Edmund White For more than two decades, Edmund White has been widely recognized as America’s preeminent gay writer. “He has a novelist’s eye for the telling detail or the remarkable phrase and, like Proust himself, concentrates upon the minutiae of the past so that it might live again,” wrote The New York Times Book Review. “White possesses the rare combination of a po-etic sense of language and an ironic sense of humor,” declared Newsweek. “[He] is unquestionably the foremost American gay novelist.” Commemorating the twentieth anni-versary of A Boy’s Own Story, this Modern Library edition presents White’s autobiographical novel together with an Introduction by prizewinning novelist Allan Gurganus and a new Afterword by the author himself.

A Boy’s Own Story, with equal parts stunning lyricism and unabashed humor, traces a nameless narrator’s coming-of-age in the 1950s. Struggling with his homosexuality, the narrator seeks the consolations of a fantastic imagination and fills his head with romantic expectations (“I believed without a doubt in a better world, which was adulthood or New York or Paris or love.”) His distant, divorced parents exacerbate his hunger for emotional connection, and he endures the unhelpful attentions of a priest and a psychoanalyst. In time, he recognizes the need to be loved by the men in his life and, in the surprising conclusion, escapes his childhood forever with one unforgettable act.

“With A Boy’s Own Story, American literature is larger by one classic novel,” wrote The Washington Post Book World. “No reader, straight or gay . . . can fail to experience shock after shock of recognition in these pages, and few, I would bet, will be able to withhold a one-to-one sympathy from the unnamed narrator, even when he is being, by the standards of only yesterday, ‘shocking.’”

Augusten Burroughs “As a little boy, I had a dream that my father had taken me to the woods where there was a dead body. He buried it and told me I must never tell. It was the only thing we’d ever done together as father and son, and I promised not to tell. But unlike most dreams, the memory of this one never left me. And sometimes…I wasn’t altogether sure about one thing: was it just a dream?”

When Augusten Burroughs was small, his father was a shadowy presence in his life: a form on the stairs, a cough from the basement, a silent figure smoking a cigarette in the dark. As Augusten grew older, something sinister within his father began to unfurl.  Something dark and secretive that could not be named. 

Betrayal after shocking betrayal ensued, and Augusten’s childhood was over. The kind of father he wanted didn’t exist for him. This father was distant, aloof, uninterested…

And then the “games” began.

With A Wolf at the Table,Augusten Burroughs makes a quantum leap into untapped emotional terrain: the radical pendulum swing between love and hate, the unspeakably terrifying relationship between father and son. Told with scorching honesty and penetrating insight, it is a story for anyone who has ever longed for unconditional love from a parent. Though harrowing and brutal, A Wolf at the Tablewill ultimately leave you buoyed with the profound joy of simply being alive. It’s a memoir of stunning psychological cruelty and the redemptive power of hope.

Michael Thomas Ford The short humorous essay is a form that few writers can master. Sure, pithy and funny are easy enough (if you are, in fact, pithy and funny), but the failings of most humorous essays come from a lack of seriousness. Humor is most effective when the writing articulates a clear, thoughtful point of view. The essays in Michael Thomas Ford's Alec Baldwin Doesn't Love Me & Other Trials from My Queer Lifeare perfect models of the form. Ford, who writes a syndicated column titled "My Queer Life," can muse on anything from Martha Stewart's manias to his devotion to Alec Baldwin's chest, from the elusive gay gene to right-wing Fundamentalist Christianity (in which he was raised), and he manages to make us laugh and sometimes even cry. His ironic view of a world that keeps threatening to be wonderful but never quite succeeds dovetails perfectly with his desire for world peace, freedom for gay people, and better sex. Witty, funny, and surprisingly moving, Michael Thomas Ford explains life to us and it actually begins to make sense.

Steve Kluger A high school jock and nerd fall in love senior year, only to part after an amazing summer of discovery to attend their respective colleges. They keep in touch at first, but then slowly drift apart.

Flash forward twenty years.

Travis and Craig both have great lives, careers, and loves. But something is missing .... Travis is the first to figure it out. He's still in love with Craig, and come what may, he's going after the boy who captured his heart, even if it means forsaking his job, making a fool of himself, and entering the great unknown. Told in narrative, letters, checklists, and more, this is the must-read novel for anyone who's wondered what ever happened to that first great love.

Wade Rouse In the tradition of such quirky and smart coming-of-age memoirs as Augusten Burroughs's Running with Scissorsand Haven Kimmel's A Girl Named Zippy, America's Boyis an arresting and funny tale of growing up different in America's heartland.

Wade didn't quite fit in. While schoolmates had crewcuts and wore Wrangler jeans, Wade styled his hair in imitation of Robbie Benson circa Ice Castlesand shopped in the Sears husky section. Wade's father insisted on calling everyone "honey"—even male gas station attendants. His mother punctuated her conversations with "WHAT?!" and constantly answered herself as though she was being cross-examined. He goes to school with a pack of kids called goat ropers who make the boys from Deliverancelook like honor students. And he both loved and hated his perfect older brother.

While other families traveled to Florida and Hawaii for vacation, Wade's family packed their clothes in garbage bags and drove to their log cabin on Sugar Creek in the Missouri Ozarks. And it is here that Wade found refuge from his everyday struggle to fit in—until a sudden, terrible accident on the Fourth of July took his brother's life and changed everything.

Equally nostalgic, poignant, funny, and compelling, this is a story of what it is to be normal, what it means to fit in, and what it means to be yourself.

