms is written in third person with a good show and tell balance. It keeps the reader hooked throughout with it’s fast-paced, ever-twisting storyline. The Wolf in His Arms is a brilliant, superb and reasonably told story.

    At times, a lack of editing did let The Wolf in His Arms down. It was repetitive on occasion, overly used description of weather – which wasn’t always consistent and used dialogue tags that distracted from the dialogue.

    I recommend reading The Wolf at His Door before The Wolf in His Arms. The Wolf in His Arms gives an adequate backstory, but doesn’t give the reader the same emotional connection as The Wolf at His Door does. I can’t wait to read the final book in the trilogy.

    The Wolf in His Arms is available in ebook format only and its short chapters mean that it is perfect to read on bus, train or tube to work. The Wolf in His Arms is available to buy on Amazon.

  • BOOK REVIEW | The Road To London by Adriano Bulla

    The future of (gay) literature.

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