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books tagged “lesbian fiction”
books tagged “lesbian fiction”
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Affinityby Sarah WatersISBN 1573228737 (1-57322-873-7)
Softcover, Riverhead Books
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Affinity'Book summary:Affinity is a tale of power and possession that Henry James himself might admire. In her first novel, Tipping the Velvet, Sarah Waters explored secrets and longing--capping off this lesbian romp with a utopian-socialist vision. Her intricate follow-up is just as sensual but infinitely darker, its moral more difficult to descry. Its stylistic and psychological rewards, however, are visible at every turn, the author's persuasive imagination matched by her gift for storytelling.
In late September 1874, Margaret Prior makes her way through the pentagons of London's Millbank Prison, a place of fearful symmetry and endless corridors. This plain woman on the verge of 30 has come to comfort those behind bars, several of whom Waters brings to instant, sad life. And our Lady Visitor plans to take her role dead seriously, having recovered from two years of nervous indolence in her family's Chelsea house. One person, however, makes her job a passion. Opening an inspection slit (or "eye" as these devices are known), Margaret hears "a perfect sigh, like a sigh in a story." Peering inward, she's confronted by the most erotic of visions--a woman turned toward the sun, caressing her cheek with a forbidden violet: "As I watched, she put the flower to her lips, and breathed upon it, and the purple of the petals gave a quiver and seemed to glow..."
Selina Dawes may indeed have the face of a Crivelli angel, but this medium is in for fraud and assault, her last session having gone very badly indeed. Suffice it to say that the first full encounter between these two very different women is enthralling. "You think spiritualism a kind of fancy," Selina riddles. "Doesn't it seem to you, now you are here, that anything might be real, since Millbank is?" And soon enough Margaret receives several viable signs of the supernatural: a locket disappears from her room, flowers mysteriously appear, and her dazzling friend knows everything about her. Strangest of all, Selina seems to love her.
As Margaret records her weekly prison forays, her own past comes into focus, notably her plans to travel to Italy with her first love (who is now her sister-in-law). But her current journal, she convinces herself, is to be very different from her last one, which "took as long to burn as human hearts, they say, do take." Meanwhile, Waters offers a narrative two-for-one, placing Margaret's diary cheek by jowl with Selina's chronicle of her pre-Millbank existence. This dispassionate, staccato record initially suggests that we can separate truth from desire. Or can we? What Waters's haunting creation leaves us with is a more painful reality--that knowledge and belief are entirely different things. --Kerry Fried [via]
Alma Materby Rita Mae BrownISBN 0345455320 (0-345-45532-0)
Softcover, Ballantine Books
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Annie on My Mindby Nancy GardenISBN 0374400113 (0-374-40011-3)
Softcover, Farrar Straus & Giroux
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Annie on My Mind'Book summary:Liza never knew that falling in love could be so wonderful . . . and so confusing.[via]
"'Liza,' Mom said, looking into my eyes, 'I want you to tell me the truth, not because I want to pry, but because I have to know. This could get very unpleasant . . . Now--have you and Annie--done any more than the usual experimenting . . . '
'No, Mom,' I said, trying to look back at her calmly. I'm not proud of it, I make no excuses--I lied to her."More editions of Annie on My Mind:
- Annie on My Mind: ISBN 0374404143 (0-374-40414-3)
Softcover, Farrar, Straus & Giroux - Annie on My Mind: ISBN 0374303665 (0-374-30366-5)
Hardcover, Farrar Straus & Giroux - Annie on My Mind: ISBN 0808587560 (0-8085-8756-0)
Hardcover, Bt Bound - Annie on My Mind: ISBN 0374400113 (0-374-40011-3)
Softcover, Farrar Straus & Giroux
- Annie on My Mind: ISBN 0374404143 (0-374-40414-3)
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Aquamarineby Carol AnshawISBN 0395877555 (0-395-87755-5)
Softcover, Houghton Mifflin
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Aquamarine'Book summary:Explores three hypothetical schemas that could have been the life of swimmer Jesse Austin if she had made different choices and had not been haunted by her loss in the Mexico City Olympics. 10,000 first printing. [via]
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Beebo Brinkerby Ann BannonISBN 1573441252 (1-57344-125-2)
Softcover, Cleis Pr
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Beebo Brinker'Book summary:When housewife Ann Bannon brought her first novel to a paperback publisher in the mid-1950s, the publisher skimmed the manuscript and told her to scrap everything but the college love affair between two women. "There's your real story," he said as she blushed, ashamed that her secret obsession had been so obvious to him. The resulting novel was Odd Girl Out, one of the bestselling paperbacks of the period, and perhaps the best (and least depressing) example of lesbian pulp fiction, a genre that flourished from the end of the Second World War until the changing laws on censorship made much seamier material commonplace, and the growing gay rights movement brought the gay life out of the shadows. Although the last of a four-book series, Beebo Brinker introduces Bannon's central character, a young, handsome butch who arrives in New York scared and innocent (and wearing a dress) but soon has the femmes of Greenwich Village in the palm of her hand. Essential reading for anyone interesting in lesbian herstory; a period piece (and a welcome reprint) that has worn remarkably well.--Regina Marler [via]
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Behind the Pine Curtainby Gerri HillISBN 1594930570 (1-59493-057-0)
Softcover, Bella Books, Incorporated
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Beware the Kissby J. Alex AckerISBN 1930874022 (1-930874-02-2)
Hardcover, Women's Work Press, LLC
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Beware the Kiss'Book summary:Raven Delaire has sworn vengence on the women who betrayed her. Tayler Windquest is the only woman with the power to save them all. She just doesn't know that...yet.