David Leavitt David Leavitt's reputation has rested upon stories and novels that explicate a sedate, upper-middle class world of reserved emotions and sexuality. In his new collection of three novellas Arkansas, he explores new territory. Droll, surprising, and very sexy, these works often shock and startle the reader. In "The Term Paper Artist," a writer named David Leavitt writes school papers for cute undergraduates in exchange for sexual favors, and in "Saturn Street." a gay man who delivers lunches to homebound people with AIDS falls in love with one of his clients. Beautifully written and alarmingly funny, Arkansasis one of the best works of gay fiction in years.

Rick Whitaker Although Assuming the Positionis, as Rick Whitaker describes it, "a memoir of hustling," don't expect it to be particularly erotic. Whitaker thoroughly deglamorizes male prostitution, depicting it as banal and emotionally numbing rather than sexy or transgressive. Any potential arousal to be gleaned from his exploits is further dampened by the book's highly mannered tone and the rather ordinary quality of Whitaker's psychological discoveries: "I was always pretending to be somebody's friend when I really only wanted his money," runs one such moment of self-reflection. "Of course this is just an extreme form of something we all do in order to get ahead, but such seeming friendliness is never good or heartfelt and it is always a cause, at least for me, of mental and emotional fatigue." Readers may also find themselves frustrated by the memoir's lack of narrative tension: Whitaker did drugs and had sex with men for money for a while, then he stopped, then he wrote a book about how it made him feel. Unfortunately, being able to write grammatically correct sentences about his unusual experiences isn't enough to make Assuming the Positionan interesting book. —Ron Hogan

Jamie O'Neill You may have read the hype. Irishman Jamie O'Neill was working as a London hospital porter when his 10-year labor of love, the 200,000-word manuscript of At Swim, Two Boys, written on a laptop during quiet patches at work, was suddenly snapped up for a hefty six-figure advance. For once, the book fully deserves the hype.

In the spring of 1915, Jim Mack and "the Doyler," two Dublin boys, make a pact to swim to an island in Dublin Bay the following Easter. By the time they do, Dublin has been consumed by the Easter Uprising, and the boys' friendship has blossomed into love—a love that will in time be overtaken by tragedy. O'Neill's prose, playing merrily with vocabulary, syntax, and idiom, has unsurprisingly drawn comparisons to James Joyce and Samuel Beckett, but in his creation of comic characters (such as Jim's pathetic but irrepressible father) and in the sheer scale of his work, Charles Dickens springs to mind first. But Dickens never wrote a love story between young men as achingly beautiful as this.

In the character of Anthony MacMurrough, who is haunted by voices as he pursues his illegal and dangerous desire for Dublin boys, O'Neill has created a complex and fascinating center to his novel, rescuing the love story from mawkishness, and allowing a serious meditation on history, politics, and desire. For as Ireland seeks its own future free of British government, so Jim, Doyle, and MacMurrough look back to Sparta to find a way to live. As Dr Scrotes, one of MacMurrough's voices, commands:

Help these boys build a nation of their own. Ransack the histories for clues to their past. Plunder the literature for words they can speak.

In this massive, enthralling, and brilliant debut, Jamie O'Neill has indeed done just that: provided a nation for what Walt Whitman calls, in O'Neill's epigraph, "the love of comrades."—Alan Stewart, Amazon.co.uk

Michael Lowenthal Jeremy struggles to write his dissertation on the Amish and the laws of expulsion. How does someone, excluded entirely from the only community they have ever known, live the rest of their life? After extensive interviews with Beulah—a young woman banished—Jeremy is no closer to understanding her choice than he is to his own peculiar exile. 

Camp Ironwood, set in the Vermont woods, is more than a summer distraction for restless adolescent boys—it is a place to belong. And not unlike the Amish community, it is a place where the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. For Jeremy, first as a camper and later as the co-director, the usual camp activities become their own kind of ritual that binds the community. But when he is blindsided by the seductive charm of Max, a fourteen-year-old boy from Manhattan, all arms and legs and attitude, Jeremy must confront his desires, and worse yet, uncover the dark secrets of his beloved Camp Ironwood.

In this powerful and daring novel, Lowenthal elegantly draws unexpected parallels between the Amish and Camp Ironwood. By doing so, he ingeniously explores an age-old dilemma: individual desires versus the good of a community.

Armistead Maupin "An extended love letter to a magical San Francisco."

—New York Times Book Review

When an ordinary househusband and his ambitious wife decide to start a family, they discover there's more to making a baby then meets the eye. Help arrives in the form of a grieving gay neighbor, a visiting monarch, and the dashing young lieutenant who defects from her yacht. Bittersweet and profoundly affecting, Babycakeswas the first work of fiction to acknowledge the arrival of AIDS.

"Armistead is a true original. His tales are bang up-to-date. They will surprise and maybe even shock you, but, I promise, they will make you laugh."
—Ian McKellen

"Maupin has a genius for observation. His characters have the timing of vaudeville comics, flawed by human frailty and fueled by blind hop."
—Denver Post

"Armistead Maupin's San Francisco saga careens beautifully on."
—New York Times Book Review

Adam Berlin Jared Chiziver is a single father and professional pick-pocket, devotee of Jean-Paul Belmondo and foreign films, and a suave ladies' man. His son Ben is sixteen, a bookish semi-introvert, a star on his school's track team, college bound and gay. Their unusual but quiet and affectionate life in New York City's Greenwich Village is ripped asunder by two singular events. First, Jared finally meets 'the one,' Anna, a photographer of criminals and death scenes - a woman he finds endless engaging. Second, in response to a brutal attack upon his son Ben, Jared breaks his own cardinal rule and commits the big crime, the one that draws the unflinching attention of the police. The only response possible to these events is to leave New York one step ahead of the police and embark upon a journey of both escape and discovery that will irrevocably change their lives.Told from the point of view of the too-wise and too-adult Ben, Belmondo Style is an unforgettable tale which movingly explores the bonds between an unusual father and a remarkable son.

