Band of Thebes: July 2015

Winter

No, the site is not returning.

Forever Butt The very best of the brilliant gay magazine's formative years, 2001-2014.

June Third novel by Gerbrand Bakker, author of the IMPAC winner The Twin and the IFFP winner The Detour.

On the Move: A Life [and Kindle] Memoir by neurologist Oliver Sacks, whose mother called him "an abomination" when he came out.

The Green Road [and Kindle] Booker winner Anne Enright's novel about a disapproving Irish mother's four grown children, one of whom is gay and lived in NYC in the 90s.

H is for Hawk by Helen Macdonald. Reviewers skimmed over the gay aspects of this hybrid memoir of grief / guide to hawking / bio of closeted sadist TH White.

A Place Called Winter by Patrick Gale. Straddles EM Forster's elegant, repressed Edwardians and the hardluck Canadian settlers of Alice Munro's historical gems like "A Wilderness Station."

Sweetland [and Kindle] by Michael Crummey. An amazing, funny, sad novel about the people of a remote, failing island in Newfoundland. It's appalling that a novel this good has been so ignored.

Dangerous When Wet Scary-funny memoir by the incomparable Jamie Brickhouse.

After

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Hoover's War on Gays: Exposing the FBI's "Sex Deviates" Program by Douglas Charles. August 15

Gay Directors, Gay Films?: Pedro Almodóvar, Terence Davies, Todd Haynes, Gus Van Sant, John Waters by Emanuel Levy. August 25

No House to Call My Home nonfiction by Ryan Berg. August 25

Worlds Apart more memoir from David Plante. August 25

Alexander McQueen: Blood Beneath the Skin by Andrew Wilson. September 1

Queer Brown Voices: Personal Narratives of Latina/o LGBT Activism anthology. September 1

I Can Give You Anything But Love memoir by Gary Indiana. September 8

LThe Gay Revolution: The Story of the Struggle by Lillian Faderman. September 8

Wonders of the Invisible World Knopf YA by Christopher Barzak. September 8

Mouthquake by Daniel Allen Cox. September 15

Wilberforce: A Novel by H.S. Cross. September 15

**After the Parade: A Novel by Lori Ostlund. September 22

Romaine Brooks: A Life by Cassandra Langer. September 22

Under the Udala Trees: A Novel by Chinelo Okparanta. September 22

I Must Be Living Twice: New and Selected Poems 1975 - 2014 by Eileen Myles. September 29

Then Comes Marriage: United States V. Windsor and the Defeat of Doma by Roberta Kaplan. October 5

**Don't Tell Me to Wait: How the Fight for Gay Rights Changed America and Transformed Obama's Presidency by Kerry Eleveld. October 6

M Train by Patti Smith. October 6

Empire of Self: A Life of Gore Vidal by Jay Parnini. October 13

**Immaculate Blue: A Novel by Paul Russell. October 13

A Wild Swan by Michael Cunningham. Another re-imagining of fairy tales. November 10

"The Avalanche Teahouse is a beautifully written, utterly absorbing novel. I was transported to the remote mountain setting by Stephen Bottum's first masterful paragraph and even now, days after reading the final page, have not been able to leave." -Stephen McCauley

"Stephen Bottum's dreamy novel, The Avalanche Teahouse, is addictive reading. The mountain setting, the wonderfully unique and utterly believable mother/daughter team running the teahouse, and the quiet drama that Bottum unfolds so skillfully kept me reading too late at night. I especially love how his characters don't do what you expect them to do, how they're characters you don't get to see in fiction, except here, and how much I wanted to keep hearing about their minds and hearts. I could stay in this setting, and with these characters, for much longer. But of course that's a sign of a wonderful novel -- leave them wanting more. -Lucy Jane Bledsoe

"This tightly-packed short novel is a funny and flavorful portrait of a remote mountain refuge for hikers and skiers, but it's also an intricate puzzle box that carefully and skillfully springs loose its deep secrets about past deaths and present loves." -Jonathan Strong

"The Avalanche Teahouse combines the delicacy of a fable with the scope of an epic. Observing its large cast of quirky, endearing characters with wry and exacting attentions, Stephen Bottum brings a miniaturist's perception to bear on this loveably eccentric community, and his eye misses no foible or self-deception, though this unflinching gaze remains a kindly one all the same. A site of repose and tranquility, the teahouse in question, as the title suggests, is also constantly poised on the cusp of catastrophe - and this warm-hearted, tough-minded story of the endless quest for personal security amid conditions of general precarity is just the tale for our troubled times." -James Morrison