Archive for April, 2009
Sale time
Ya ya, I know, sales galore in current economy. Here are two you can get behind because they are small presses and have good produce. The prices are too good to miss.
Bella Books (lesbian fiction) selling older/slightly damaged books from US$3.
Small Beer Press selling titles from US$1.
Publishers will usually have a stock of hurt books which are still perfectly readable for sale at bargain prices. Suggest you contact them directly for a list of those titles.
LGBT romances
The Romance Writers of America (RWA) – a grassroots readers massing run amuck but somehow managed to organise themselves into a holy s**t national org that has great weight in shaping the genre as well as whipping publishers – has belatedly, after much lobbying I’m sure, officially created approved a chapter for LGBT romance. The Rainbow Romance Writers of America now have a niche in the greater heterosexual romance bookbuyers’ consciousness. Let’s see what happens after this.
[via DearAuthor.](Thanks to Stacia Seaman for the clarification)
2012
In The Crystal Skull, Manda Scott invites us to google and read up on the Mayan prophecy about the coming apocalyse in December 2012.
Well, it appears science agrees that something will happen in 2012, something big.
The next solar major solar flare up, expected in 2012, will blast through an unsually large hole in Earth’s protective geomagnetic shield. Think of it as a sudden powersurge that will overwhelm and then short-circuit electrics all over the world.
Full article on Wired.
As the date approaches, I’m sure we’ll be hearing more about this.
Bit chilly
Woof ! The temperature has finally dropped in Sydney. Strong winds, though not as blustery as Victoria, has finally brought us the cold. Not winter yet but starting. Time for woolies.
Book read: The Swashbuckler by Lee Lynch
I’m a little late writing this post about The Swashbuckler. I’ve left it for several weeks after finishing the book because I was waiting for the awe to subside and for my thoughts to gather.
Lee Lynch is an icon in the world of lesbian writing. She’s been out and proud since the 50s/60s? and has been writing faithfully since then. I use the word faithfully in another sense too – in her writings, she’s archived the lesbian scene of the times and her ages.
Read her short and modest bibliography here and here, before continuing this post.
The Swashbuckler is Frenchy Tonneau, a petite, stone butch with a solid ego, who – in her hated daylife – lives with her mother and works as a cashier. You’d think Lee Lynch had presented a set character as prop to show the changing world of the 60s and 70s, but the book is about Frenchy growing and maturing, through her friends, lovers, other lesbians, the Village and Provincetown, to finally take the lover she has been waiting for.
Frenchy never loses her butchness but she sees, or rather we see, her old-fashioned mentality, how she loses or retains the views that make her comfortable and becomes an older, wiser Frenchy. In the process, we meet the neurotic butch, Mercedes, who understands pain and love deeply and whom Frenchy unexpectedly falls in love with, dyke couples who do and don’t follow the rules, and the colourful residents of the Village, including Pamela, the gypsy hippie artist who sexes Frenchy out of her stone shell.
Lee’s writing is honest, almost brusque. Her characters are diverse and oh so interesting because she lets us see what they see. The book is about the journeys her characters take to grow, to stay lesbian, to make their relationships work. The issues they face are real, the learning incremental. I found it refreshing to read a non-adjective laden book that is layered in humanistic issues, that starts without a promise and ends in a rainbow. There’s a lot to take in; the New York it protrays is gritty, blue-collar and ethnic, and the times were forcing Frenchy to evolve.
To pick one lesbian and show the reader so much about the micro-environment that is the Village and the effect it has on her, at a time when very little was written about lesbians at all, marks this book as a lesbian classic.
The Swashbuckler is a beautiful story.
Lee Lynch has been published with several publishers. Her current books and backlist may be obtained from here.
The Swashbuckler is available from here.
A special post-script Frenchy story, written last year, can be found in Second Helpings, Read These Lips Volume 2 at www.readtheselips.com.
The greatest library in the world
… to be.
Officially launched by UNESCO and partners, The World Digital Library extended its prototype life to the big time on Tuesday.
The WDL aims to provide, on its website, free access to cultural treasures from around the world including but not limited to manuscripts, maps, rare books, musical scores, recordings, films, prints, photographs, and architectural drawings.
Items on the WDL may be browsed by place, time, topic, type of item, and contributing institution. Site navigation tools and content descriptions are provided in Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Portuguese, Russian, and Spanish, with many more languages represented in the actual holding items.
The WDL was proposed by US Librarian of Congress, Jame Billington.
Other main digital libraries (at this time) are Google Books and The Europeana.
Facebook etiquette
A humourous take on Facebook Do’s and Dont’s. For any social network really.
From Gizmodo.
Yuri Monogatari #6 launched
JD Glass’s first graphic novel was launched on April 18th. Check out the trailer.
All six books are available from A**z** and from the official Yuricon site.
Book read: The Crystal Skull by Manda Scott
An adventure that takes you through time – from the middle ages, further back and to the present day. The Crystal Skull, the blue heart-stone cut from a single sapphire, links it’s keepers through lineage for one purpose, that is to place it in it’s earth home at an appointed time, to save the world. One of thirteen skulls waiting around the world, it completes the line to call forth the Ourobouros, a mythical creature that will save the world and lead it to salvation.
The skull’s keepers are blessed with full lives and cursed by violent deaths. This is a puzzle created by the previous keeper for the last keeper who must fulfil the prophecy. There are those who want the stone for power. It must be hidden from them until the end time. The Mayans have predicted that time as 21 December 2012.
Safe and calcite-crusted in the cathedral of the earth for over four hundred years, the skull has been found by Stella Cody and Kit O’Connor. They must discover why it was hidden and break the code that shows it’s final destination, but they have only a few weeks before the window passes and the stone’s song dies. There is villainy afoot even as they get help from fellow academics who all have an interest in the crystal skull.
This is a fast, entertaining read. The story starts quickly then rips through with great writing and a rocketing adventure.
Manda Scott is the UK writer of the famed Boudica series. The Crystal Skull is published by Random House (UK)(US).
For added fun, www.thecrystalskull.co.uk lets you continue the adventure.