Johnny Diaz

Douglas Crase Bothis the enchanting account of a remarkable fifty-year relationship: Dwight Ripley, the child heir to an American railroad fortune, and Rupert Barneby, the product of a wealthy, baronial English upbringing, shared an obsession with botany from the moment they met at an exclusive boys’ boarding school in England. Together they embarked on a lifelong pursuit of rare plants, first in Europe and then in the United States, where they migrated in the late 1930s. Every spring they explored the American Southwest in a sputtering Dodge, discovering new species and cultivating the spoils at their renowned home gardens. Barneby published so many taxonomic findings that he became a world authority on legumes. But the two men had other interests as well: they were intimates in the expatriate circles that included W. H. Auden and Peggy Guggenheim, and early collectors of painters such as Jackson Pollock and Joan Miró. Ripley, a prescient artist himself, whose startling work in colored pencil was lost in a trunk for several decades before being rediscovered, used his fortune to bankroll much of the avant-garde art scene of the early 1950s. 

The lives of Ripley and Barneby were shaped by a passion for knowing the world in all its lush particulars. Douglas Crase, who received an education in character when he came to know Barneby in the 1970s, offers us not just the brilliantly told story of “both,” but a vivid portrait of the bohemian postwar period they inhabited, bristling with the energy of the new.

David Levithan In this delightful young adult novel for readers 12 and up, high school sophomore Paul says, "There isn't really a gay scene or a straight scene in our town. They got all mixed up a while back, which I think is for the best." And, as he observes at the end of the story, "It's a wonderful world." Paul has both gay and straight friends, and they all hang out together at terrific bookstores and concerts, and advise one another on the sometimes troubled progress of their various romances. Paul is smitten with Noah, and they are beginning a serious relationship when Kyle, Paul's ex, complicates things by deciding that all is forgiven. Joni is going out with Chuck, who dominates her, much to her friends' disapproval. Tony's conservative parents refuse to acknowledge that he is gay, so the others must bone up on Bible verses all week so they can pretend Saturday night is a study group. And then there's Infinite Darlene, football quarterback and Homecoming Queen, who deserves a whole romance novel of her own. Life in their town is gloriously accepting of differences and only occasionally verges on magic realism, in this first novel in which same sex preference is not theproblem. —Patty Campbell

Ethan Mordden "What unites us, all of us, surely is brotherhood, a sense that our friendships are historic, designed to hold Stonewall together," muses on character in Ethan Mordden's Buddies. This need for friendship, for nonerotic affection, for buddies, shines forth as an American obsession from Moby-Dick through Of Mice and Men to The Sting. And American gay life has built upon and cherished these relationships, even as it has dared-perhaps its most startling iconoclasm-to break new ground by combining romance and friendship: one's lover is one's buddy.This book is about those relationships-mostly gay but some straight and even a few between gays and straights. Here also are fathers and brothers and stories of men in their youth, when rivalry often develops more naturally than alliance. In Buddies Mordden continues to map the unstoried wilderness of gay life today.

Doug Guinan Hollywood has long been a target of satirical fiction, from Budd Schulberg's What Makes Sammy Run?and John O'Hara's The Big Laughto Michael Tolkin's The Playerand Dennis Hensley's Misadventures in the (213). All that ego, glitz, and enormous lack of talent is just too deliciously bad to go unpunished. Doug Guinan's California Screamingis a nonstop cavalcade of comic invention and gentle invective that sends up Tinseltown, movies, male beauty, outing, body culture, social climbing, conniving, and the closet. With a plot that throws All About Eveand "Apartment 3G" into a blender with ingredients from a Feydeau farce, Guinan manages to hit most of his targets with deadly accuracy and even allows his characters some tender moments along the way. Never afraid to go over the top and always knowing when to stop, California Screamingis a perfect pop cultural artifact; like the most exquisite example of camp, it suggests the innate worth of the absurdities and excesses of contemporary life even as it wickedly ridicules them. —Michael Bronski

Allison Burnett “Either he’s channeling Truman Capote’s spirit, or Allison Burnett has created, all by himself, one of the more assured narrative voices in recent memory. His B. K. Troop is a pitch-perfect creation: bitchy-funny with a twist of rue.” —Louis Bayard, author of Fool’s Errand and Endangered Species

“Christopheris the literary equivalent of sparkling banter whose aftermath is trenchant poignancy. The deep, sad truths of this slyly funny novel continue to gather force long after you’ve finished reading.” —Kate Christensen, author of In the Drinkand Jeremy Thrane

The delicious debut of a hilarious new voice in fiction. It’s Oscar Wilde meets Nabokov meets something entirely new.

Unemployed, middle-aged, bipolar, gay, bitingly witty, erudite, unattractive, and lonely, B. K. Troop, the narrator of Christopher, isn’t exactly looking forward to a life of exciting prospects—until he meets his new neighbor. Christopher Ireland is a twenty-five-year-old idealist and aspiring novelist still reeling from a bitter divorce. Even though B.K. knows full well that Christopher is hopelessly heterosexual, he wants nothing more than to seduce him, so he sets about his self-appointed mission with all the cunning and zeal of the Big Bad Wolf.
Christopherrecounts B.K’s year long attempt to consummate his lust, with hilarious results. But it also charts the coming of age of Christopher who, like all true idealists, throws himself body and soul into the quest for a meaningful life. He develops a crush on a married waitress, gets involved in politics, enrolls in a New Age workshop, struggles to begin his first novel, and battles to free himself from the clutches of his monstrous mother. Thankfully, all of this is seen through B.K’s eyes and narrated in his deliciously incisive and witty voice.
As often happens in tales of seduction, the seducer winds up being seduced by his prey, and that is precisely what, to his horror, B.K. discovers as his feelings turn more tender than predatory. Both darkly ironic and poignantly romantic, Christopheris a remarkable debut by a brave, acerbic, and original new writer.