Tayler Windquest is practical. As a journalist, she has little use for anything not written in black and white. Until the night someone tries to kill her.
Saved from the assailant by her mysterious and beautiful neighbor, Erica Kirsten-Laird, Tayler realizes she's fascinated by the intensely private woman...and not just as a journalist.
As the plot against her unfurls, Tayler finds herself deeply immersed in an ancient and formidable curse. When additional threats on her life occur, Tayler realizes she must find a way to destroy Raven...or be destroyed herself. And when she needs her strength the most, Tayler finds she's hopelessly in love, but to make love to Erica would kill them both.
Tayler must trust her instincts and newfound powers to destroy the evil Raven has created, and to save the woman she loves. [via]
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Bingoby Rita Mae BrownISBN 0553380400 (0-553-38040-0)
Softcover, Bantam Dell Pub Group
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Bingo'Book summary:The acclaimed author of Rubyfruit Jungle and Six Of One retums to Runnymede, Maryland, for an outrageous, poignant, and surprising story of passion, rivalry, and small-town fun. Straddling the Mason-Dixon Line since before the Civil War is Runnymede. And it seems that ever since then, most people in the town have been inherently split: between good and bad, or love and sex, or male and female, or politics and sobriety. Nicole ("Nickel") Smith is in such a dilemma herself--here she is, an avowed lesbian, having an affair that would shock Runnymede as much as it shocks Nickel herself. And her work seems to be going to the dogs, too, when the beloved newspaper where she is an editor is put up for sale. Thank goodness the weekly bingo games still go on, though Nickel is a little weary of playing referee there for the flamboyant Hunsenmeir sisters, Louise and Julia. Nickel's momma, who is now pushing ninety but clawing like cats over handsome newcomer Ed Tutweiler Walters. A parade of townsfolk and kin weave their colorful way through the trials, tribulations, and ultimate triumphs of our heroines, in this spirited novel of the South that appeals as much to the funny bone as to the heart. [via]
Biography of Desireby Mary DorceyISBN 185371707X (1-85371-707-X)
Hardcover, Poolbeg
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The Blue Placeby Nicola GriffithISBN 0380790882 (0-380-79088-2)
Softcover, Avon Books
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Blue Place'Book summary:Science fiction writer Nicola Griffith, winner of the Nebula and Tiptree Awards, proves that good writing transcends genre. The Blue Place is a spare, cold suspense thriller--Norwegian noir--with the kind of strong, enigmatic characters that made Griffith's Slow River such a great read. Aud Torvingen is a former cop, martial artist, and Scandinavian to the core. She stalks powerfully through the streets of Atlanta and the fjords of Norway in search of an art thief and killer. At first, she frightens us a bit, because she insistently imagines how easy it would be to kill almost everyone she meets. Having descended more than once into that dark, cold psychic realm wherein violence provides primal pleasure, Aud is constantly wary of her fellow human beings. But our fear turns to fascination as she finds herself falling in love with Julia, a smart, beautiful art dealer mixed up in the crime, and getting closer to finding the center of the danger in the icy north.
