I got this book from work. It's a set of essays and categorized as Black Studies/Queer Studies. It's the winner of the 2005 Lambda Literary Award for Nonfiction.

Adding to emmejo's LGBTQ+ Bookbox. Hope it finds a new reader who will enjoy it!

This book rode to the end of the bookbox.

(I like the label design! I don't think I've seen one that directs the reader straight to the journalling URL before.)

This was a compelling, thought-inspiring collection of essays. There were some that I finished, then immediately flipped back through to re-read sections and re-digest them. Glave has an impressive voice and writing style, using language fluidly and creatively to convey emotions and control the readers speed. Some of these are pieces that started as or partially were speeches he gave, and I found myself imagining what they must have sounded like as he spoke, since the rhythm and construction are so strong. He also includes hearty annotation notes, which I am a sucker for, sometimes reflecting on things he had written before, sometimes adding historical or cultural details, and obviously adding citations or suggestions to other author's work.

I found myself often wondering if he has written anything similar recently, with some of the drastic political changes since 2005 (when this collection was published.) For example, in "Regarding a Black Male Monica Lewinsky..." his discussion with his students of what qualities a black man would need to have in order to be elected President seems almost prophetic, and I wondered if he feels any differently about the other qualities discussed in that essay. I was curious about how he felt Jamaican and Jamaican-Americans have been affected by the recent surge against American racism with Black Lives Matter and similar movements. I pondered how some of the international perceptions of the US have shifted over the last decade and a half. Has the legalization of gay marriage had the kind of impact for immigrants that it seems to have inspired in those born in the US? Basically, I finished this wanting more of his political musings!

Adding to the LGBTQ+ Mini-Bookbox

I read this while the mini-bookbox was with me, and will leave it in the box for someone else. I was struck by the author's writing style - free-flowing, energetic, sometimes a bit too much so for my taste but more often providing an intense and lively mood.

While I appreciated the essays on conditions in Jamaica, I admit I was enticed by the opening essay, "Baychester: A Memory," about the author's childhood in the Bronx, notably watching his father work the gardens at the family home. Other entries that informed and impressed me include the one on the murder of Brian Williamson, one of the founders of J-FLAG; his enthusiasm for the novel Thereafter Johnnie - he obtained lots of copies to hand out, making me wish he'd discovered BookCrossing!; and his comments on the not-a-candidate-for-Matthew-Shepardhood Steen Fenrich, a young gay man murdered by his stepfather for being gay.

Selected from the LGBTQ+ Mini-Bookbox

I found Glave's writing dramatic and emotionally charged. Sometimes, what made the writing so intense were, on the flip-side, what lost me in the sentences and I would have to reread whole sentences or paragraphs. Definitely my failings there. A must read!

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Added to the Alphabet Fiction Bookbox!

Letter W

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Received in the Alphabet Fiction Bookbox

It didn't keep my interest, so I will release elsewhere.

Released in the hotel. Please enjoy!