Joseph Pintauro

Andrew Holleran One of the most important works of gay literature, this haunting, brilliant novel is a seriocomic remembrance of things past — and still poignantly present. It depicts the adventures of Malone, a beautiful young man searching for love amid New York's emerging gay scene. From Manhattan's Everard Baths and after-hours discos to Fire Island's deserted parks and lavish orgies, Malone looks high and low for meaningful companionship. The person he finds is Sutherland, a campy quintessential queen — and one of the most memorable literary creations of contemporary fiction. Hilarious, witty, and ultimately heartbreaking, Dancer from the Danceis truthful, provocative, outrageous fiction told in a voice as close to laughter as to tears.

Jim Grimsley ALA Gay-Lesbian-Bisexual Book Award. DREAM BOY confirms the immense promise of Jim Grimsley's award-winning debut, WINTER BIRDS. In his electrifying novel, adolescent gay love, violence, and the spirituality of old-time religion are combined through the alchemy of Grimsley's vision into a powerfully suspenseful story of escape and redemption. "I've never read a novel remotely like DREAM BOY; and my admiration for Jim Grimsley's power is widened and deepened."—Reynolds Price;"Translucent prose and emotional authenticity."—Out. A QUALITY PAPERBACK BOOK CLUB SELECTION.

David Sedaris Whether by nature or by nurture, Ma and Pa Sedaris certainly knew something about raising funny kids. Amy Sedaris has built a cult following for her Comedy Central character Jerri Blank, and David, the more famous of the two siblings, continues to spin his personal history into comedic gold. A good chunk of the material in Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denimdebuted in other media outlets, such as The New Yorker, but Sedaris's brilliantly written essays deserve repeat reads.

Based on the author's descriptions, nearly every member of his family is funny, although some (like sister Tiffany, perhaps) in a tragic way. In "The Change in Me," Sedaris remembers that his mother was good at imitating people when it helped drive home her point. High-voiced, lovably plain-spoken brother Paul (aka The Rooster, Silly P) has long been a favorite character for Sedaris readers, though Paul's story takes on a serious note when his wife has a difficult pregnancy. The author doesn't shy away from embarrassing moments in his own life, either, including a childhood poker game that strays into strange, psychological territory. Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denimprovides more evidence that he is a great humorist, memoirist, and raconteur, and readers are lucky to have the opportunity to know him (and his clan) so well. His funny family feels like our own. Perhaps they are luckier still not to know him personally. —Leah Weathersby

Ethan Mordden A gay ghost, a talking dog, and a street kid who thinks he's an elf-child join our narrator Bud, best friend Dennis Savage, eternally young Little Kiwi, devastating hunk Carlo, and the other characters from I've a Feeling We're Not in Kansas Anymore and Buddies in this final volume in Mordden's trilogy on gay life in the big city.And there's trouble in paradise: Dennis Savage is suffering midlife crisisl; his lover little Kiwi who uses sex as a weapon, threatens to tear apart the delicate fabric of this gay family of buddies, lovers, and brothers and the AIDS crisis may bring an end to this whole world.

Millie McDeevit screamed a scream

So loud it made her eyebrows steam.

She screamed so loud

Her jawbone broke,

Her tongue caught fire,

Her nostrils smoked...

Poor Screamin' Millie is just one of the unforgettable characters in this wondrous new book of poems and drawings by the creator of Where the Sidewalk Endsand A Light in the Attic.Here you will also meet Allison Beals and her twenty-five eels; Danny O'Dare, the dancin' bear; the Human Balloon; and Headphone Harold.

So come, wander through the Nose Garden, ride the Little Hoarse, eat in the Strange Restaurant, and let the magic of Shel Silverstein open your eyes and tickle your mind.

Edmund White Edmund White has long been praised as one of America's most accomplished novelists. The Farewell Symphonyis the final volume in the autobiographical trilogy that began with A Boy's Own Storyand The Beautiful Room Is Empty. It details the narrator's life in New York in the 1970s and his flight to Paris as the AIDS epidemic begins. White's prose, at once lucid and magical, is the essence of great writing. Its plainspoken cadences and language resonate with the tragedy of youthful passion giving way to hard-earned knowledge. Like Sherwood Anderson or Theodore Dreiser, White has captured the soul of the American experience—in this case a gay male experience—and made it into art.

Philip Galanes Matthew Vaber’s life has just taken a turn for the worse. His father has killed himself—a tragedy for which he feels bitterly responsible, when he lets himself feel much of anything about it at all—and his thrilling but damaged mother has taken center stage yet again. Into this cocktail of familial mayhem, Matthew tosses a bubbling new ingredient: the Pump Line, New York’s tawdriest phone sex service, where men appear and disappear with the push of a button. 

On the Pump Line, Matthew accomplishes precisely what he can’t manage in life, enacting dramas of desire and connection without the burden of any real connection at all and, in the neatest of psychological tricks, manages to feel both unworthy of and uninterested in these telephonic men at the very same time. Father’s Daytracks Matthew’s progress over an extraordinary year of pratfalls and sex and mourning and, quite unexpectedly, something that looks disconcertingly like true love.

Philip Galanes has written a superb comic novel that is, at heart, the story of a son coming to terms with the loss of his father, and a sly and at times exquisitely tender exploration of grief, loneliness, and the depth of childhood shame. In Matthew—wildly antic yet urbane and cannily conspiratorial—Galanes has created one of the freshest and funniest characters to emerge in years, a young man coming to grips with his own vulnerability and pureness of heart through a deliciously funny descent into a cockeyed fantasy of self-annihilation. Father’s Dayintroduces us to a brilliant new writer of immense talent and charm.