As in Slow River and Ammonite, Griffith's attention is often on the bodies of her characters--their awareness of skin and muscle, sinew and bone suffuses the action. Griffith closely scrutinizes their deeper inner workings, their emotions and logic, as well. The story is tense and gripping, as a good thriller should be, but the best part of The Blue Place is Aud's fascinatingly familiar search for self. --Therese Littleton [via]
Claire of the Moonby Nicole ConnISBN 1562800388 (1-56280-038-8)
Softcover, Naiad Pr
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Cognateby R. C. BrojimISBN 1930874006 (1-930874-00-6)
Softcover, Women's Work Press, LLC
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Curious Wineby Katherine V. ForrestISBN 1555836615 (1-55583-661-5)
Softcover, Alyson Pubns
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Daughters of a Coral Dawnby Katherine ForrestISBN 1555836623 (1-55583-662-3)
Softcover, Alyson Pubns
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Daughters of a Coral Dawn'Book summary:[via]Katherine Forrests bestselling Daughters of a Coral Dawn first appeared in 1984 and became an instant classic. Through seven printings, including the 10th anniversary edition published in 1994, this story of women creating their own world after escaping an oppressive society has continued to gain fans and influence writers for 18 years.
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Desert of the Heartby Jane RuleISBN 159493035X (1-59493-035-X)
Softcover, Perseus Distribution Services
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Desert of the Heart'Book summary:The book that launched the ground-breaking and single most popular lesbian movie of all time is back.
In this romantic classic by Jane Rule, readers can discover how Ann and Evelyns relationship originally came to pass.
DESERT OF THE HEART is THE definitive lesbian classic. [via]
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Dreams and Swordsby Not AvailableISBN 1932859373 (1-932859-37-3)
Softcover, Bywater Books
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The Dyke and the Dybbukby Ellen GalfordISBN 1878067516 (1-878067-51-6)
Softcover, Pub Group West
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Fingersmithby Sarah WatersISBN 1573229725 (1-57322-972-5)
Softcover, Riverhead Books
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Fingersmith'Book summary:From the author of the New York Times Notable Book Tipping the Velvet and the award-winning Affinity: a spellbinding, twisting tale of a great swindle, of fortunes and hearts won and lost, set in Victorian London among a family of thieves.
Sue Trinder is an orphan, left as an infant in the care of Mrs. Sucksby, a "baby farmer," who raised her with unusual tenderness, as if Sue were her own. Mrs. Sucksby's household, with its fussy babies calmed with doses of gin, also hosts a transient family of petty thieves-fingersmiths-for whom this house in the heart of a mean London slum is home.
One day, the most beloved thief of all arrives-Gentleman, a somewhat elegant con man, who carries with him an enticing proposition for Sue: If she wins a position as the maid to Maud Lilly, a naïve gentlewoman, and aids Gentleman in her seduction, then they will all share in Maud's vast inheritance. Once the inheritance is secured, Maud will be left to live out her days in a mental hospital. With dreams of paying back the kindness of her adopted family, Sue agrees to the plan. Once in, however, Sue begins to pity her helpless mark and care for Maud Lilly in unexpected ways. . . . But no one and nothing is as it seems in this > Dickensian novel of thrills and surprises.
The New York Times Book Review has called Sarah Waters a writer of "consummate skill" and The Seattle Times has praised her work as "gripping, astute fiction that feeds the mind and the senses." Fingersmith marks a major leap forward in this young and brilliant career. [via] 
Fires of Aggarby Chris Anne WolfeISBN 1886383421 (1-886383-42-1)
Softcover, Windstorm Creative
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First Resortby Nanci LittleISBN 1887237011 (1-887237-01-1)
Softcover, Odd Girls Pr
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Girls, Visions and Everythingby Sarah SchulmanISBN 1580050220 (1-58005-022-0)
Softcover, Seal Pr
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High Heartsby Rita Mae BrownISBN 0553278886 (0-553-27888-6)
Softcover, Bantam Books
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Honor Boundby RadclyffeISBN 1930928807 (1-930928-80-7)
Softcover, Renaissance Alliance Publishing, Incorporated
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Honor Bound'Book summary:Secret Service Agent Cameron Roberts made a promise to Blair Powell, the President's daughter--not to place her own life in danger protecting Blair--but a request from the Commander in Chief forces her to break her word. In this sequel to Above All, Honor, Cameron places duty before love and accepts reassignment as the chief of Blair's security detail, despite knowing that this decision may destroy their tenuous new relationship. As the rift between them widens, more than one woman is happy to offer Blair the company that Cam cannot.
