Archerr

I just finished reading A Wolf At The Table by Augusten Burroughs. I've been reading his books for years and lover everything he writes. This book was a memoir of his father. It was very dark and emotional. Clearly Augusten had a rough childhood with a very distant father. Augusten recounts memories from his childhood all the way to his father's death. He tried so hard to win his father's approval but it never happened. I'm sure there are many gay men out there who can relate to the stories told in this book. It's a bit of a downer but worth a read. I will, of course, look forward to his next book.

Next up is Michael Toliver Lives by Armistead Maupin. This is the follow up to the Tales Of The City series. I have and have read all of those books and absolutely loved them. I also watched the shows on PBS and Showtime. I've heard nothing but good things about this book from friends who have already read it so I'm looking forward to it. Here's the synopsis from Barnes and Noble:

"Michael Tolliver, the sweet-spirited Southerner in Armistead Maupin's classic Tales of the City series, is arguably one of the most widely loved characters in contemporary fiction. Now, almost twenty years after ending his ground-breaking saga of San Francisco life, Maupin revisits his all-too-human hero, letting the fifty-five-year-old gardener tell his story in his own voice.

Having survived the plague that took so many of his friends and lovers, Michael has learned to embrace the random pleasures of life, the tender alliances that sustain him in the hardest of times. Michael Tolliver Lives follows its protagonist as he finds love with a younger man, attends to his dying fundamentalist mother in Florida, and finally reaffirms his allegiance to a wise octogenarian who was once his landlady.

Though this is a stand-alone novel--accessible to fans of Tales of the City and new readers alike--a reassuring number of familiar faces appear along the way. As usual, the author's mordant wit and ear for pitch-perfect dialogue serve every aspect of the story--from the bawdy to the bittersweet. Michael Tolliver Lives is a novel about the act of growing older joyfully and the everyday miracles that somehow make that possible."