Michael Thomas Ford In novels such as Last Summer and Looking For It, Michael Thomas Ford has honestly and lovingly explored the intimate details of gay men's lives, from hot sex and lasting relationships to friendship and the search for family. Now he's crafted his most extraordinary novel yet, a powerful saga of three friends and lovers whose story spans decades and whose bonds have finally come Full Circle.

History professor Ned Brummel is living happily with his partner of twelve years in small-town Maine when he receives a phone call from his estranged friend—Jack—telling him that another friend—Andy—is very ill and possibly near death. It is news that shatters the peace of his world for many reasons. And as Ned boards a plane to Chicago on his way to his friend's bedside, he embarks on another journey into memory, examining the major events and small moments that have shaped his world and his relationships with these two very different, very important men.

Growing up together through the restrictive 1950's and confusing `60's, Jackson "Jack" Grace and Ned Brummel took solace in their love for each other. But once they arrive at college in 1969 and meet handsome farm boy Andy Kowalski, everything changes. Despite Andy's apparent heterosexuality, both Jack and Ned fall hard for him, straining their close friendship. Soon, the three men will become involved in a series of intense liaisons and bitter betrayals, coming together and flying apart, as they alternately hurt, love, shape, and heal one another over the course of years. From the heady, drug- and sex-fueled days of San Francisco in the wild seventies to the haunting spectre of AIDS in the eighties and the righteous activism of the nineties, their relationship transforms and grows, reflecting the changes going on around them. Now, together again in the most crucial and intimate of settings, Ned, Jack, and Andy have another chance to confront the damage of the past and embrace the bonds of friendship and love that have stood the test of time.

Full Circle is a wonderfully moving chronicle of three friends that is also an unflinching, triumphant celebration of the power of gay friendships, of the deep bonds forged despite strong obstacles, and of the love that is ultimately the most important thing we can ever share.

Brent Hartinger Russel Middlebrook is convinced he's the only gay kid at Goodkind High School. Then his online gay-chat buddy turns out to be none other than Kevin, the popular but closeted star of the school's baseball team. Soon Russel meets other gay students too. There's his best friend, Min, who reveals that she's bisexual, and her soccer-playing girlfriend, Terese. And there's Terese's politically active friend, Ike.

But how can kids this diverse get together without drawing attention to themselves?

"We just choose a club that's so boring, nobody in their right mind would ever in a million years join it. We could call it Geography Club!"

Brent Hartinger's debut novel is a fastpaced, funny, and trenchant portrait of contemporary teenagers who may not learn any actual geography in their latest school club, but who learn plenty about the treacherous social terrain of a typical American high school and the even more dangerous landscape of the human heart.

Alex Sanchez He clicked on Queer Eye, a show where five gay dudes gave some grungy straight guy a makeover — plucking his nose hairs, redecorating his apartment, and teaching him to bake a quiche — so he could confidently propose marriage to his girlfriend and she'd tell him "yes." Which, of course, she did. On TV the guy always gets the girl.

As Carlos watched, he recalled Sal, the supposedly gay guy at school. It was then that the idea first popped into his brain: If Sal truly were queer...could he possibly help Carlos?...Nor to propose to Roxy, of course — at least not yet — but to get her to maybe like him?

J.K. Rowling It's hard to fall in love with an earnest, appealing young hero like Harry Potter and then to watch helplessly as he steps into terrible danger! And in J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, the much anticipated sequel to the award-winning Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, he is in terrible danger indeed. As if it's not bad enough that after a long summer with the horrid Dursleys he is thwarted in his attempts to hop the train to the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry to begin his second year. But when his only transportation option is a magical flying car, it is just his luck to crash into a valuable (but clearly vexed) Whomping Willow. Still, all this seems like a day in the park compared to what happens that fall within the haunted halls of Hogwarts.

Chilling, malevolent voices whisper from the walls only to Harry, and it seems certain that his classmate Draco Malfoy is out to get him. Soon it's not just Harry who is worried about survival, as dreadful things begin to happen at Hogwarts. The mysteriously gleaming, foot-high words on the wall proclaim, "The Chamber of Secrets Has Been Opened. Enemies of the Heir, Beware." But what exactly does it mean? Harry, Hermione, and Ron do everything that is wizardly possible—including risking their own lives—to solve this 50-year-old, seemingly deadly mystery. This deliciously suspenseful novel is every bit as gripping, imaginative, and creepy as the first; familiar student concerns—fierce rivalry, blush-inducing crushes, pedantic professors—seamlessly intertwine with the bizarre, horrific, fantastical, or just plain funny. Once again, Rowling writes with a combination of wit, whimsy, and a touch of the macabre that will leave readers young and old desperate for the next installment. (Ages 9 and older) —Karin Snelson

J.K. Rowling Mary GrandPré In Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, J.K. Rowling offers up equal parts danger and delight—and any number of dragons, house-elves, and death-defying challenges. Now 14, her orphan hero has only two more weeks with his Muggle relatives before returning to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Yet one night a vision harrowing enough to make his lightning-bolt-shaped scar burn has Harry on edge and contacting his godfather-in-hiding, Sirius Black. Happily, the prospect of attending the season's premier sporting event, the Quidditch World Cup, is enough to make Harry momentarily forget that Lord Voldemort and his sinister familiars—the Death Eaters—are out for murder.