Amidst political intrigue, an escalating threat to Blair's safety, and the seemingly irreconcilable personal differences that force them ever further apart, these two unusual women struggle to find their way back [via]
Journey to a Womanby Ann BannonISBN 1573441708 (1-57344-170-8)
Softcover, Cleis Pr
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The Ladiesby Doris GrumbachISBN 0525242635 (0-525-24263-5)
Hardcover, Daedalus Books
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Ladies'Book summary:"A tale told in delicate brushstrokes of a relationship in which two hearts came almost literally to beat as one."
Newsday
In the late 18th century, Eleanor Butler and Sarah Ponsonby defied all conventions of their Irish homeland and eloped to Wales as a married couple.
There, over many years, they forged a romantic paradise from a simple country cottage and a few acres of land. They called it "Plas Newydd" the New Place. Their home was filled with light and love, with the pursuit of enlightenment, with exquisite expressions of their devotion. Their land contained gardens and quiet paths for walking, fruit trees and flowers and bees, sheep and chickens and cows.
Eleanor and Sarah lived in almost utter solitude. When the outside world eventually discovered them, many people journeyed to Wales out of curiosity to meet the renowned "Ladies of Llangollen." All of them came away with profound respect for their way of life, their love for each other, and their courage to be themselves.
"Understated and elegant, this slim book is a true classic on that rarest of relationships, companions of the heart."
San Francisco Examiner-Chronicle [via]-
The Lesbian Bodyby Monique WittigISBN 080706307X (0-8070-6307-X)
Softcover, Houghton Mifflin
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Lesbian Body'Book summary:Back in print, this daring novel constitutes a rhapsodic hymn to women's bodies and women's relationships.
"That rare work in fiction . . . the art and the courage are of the highest level."
The Boston Globe [via]More editions of The Lesbian Body:
Lesbian Love Storiesby Irene ZahavaISBN 0895943417 (0-89594-341-7)
Softcover, Ten Speed Pr
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Liberty Square: A Kate Delafield Mysteryby Katherine V. ForrestISBN 1887237038 (1-887237-03-8)
Softcover, Words Distributing Co
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Life Maskby Emma DonoghueISBN 0156032643 (0-15-603264-3)
Softcover, Harcourt
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Life Mask'Book summary:One of the satisfactions of Emma Donoghue's masterful fourth novel, Life Mask, is the tension between the writer's contemporary interests, like lesbianism and the balance of power in marriage, and her 18th Century subject matter. Life Mask is a fictional recreation of a plausible (but unproven) love triangle between the comedic actress Eliza Farren, the sculptor Anne Damer (the niece of Horace Walpole, a fantastic minor character here), and Edward Smith-Stanley, the twelfth Earl of Derby, a Whig (liberal) politician who left his name to the horse race he founded. Like her bestseller Slammerkin, the novel spins an intricate story from the slightest of historical traces, in this case a single reference in the commonplace book of Hester (Thrale) Piozzi: a snarky four-line epigram that hints at the danger to Miss Farren's reputation in consorting with "one whose name approaches 'Damn Her.'"
Readers who stay with Donoghue through the crowded and confusing early chapters of Life Mask will find a skillful, partly sympathetic portrait of English aristocracy during and after the French Revolution, a trove of period detail, and a spellbinding tale of unlikely but enduring love. --Regina Marler [via]
Never Say Neverby Linda HillISBN 1931513678 (1-931513-67-8)
Hardcover, Bella Books, Incorporated
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Oranges Are Not the Only Fruitby Jeanette WintersonISBN 0802135161 (0-8021-3516-1)
Softcover, Grove Pr
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit'Book summary:Jeanette, the protagonist of Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit and the author's namesake, has issues--"unnatural" ones: her adopted mam thinks she's the Chosen one from God; she's beginning to fancy girls; and an orange demon keeps popping into her psyche. Already Jeanette Winterson's semi-autobiographical first novel is not your typical coming-of-age tale.
Brought up in a working-class Pentecostal family, up North, Jeanette follows the path her Mam has set for her. This involves Bible quizzes, a stint as a tambourine-playing Sally Army officer and a future as a missionary in Africa, or some other "heathen state". When Jeanette starts going to school ("The Breeding Ground") and confides in her mother about her feelings for another girl ("Unnatural Passions"), she's swept up in a feverish frenzy for her tainted soul. Confused, angry and alone, Jeanette strikes out on her own path, that involves a funeral parlour and an ice-cream van. Mixed in with the so-called reality of Jeanette's existence growing up are unconventional fairy tales that transcend the everyday world, subverting the traditional preconceptions of the damsel in distress.
In Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit, Winterson knits a complicated picture of teenage angst through a series of layered narratives, incorporating and subverting fairytales and myths, to present a coherent whole, within which her stories can stand independently. Imaginative and mischievous, she is a born storyteller, teasing and taunting the reader to reconsider their worldview. --Nicola Perry [via]
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Painted Moonby Karin KallmakerISBN 1931513538 (1-931513-53-8)
Softcover, Bella Books Inc
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Painted Moon'Book summary:Jackie Frakes is a talented architectural intern whose life has fallen into unsatisfying patterns, both personally and professionally.
Renowned artist Leah Beck is exhibited in galleries nationwide. But her life has darkened with the death of her lover, Sharla.
Trapped by a mountain snow storm over Thanksgiving weekend, Jackie is rescued by Leah. The snowbound weekend in Leah's cabin shakes the very foundations of Jackie's life.
As for Leah, Jackie provides renewal and inspiration for her work. And the exhibition of PAINTED MOON, her new series, will reveal Leah as never before,as a lesbian artist.
With their relationship increasingly torn by conflict and misunderstanding, the winter weekend together will surely be their last. Then intervention comes... from a most unlikely source.
One of Karin Kallmaker's most popular romances, Painted Moon has achieved the status of a timeless lesbian romance classic. [via]More editions of Painted Moon:
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The Passionby Jeanette WintersonISBN 0802135226 (0-8021-3522-6)
Softcover, Grove Pr
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Passion'Book summary:In 1985 Jeanette Winterson won the Whitbread Award for best first fiction for the semi-autobiographical Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit, an often wry exploration of lesbian possibility bumping up against evangelical fanaticism. She was 25. Two years later, The Passion, her third novel, appeared, the fantastical tale of Henri--Napoleon's cook--and Villanelle, a Venetian gondolier's daughter who has webbed feet (previously an all-male attribute), works as a croupier, picks pockets, cross-dresses, and literally loses her heart to a beautiful woman. Written in a lyrical and jolting combination of fairy tale diction and rhythm and the staccato, the book would be a risky proposition in lesser hands. Winterson has said that she wanted to look at people's need to worship and examine what happens to young men in militaristic societies. The question was, how to do so without being polemical and didactic? Only she could have come up with such an exquisite answer. In the end, Henri, incarcerated on an island of madmen, becomes aware that his passion, "even though she could never return it, showed me the difference between inventing a lover and falling in love. The one is about you, the other about someone else." [via]
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Passion Bayby Jennifer FultonISBN 1932300252 (1-932300-25-2)
Softcover, Yellow Rose Books
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Passion Bay'Book summary:Two women from different ends of the earth encounter destiny, and one another, on a South Pacific paradise. When Boston securities broker, Annabel Worth inherits remote Moon Island, she travels there to solve a mystery that has haunted her family. Dumped by her lover, laid off from her job, New Zealander Cody Stanton flees to the island seeking solace and solitude. Both women are burdened with secrets that could destroy the passion that ignites between them. When Hurricane Mary strikes, each must make a choice that will change her life forever. [via]
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The Powerbookby Jeanette WintersonISBN 0375725059 (0-375-72505-9)
Softcover, Vintage Books
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Powerbook'Book summary:While many other novels are still nursing hangovers from the 20th century, The PowerBook has risen early to greet the challenge of the new millennium. Set in cyberspace, Jeanette Winterson's seventh novel (or eighth, if you count her disowned Boating for Beginners) travels with ease, casting the net of its love story over Paris, Capri, and London. Its interactive narrator, Ali, is a "language costumier" who will swathe your imagination in the clothes of transformation: all you have to do is decide whom you want to be. Ali--known also as Alix--is a virtual narrator in a networked world of e-writing. You are the reader, invited to inhabit the story--any story--you wish to be told. As in all the best video games, you can choose your location, your character, even the clothes you want to wear. Beware: you can enter and play, but you cannot determine the outcome.
Ali/x is a digital Orlando for the modern age, moving across time and through transmutations of identity, weaving her stories with "long lines of laptop DNA" and shaping herself to the reader's desire. She wants to make love as simple as a song, but even in cyberspace there is no love without pain. Ali/x offers a stranger on the other side of the screen the opportunity of freedom for one night. She falls in love with her beautiful stranger, and finds herself reinvented by her own story.
