National 08.27.2008

Between The Covers

An end-of-summer book roundup

As we all pack our bags for the final flings of summer this weekend, it’s probably a good idea to pack a book to pass the time at the airport, on the plane or in the car. (Unless, of course, you’re the one driving!) We’ve been sent quite a few books over the summer and just like homework back in high school, we were too busy floating in the pool and drinking beer to put reading at the top of our list. But we finally finished them all and have some recommendations that cover a wide spectrum of genres and styles.

So put down that Mojito and pick up a book. It’ll, like, make you smart or something.

Down South

Two books about South Beach? Sounds like too much of a good thing, but both Diary of a South Beach Party Girl and South Beach: The Novel are highly entertaining reads.

Diary is told in first person (natch) and reads like a memoir with all sorts of crazy goings-on, but Oprah can rest easy if she ever puts author Gwen Cooper’s novel in her book club because it is indeed a work of fiction. But we hope at least some of the fabulous parties and behind-the-velvet-ropes moments are just the teensiest bit true!

In Brian Antoni’s South Beach, a surreal world of drugs and outlandish characters, including a great drag queen, cross paths in a Miami Beach apartment building that makes Melrose Place look like Mr. Roger’s Neighborhood.

Flesh For Fantasy

Lesbian author Candace Talmadge has created an epic series that’s part fantasy and part romance novel with plenty of action and intense drama. The third in the Green Stone of Healing series, The Scorpions Strike, ramps up the consequences and propels the plot forward at an anxious pace signaling more great battles and twists to come in the next book. The gay characters are complex and unique, but you definitely need to start at the beginning of the series or you’ll never know what’s going on!

Post-Sunset Strip

In Craig Seymour’s gripping memoir, All I Could Bare: My Life in the Strip Clubs of Gay Washington, D.C., we get an inside look at a world that no longer exists. In days of looser laws, many gay clubs in D.C. featured completely nude men and a surprising lack of boundaries compared to today’s more “progressive” culture. After starting out with the intent of researching the gay strip club scene in the nation’s capital, Craig eventually gets pulled into the lifestyle and releases his inhibitions one by one. The story is full of intrigue and highly erotic, making it difficult to put this one down. “Just one more chapter” quickly becomes, “just a few more hours.”

All books available at www.amazon.com and www.barnesandnoble.com.

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