Readers, we will cast a giant invisibility cloak over any more plot and reveal only that You-Know-Who is very much after Harry and that this year there will be no Quidditch matches between Gryffindor, Ravenclaw, Hufflepuff, and Slytherin. Instead, Hogwarts will vie with two other magicians' schools, the stylish Beauxbatons and the icy Durmstrang, in a Triwizard Tournament. Those chosen to compete will undergo three supreme tests. Could Harry be one of the lucky contenders?

But Quidditch buffs need not go into mourning: we get our share of this great game at the World Cup. Attempting to go incognito as Muggles, 100,000 witches and wizards converge on a "nice deserted moor." As ever, Rowling magicks up the details that make her world so vivid, and so comic. Several spectators' tents, for instance, are entirely unquotidian. One is a minipalace, complete with live peacocks; another has three floors and multiple turrets. And the sports paraphernalia on offer includes rosettes "squealing the names of the players" as well as "tiny models of Firebolts that really flew, and collectible figures of famous players, which strolled across the palm of your hand, preening themselves." Needless to say, the two teams are decidedly different, down to their mascots. Bulgaria is supported by the beautiful veela, who instantly enchant everyone—including Ireland's supporters—over to their side. Until, that is, thousands of tiny cheerleaders engage in some pyrotechnics of their own: "The leprechauns had risen into the air again, and this time, they formed a giant hand, which was making a very rude sign indeed at the veela across the field."

Long before her fourth installment appeared, Rowling warned that it would be darker, and it's true that every exhilaration is equaled by a moment that has us fearing for Harry's life, the book's emotions running as deep as its dangers. Along the way, though, she conjures up such new characters as Alastor "Mad-Eye" Moody, a Dark Wizard catcher who may or may not be getting paranoid in his old age, and Rita Skeeter, who beetles around Hogwarts in search of stories. (This Daily Prophetscoop artist has a Quick-Quotes Quill that turns even the most innocent assertion into tabloid innuendo.) And at her bedazzling close, Rowling leaves several plot strands open, awaiting book 5. This fan is ready to wager that the author herself is part veela—her pen her wand, her commitment to her world complete. (Ages 9 and older) —Kerry Fried

J.K. Rowling Mary GrandPré For most children, summer vacation is something to look forward to. But not for our 13-year-old hero, who's forced to spend his summers with an aunt, uncle, and cousin who detest him. The third book in J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter series catapults into action when the young wizard "accidentally" causes the Dursleys' dreadful visitor Aunt Marge to inflate like a monstrous balloon and drift up to the ceiling. Fearing punishment from Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon (and from officials at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry who strictly forbid students to cast spells in the nonmagic world of Muggles), Harry lunges out into the darkness with his heavy trunk and his owl Hedwig.

As it turns out, Harry isn't punished at all for his errant wizardry. Instead he is mysteriously rescued from his Muggle neighborhood and whisked off in a triple-decker, violently purple bus to spend the remaining weeks of summer in a friendly inn called the Leaky Cauldron. What Harry has to face as he begins his third year at Hogwarts explains why the officials let him off easily. It seems that Sirius Black—an escaped convict from the prison of Azkaban—is on the loose. Not only that, but he's after Harry Potter. But why? And why do the Dementors, the guards hired to protect him, chill Harry's very heart when others are unaffected? Once again, Rowling has created a mystery that will have children and adults cheering, not to mention standing in line for her next book. Fortunately, there are four more in the works. (Ages 9 and older) —Karin Snelson

Timothy James Beck From Timothy James Beck, the acclaimed author of It Had To Be You, comes his second delightfully witty, thoroughly heartfelt novel as he introduces a Midwestern jock-slash-computer geek who comes to the big city in search of love, career, friendship, and a chance to find out if…

He's The One Something's gotta give for Adam Wilson. The hunky, sweet Midwestern entrepreneur might have a dream job, but his love life is anything but picture-perfect. The guys he dates usually turn out to have criminal records, bankruptcy histories, personality disorders, or wives. And for the first time in his life, Adam is ready to look for Mr. Right instead of Mr. Right-Out-the-Door. But where to look is more the question. It's not like bucolic, sleepy Eau Claire, Wisconsin, is exactly crawling with adorable, uncloseted gay men. Taking a job in New York City is awfully tempting, and when a computer company makes Adam an offer he can't refuse, he packs his flannel shirts and heads east in a hurry.

Like lots of driven, career-focused people before him (Think Marlo; think Mary Richards; rethink the flannel shirts…) Adam tackles the big city with farm-fresh enthusiasm, but the most breathtaking attraction of all is Jeremy, the blond, brown-eyed beauty Adam catches sight of in a Chelsea coffee shop. In addition to a buff bod and a to-die-for face, Jeremy's got a few other attributes like a heart, a soul, and a conscience. Trouble is, he may also have an annoying boyfriend bent on turning the sexy TV actor into the yoga-practicing equivalent of Mother Teresa with better shoes. Now that Adam's sure he's met the love of his life, how can he get Jeremy to fall in love with him? Catching Jeremy is going to take more than Adam's sweet-natured country enthusiasm.

Rupert Everett British actor Rupert Everett charmed his way into moviegoers' affections with his scene-stealing performance in "My Best Friend's Wedding." Everett is also the gifted writer of this scathingly funny novel of a down-and-out actor's zany misadventures amid a wildly colorful menagerie of madcap trendsetters.

Fame is a fleeting thing, as ex-soap opera star Rhys Waveral discovers. When he loses all his money in the stock market and no new acting jobs are forthcoming, eviction from his elegant hotel suite looms large. Stripped of all his assets, Rhys realizes he has only one thing left to sell: himself. And a pair of jet-setting dowagers couldn't be more thrilled. From staid English country houses to flamboyant Parisian nightclubs and an outrageous costume ball in Tangiers, Rupert Everett spins a raucous and irresistible modern farce.

