In honor of the thousands of protestors in California and nation-wide who are utterly disturbed that the California Supreme Court would uphold the right of one population to determine the future of another, I am recommending a landmark novel in the GLBT world: The City and the Pillar by Gore Vidal. This book was published in 1948 and created such a scandal that no major newspaper or magazine in the U.S. would review a book by Gore Vidal for 6 years afterward. Gore Vidal was the first major American author to take on GLBT themes openly and with the clear perspective that homosexuality was not an abnormality. It remains one of the most important novels in American literature.
Archive for May, 2009
Weekly Book Recommendation: May 27, 2009
Wednesday, May 27th, 2009Issue 12 LIVE
Saturday, May 23rd, 2009Issue 12 is finally live with fiction from Dylan Gilbert and Ron Burch, nonfiction from Thomas Sullivan and Norman Ball, and poetry from Ed Bennett (Editor’s Choice), Esther Greenleaf Mürer, Michael Estabrook, Lee Passarella, A.S.M. Shamim Miah, Ryan Douglas, Roddy Williams, and Donovan White. This month’s cover art comes from Casey Bowman and is among my favorites.
Thoughtful reading!
Weekly Book Recommendation: May 10-16
Wednesday, May 13th, 2009At last I can say that we are semi-sort of back on schedule! If you’ve been watching the headlines–and I’m sure you have–you know that things have heated up all across the globe. Soldiers and refugees in wartime and peacetime have long been a potential topic for writers to explore. In Against Forgetting: Twentieth Century Poetry of Witness, edited by Carolyn Forche, poets explore war topics with deftness and depth. Perhaps the single most political anthology of poetry ever compiled, it’s easy to recommend it to readers who appreciate literature that matters.
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We’re still looking for readers who would like to recommend a book or books. To send your recommendation, send us a paragraph or two that includes the title, the author, why you recommend it, and how it relates to externalist principles. Send all in the body of an email to editor@theexternalist.com. Sorry–we do not accept book recommendations written by the author of the recommended book. If you’re the author and are convinced that we should recommend it, send me an email requesting instructions for sending a review copy.