The PowerBook is rich with historical allegory and literary allusion. Winterson's dialogue crackles with humor, snappy dialogue, and good jokes, several of which are at her own expense. This is a world of disguise, boundary crossing, and emotional diversions that change the navigation of the plot of life. Strangely sprouting tulips are erected in place of the phallus. Husbands and wives are uncoupled. Lovers disappear in the night to escape from themselves. On the hard drive of The PowerBook are stored a variety of stories that the reader can download and open at will, complete stories that loop through the central narrative. The tale of Mallory's third expedition, the disinterring of the Roman Governor of London in Spitalfields Church, or the contemplation of "great and ruinous lovers" are capsules of narrative compression. In Winterson's compacted meaning, language becomes a character in its own right--it is one of the heroes of the novel.
"What I am seeking to do in my work is to make a form that answers to 21st-century needs," Winterson has written. The PowerBook does just that. Her prose has found a metaphor for its linguistic forms of creation that feels almost invented for her, "a web of coordinates that will change the world." There will be a virtual rush of Internet-themed books in the networked naughties. With The PowerBook Winterson has triumphantly gotten there first. --Rachel Holmes [via]
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Rubyfruit Jungleby Rita Mae BrownISBN 055327886X (0-553-27886-X)
Softcover, Bantam Books
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Rubyfruit Jungle'Book summary:Born a bastard, Molly Bolt is adopted by a dirt-poor southern couple who want something better for their daughter. Molly plays doctor with the boys, beats up Leroy and loses her virginity to her girlfriend in sixth grade. As she grows to realize she's different, Molly decides not to apologize. [via]
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Sexing the Cherryby Jeanette WintersonISBN 0676973485 (0-676-97348-5)
Softcover, Random House of Canada Ltd
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Sexing the Cherry'Book summary:In a fantastic world that is and is not seventeenth-century England, a baby is found floating in the Thames. The child, Jordan, is rescued by Dog Woman and grows up to travel the world like Gulliver, though he finds that the worlds most curious oddities come from his own mind. Winterson leads the reader from discussions on the nature of time to Jordans fascination with journeys concealed within other journeys, all with a dizzying speed that shoots the reader from epiphany to shimmering epiphany.[via]More editions of Sexing the Cherry:
- Sexing the Cherry: ISBN 0802135781 (0-8021-3578-1)
Softcover, Grove Pr - Sexing the Cherry: ISBN 0679733167 (0-679-73316-7)
Softcover, Random House Inc - Sexing the Cherry: ISBN 0871133504 (0-87113-350-4)
Hardcover, Atlantic Monthly Pr - Sexing the Cherry: ISBN 0676973485 (0-676-97348-5)
Softcover, Random House of Canada Ltd
- Sexing the Cherry: ISBN 0802135781 (0-8021-3578-1)
Shadows of Aggarby Chris Anne WolfeISBN 1886383308 (1-886383-30-8)
Softcover, Windstorm Creative
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Shimmerby Sarah SchulmanISBN 0380797658 (0-380-79765-8)
Softcover, Harpercollins
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Shimmer'Book summary:Shimmer is the fifth (and, to date, best) novel from Sarah Schulman, the lesbian bard of contemporary urban fiction. Set in Manhattan during the harrowing McCarthy era of the early 1950s, the book follows Sylvia Golubowsky, a Brooklyn-born and bred gay Jewish woman who aspires to a career as a reporter, biding her time as the head typist in the stenographer pool of a major New York tabloid; the aptly named Austin Van Cleeve, a conniving, pretentious "blue-blooded" Republican gossip columnist armed with a sinister pen that threatens both New York City and Washington, D.C.; and Cal Byfield, an African American Columbia University graduate married to a white jazz pianist, who finds himself working as a short-order cook while seeking recognition as a great American playwright.
It is through the eyes of each of these richly drawn characters, whose lives overlap in unexpected and credible ways, that Schulman so artfully depicts the tempo and texture of one of the lowest points in American history. Here we witness a young, insecure, and vengeful Richard Nixon as he seeks to destroy Alger Hiss to advance his own career from the perspective of Sylvia, who reveals her desire to elect the Progressive Party presidential candidate Henry Wallace, and from that of racist, archconservative Van Cleeve, who would do almost anything to see Eisenhower in office. And, through Schulman's sensitive and skillful prose, we experience the struggles Byfield must face to assert and maintain his integrity while trying to break out as a serious writer as he works to get his plays produced on Broadway.