Timothy James Beck

Michael Thomas Ford The third collection of Michael Thomas Ford's syndicated humor pieces from his column "My Queer Life" more than lives up to its sparkling predecessors, Alec Baldwin Doesn't Love Meand That's Mr. Faggot to You. Revel in Ford's tart summary of the suppressed all-gay season of MTV's Real World, with its outbreak of crabs and a heart-rending incident involving the impossible-to-find Julie Andrews recording Live in Japan. Ponder in pity or solidarity Ford's brave revelation that he has no style sense whatsoever and is taken for a hopelessly muddled straight man whenever he wanders into a J. Crew or a Gap. The best essays here are often not the topical ones, in which Ford responds to recent antigay news, but the most whimsical. In "Ah-Choo," he proposes a useful new hanky code, based not on sexual proclivities but on personality traits, such as Orange Hanky for "Tanning booth aficionado and gym bunny" or Green Hanky for "Eats only organic produce." Don't miss his mordant reflections on the outing of Tinky Winky in "Et Tu, Po?" or his "Condensed History of Queer Sex," beginning with God's anger at Adam and Steve for eating forbidden fruit: "As punishment, Steve's name and penis are both severely shortened, forever altering history."—Regina Marler

Michael Thomas Ford

Bret Easton Ellis Set in Los Angeles in the early 1980's, this coolly mesmerizing novel is a raw, powerful portrait

of a lost generation who have experienced sex, drugs, and disaffection at too early an age, in a

world shaped by casual nihilism, passivity, and too much money a place devoid of feeling or

hope.

Clay comes home for Christmas vacation from his Eastern college and re-enters a landscape of

limitless privilege and absolute moral entropy, where everyone drives Porches, dines at Spago,

and snorts mountains of cocaine. He tries to renew feelings for his girlfriend, Blair, and for his

best friend from high school, Julian, who is careering into hustling and heroin. Clay's holiday

turns into a dizzying spiral of desperation that takes him through the relentless parties in glitzy

mansions, seedy bars, and underground rock clubs and also into the seamy world of L.A. after dark.

Michael Thomas Ford Mike Monaghan is the bartender at the Engine Room, a meeting place for the small but thriving community of gay men in Cold Falls, New York. As Mike pours beer, wipes glasses and hears everything, he's also witness to the men who come here looking for what they need—sex, direction, friendship, spiritual fulfillment, and love. People like: Stephen Darby—As an accountant, he knows many secrets. But Stephen has his own secret, one he's never been able to share with anyone close to him. Being the perfect son costs him dearly, and now it may take from him the one man he longs for.

Pete Thayer—Playing it straight, Pete takes out his frustrations on transmissions and engines during the day, then spends his nights trying to quench his needs through anonymous sex. But once the thrill of the forbidden begins to fade, what will he be left with?

John and Russell—The golden couple in town has the ideal relationship everyone wants. But behind the scenes, their storybook marriage is on the verge of facing some explosive trials that will shake both men completely.

Father Thomas Dunn—More and more the gentle priest is feeling a need to express the secret desires that conflict with his devotion to the church, sending his faith into a tailspin and making him question what he really wants from life.

Simon Bird—He's a fixture in town, an old queen everyone finds amusing and entertaining. Still mourning the loss of his longtime lover, Simon yearns to find love and a place in a culture that worships youth and beauty.

As Mike hands these men their drinks, he marvels at their determination, strength and foolishness. But most of all, he begins to question his own dissatisfaction, pondering what's missing from his own life, and what risks he may have to take to find fulfillment. Looking For It is an extraordinarily human tale of community, friendship, and the search for happiness. With unflinching honesty, keen insight, and his trademark humor, Michael Thomas Ford weaves together the unforgettable stories of these seven men, chronicling their dreams, hurts, heartbreaks, joys, and hopes, while taking readers on an emotional journey to find what it is we're all looking for.

Augusten Burroughs It's best to know this from the start: Augusten Burroughs is mean. Augusten Burroughs is also outrageously X-rated. If you can get past those two things, Burroughs might just be the most refreshing voice in American books today, and his collection of acerbic essays will have you laughing out loud even while cringing in your seat. Whether he is stepping on the fingers of little children or giving you the blow-by-blow on a very unholy act, Burroughs manages to do it in a way that fills conflicted fans with both horror and glee.

Spanning from the surprisingly Machiavellian portrayal of his role in a Tang commercial at age seven to his more recent foray into dog ownership, Burroughs has what seems to be an endless supply of offbeat life experiences. Much like earlier David Sedaris collections (Barrel Feveror Naked), there are occasional fits and starts in the flow of the writing, but ultimately, Magical Thinking is worth reading (and re-reading). If you're familiar with Burroughs's memoirs, Running with Scissors, and Dry, you may find parts of Magical Thinkingrepetitive, since these essays bounce around in time between the other two. In fact, in an ideal world, this collection would have come first, as it offers an excellent introduction to Burroughs's fascinating life. —Vicky Griffith

Stephen McCauley Stephen McCauley's much-loved novels The Object of My Affectionand The Easy Way Outprompted The New York Times Book Reviewto dub him "the secret love child of Edith Wharton and Woody Allen." Now McCauley stakes further claim to that title — and more — with a rich and deftly funny novel that charts the unpredictable terrain of family, friends, and fathers.

Thirty-five-year-old Clyde Carmichael spends too much time at things that make him miserable: teaching at a posh but flaky adult learning center; devouring forgettable celebrity biographies; and obsessing about his ex-lover, Gordon. Clyde's other chief pursuit is dodging his family — his maddeningly insecure sister and his irascible father, who may or may not be at death's door. Clyde's in danger of becoming as aimless as Marcus, his handsome (and unswervingly straight) roommate, who's spent ten years on one dissertation and far too many fizzled relationships.