A major departure for Schulman in both content and style, Shimmer is at once a memorable entertainment and an excellent evocation of race, class, and sex in postwar New York. --Kera Bolonik [via]
Silent Heartby Claire McNabISBN 1594930449 (1-59493-044-9)
Softcover, Perseus Distribution Services
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Slammerkinby Emma DonoghueISBN 1860498280 (1-86049-828-0)
Hardcover, Trafalgar Square
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Slammerkin'Book summary:Set in London and Monmouth, this novel is based on the true story of a young girl hanged for murder in 1763. The daughter of a poor seamstress, Mary hungers as greedily for fine clothes and ribbons as others of her class do for food and warmth - a hunger which draws her into prostitution. [via]
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A Small Sacrificeby Ellen HartISBN 1878067559 (1-878067-55-9)
Hardcover, Seal Pr
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Sophie Horowitz Storyby Sarah SchulmanISBN 0930044541 (0-930044-54-1)
Softcover, Naiad Pr
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Stage Frightby Ellen HartISBN 1878067214 (1-878067-21-4)
Softcover, Seal Pr
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Stone Butch Bluesby Leslie FeinbergISBN 1555838537 (1-55583-853-7)
Softcover, Alyson Pubns
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Stone Butch Blues'Book summary:Published in 1993, this brave, original novel is considered to be the finest account ever written of the complexities of a transgendered existence. Woman or man? Thats the question that rages like a storm around Jess Goldberg, clouding her life and her identity. Growing up differently gendered in a blue--collar town in the 1950s, coming out as a butch in the bars and factories of the prefeminist 60s, deciding to pass as a man in order to survive when she is left without work or a community in the early 70s. This powerful, provocative and deeply moving novel sees Jess coming full circle, she learns to accept the complexities of being a transgendered person in a world demanding simple explanations: a he-she emerging whole, weathering the turbulence. [via]
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Tipping the Velvetby Sarah WatersISBN 1573221368 (1-57322-136-8)
Softcover, Tarcher/Putnam
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Tipping the Velvet: A Novel'Book summary:The heroine of Sarah Waters's audacious first novel knows her destiny, and seems content with it. Her place is in her father's seaside restaurant, shucking shellfish and stirring soup, singing all the while. "Although I didn't long believe the story told to me by Mother--that they had found me as a baby in an oyster-shell, and a greedy customer had almost eaten me for lunch--for eighteen years I never doubted my own oysterish sympathies, never looked far beyond my father's kitchen for occupation, or for love." At night Nancy Astley often ventures to the nearby music hall, not that she has illusions of being more than an audience member. But the moment she spies a new male impersonator--still something of a curiosity in England circa 1888--her years of innocence come to an end and a life of transformations begins.
Tipping the Velvet, all 472 pages of it, is as saucy, as tantalizing, and as touching as the narrator's first encounter with the seductive but shame-ridden Miss Kitty Butler. And at first even Nancy's family is thrilled with her gender-bending pal, all but her sister, best friend, and bedmate, Alice, "her eyes shining cold and dull, with starlight and suspicion." Not to worry. Soon Nancy and Kitty are off to London, their relationship close though (alas for our heroine) sisterly. We know that bliss will come, and it does, in an exceptionally charged moment. A lesser author would have been content to stop her story there, but Waters has much more in mind for her buttonholing heroine, and for us. In brief, her Everywoman with a sexual difference goes from success onstage to heartbreak to a stint as a male prostitute (necessity truly is the mother of invention) to keeping house for a brother and sister in the Labour movement. And did I mention her long stint as a plaything in the pleasure palace of a rich Sapphist extraordinaire? Diana Lethaby is as cruel as she is carnal, and even the well-concealed Cavendish Ladies' Club isn't outré enough for her. Kitting Nancy out in full, elegant drag, she dares the front desk to turn them away. "We are here," she mocks, "for the sake of the irregular."
Only after some seven years of hard twists and sensual turns does Nancy conclude that a life of sensation is not enough. Still, Tipping the Velvet is so entertaining that readers will wish her sentimental--and hedonistic--education had taken twice as long. --Kerry Fried [via]
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Valenciaby Michelle TeaISBN 1580050352 (1-58005-035-2)
Softcover, Seal Pr
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Valencia'Book summary:You don't have to be part of the emerging postpunk subculture of queer urban girls to relish this smooth ride of a novel, like Kathy Acker on Prozac on a sunny day, in which many exciting things happen without affecting much of anything, and one of the most profound moments is a mild, drug-induced insight into the meaninglessness of life. Michelle, the main character, is a person for whom blue hair is as big a style change as blue pants. She lurches between women, more in love with the idea of love than with Iris or Willa or Gwynne or Petra. Her work experiences are equally brief, although she can't bring herself to actually quit jobs. She just stops showing up. "Are you going to work?" her current lover asks one morning.
No, I was not going to work. I was an artist, a lover, a lover of women, of the oppressed and downtrodden, a warrior really. I should have been somewhere leading an armed revolution in the name of love and no, I was not going to work. Willa didn't work. I mean, she did, but it's a stretch to call it work. She bartended at a dyke bar a few nights a week, drank free beer, and bummed all her cigarettes.... All week she was free, writing angsty brilliant poems, drawing comic books, painting gigantic painful pictures, you know, living. I wanted to live.
Michelle Tea's characters are a peculiar fin-de-siècle blend of jaded idealists and thoughtful egotists: sex workers, poets, and mad hatters who end up making breakfast for roomfuls of stoned strangers. The occasional flash of clarity doesn't alter the basically anarchic nature of Tea's meandering narrative, so much like the tales of an incidental figure from Valencia, a loud redhead named Iggy who told stories "so incredible you wondered if they were true but ultimately didn't care because you were so enraptured by her grand gestures and re-enactments." --Regina Marler [via]More editions of Valencia:
Vital Liesby Ellen HartISBN 1878067028 (1-878067-02-8)
Softcover, Seal Pr
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Wandergroundby Sally GearhartISBN 1883523478 (1-883523-47-8)
Softcover, Perseus Distribution Services
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Wanderground'Book summary:Back in print, this is the fantastic story of a group of women who have designed a world of peace and preserved a rich heritage of memory that ultimately changes the world they live in.
In the futuristic Wanderground, men remain in the cities, while many women who have been persecuted flee to the hills. There they share their stories of survival, remembrance, and self-discovery. Years later, expressing their freedom in unique ways, the hill women have gained telepathic abilities and flying techniques, while women in the cities still struggle for enlightenment. Not only are readers led to marvel at these "supernatural" abilities, they are led to examine their own views on womanhood and how women are similar to and different from men. [via]
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The Well of Lonelinessby Radclyffe HallISBN 0385416091 (0-385-41609-1)
Softcover, Random House Inc
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Well of Loneliness'Book summary:First published in 1928, this timeless portrayal of lesbian love is now a classic. The thinly disguised story of Hall's own life, it was banned outright upon publication and almost ruined her literary career. [via]
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What Night Bringsby Carla Mari TrujilloISBN 1880684942 (1-880684-94-2)
Softcover, Curbstone Pr
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› Find signed collectible books: 'What Night Brings'Book summary:What Night Brings focuses on a Chicano working-class family living in California during the 1960s. Marci-smart, feisty and funny-tells the story with the wisdom of someone twice her age as she determines to defy her family and God in order to find her identity, sexuality and freedom.
"Carla Trujillo's What Night Brings puts one more wonderful Latina novelist on the must-read list right up there beside Sandra Cisneros, Julia Alvarez and Cristina Garcia. This moving story, told in the completely convincing voice of its young protagonist, explores living with domestic abuse and longing for the maternal protection that always fails to materialize. We touch the mysteries of religion in a child's life, and are completely captivated by a young girl's budding lesbian identity. Character and situation building are exemplary, yet we are hit hard when the book takes its final turn. What Night Brings is a page-turner that lingers long after the last page has been turned."-Margaret Randall
"A story that is at once heartbreaking and hilarious, beautifully told by a wise and wise-cracking young girl."-Sandra Cisneros
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Written on the Bodyby Jeanette WintersonISBN 0679744479 (0-679-74447-9)
Softcover, Random House Inc
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Written on the Body'Book summary:The most beguilingly seductive novel to date from the author of The Passion and Sexing the Cherry. Winterson chronicles the consuming affair between the narrator, who is given neither name nor gender, and the beloved, a complex and confused married woman. "At once a love story and a philosophical meditation."--New York Times Book Review. [via]
Spanish
Carolby Patricia HighsmithISBN 8433914758 (84-339-1475-8)
Softcover, Editorial Anagrama
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French
Jean Paulhan Le Souterrainby Centre Culturel International de Cerisy-la-Salle, Jacques BersaniISBN 2264000252 (2-264-00025-2)
Hardcover, Union generale d'editions
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