Enter Louise Morris. Clyde's old friend and Marcus's onetime lover is a restless writer and single mother, who shows up with Ben, her son and a neurotic dog in tow. The looming question of Ben's paternity nudges Clyde back into the orbit of his own father — and propels our endearing hero into the kind of bittersweet emotional terrain that McCauley captures so well.

David Sedaris David Sedaris became a star autobiographer on public radio, onstage in New York, and on bestseller lists, mostly on the strength of "SantaLand Diaries," a scathing, hilarious account of his stint as a Christmas elf at Macy's. (It's in two separate collections, both worth owning, Barrel Feverand the Christmas-themed Holidays on Ice.) Sedaris's caustic gift has not deserted him in his fourth book, which mines poignant comedy from his peculiar childhood in North Carolina, his bizarre career path, and his move with his lover to France. Though his anarchic inclination to digress is his glory, Sedaris does have a theme in these reminiscences: the inability of humans to communicate. The title is his rendition in transliterated English of how he and his fellow students of French in Paris mangle the Gallic language. In the essay "Jesus Shaves," he and his classmates from many nations try to convey the concept of Easter to a Moroccan Muslim. "It is a party for the little boy of God," says one. "Then he be die one day on two... morsels of... lumber," says another. Sedaris muses on the disputes between his Protestant mother and his father, a Greek Orthodox guy whose Easter fell on a different day. Other essays explicate his deep kinship with his eccentric mom and absurd alienation from his IBM-exec dad: "To me, the greatest mystery of science continues to be that a man could father six children who shared absolutely none of his interests."

Every glimpse we get of Sedaris's family and acquaintances delivers laughs and insights. He thwarts his North Carolina speech therapist ("for whom the word penhad two syllables") by cleverly avoiding all words with ssounds, which reveal the lisp she sought to correct. His midget guitar teacher, Mister Mancini, is unaware that Sedaris doesn't share his obsession with breasts, and sings "Light My Fire" all wrong——"as if he were a Webelo scout demanding a match." As a remarkably unqualified teacher at the Art Institute of Chicago, Sedaris had his class watch soap operas and assign "guessays" on what would happen in the next day's episode.

It all adds up to the most distinctively skewed autobiography since Spalding Gray's Swimming to Cambodia. The only possible reason not to read this book is if you'd rather hear the author's intrinsically funny speaking voice narrating his story. In that case, get Me Talk Pretty One Dayon audio. —Tim Appelo

George Stambolian

Various

Armistead Maupin 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 contem-porary 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 Livesfollows 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 Livesis a novel about the act of growing older joyfully and the everyday miracles that somehow make that possible.

Armistead Maupin The tenants of 28 Barbary Lane have fled their cozy nest for adventures for afield. Mary Ann Singleton finds love at sea with a forgetful stranger, Mona Ramsey discovers her doppleganger in a desert whore-house, and Michael Tolliver bumps into a certain gynecologist in a seedy Mexican Bar. Meanwhile, their venerable landlady takes the biggest journey of all'without ever leaving home. A new, full color 16-page insert makes this seamless work complete.

"Maupin has always been a humane storyteller, and an accessible one. His life-is-good-but-sloppy soap operas are marked by solid craft, superb dialogue, and what used to be called heart." 

—Entertainment Weekly

"Maupin writes with warmth, acuity and tremendous wit about ordinary people learning to live with themselves and one another. Read him."
—Harpers & Queen

"Sparkling entertainments...lit by a glowing humanity that brings each character to vivid, poignant life."
—Publishers Weekly

Don't miss the much anticipated continuation of the classic miniseries "Armistead Maupin's Tales of the City" premiering June 1998 and airing all summer on SHOWTIME. Check your local listings for times.

Visit the Tales of the City website at www.talesofthecity.com

Edmund White No one has been more frank, lucid, rueful and entertaining about growing up gay in Middle America than Edmund White. Best known for his autobiographical novels, starting with A Boy's Own Story, White here takes fiction out of his story and delivers the facts of his life in all their shocking and absorbing verity.

From an adolescence in the 1950s, an era that tried to "cure his homosexuality" but found him "unsalvageable," he emerged into a 1960s society that redesignated his orientation as "acceptable (nearly)." He describes a life touched by psychotherapy in every decade, starting with his flamboyant and demanding therapist mother, who considered him her own personal test case — and personal escort to cocktail lounges after her divorce. His father thought that even wearing a wristwatch was effeminate, though custodial visits to Dad in Cincinnati inadvertently initiated White into the culture of "hustlers and johns" that changed his life.

In My Lives, White shares his enthusiasms and his passions — for Paris, for London, for Jean Genet — and introduces us to his lovers and predilections, past and present. "Now that I'm sixty-five," writes White, "I think this is a good moment to write a memoir. . . . Sixty-five is the right time for casting a backward glance, while one is still fully engaged in one's life."

Will Davis

Michael Chabon By the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay

This P.S. edition features an extra 16 pages of insights into the book, including author interviews, recommended reading, and more.

David Sedaris Hip radio comedy fans and theater folks who belong to the cult of Obie-winning playwright/performer David Sedaris must kill to get this book. These would be fans of the scaldingly snide Sedaris's hilariously described personal misadventures like The Santaland Diaries(a monologue about his work as an elf to a department store Santa) seen off-Broadway in 1997. In a series of similarly textured essays, Sedaris takes us along on his catastrophic detours through a nudist colony, a fruit-packing plant, his own childhood, and a dozen more of the world's little purgatories.

Bob Smith Bob Smith writes about topics that a