Best of
Queer-Lit

2008

The Essential Dykes to Watch Out For


Alison Bechdel - 2008
    Now, at last, The Essential Dykes to Watch Out For gathers a “rich, funny, deep and impossible to put down” (Publishers Weekly) selection from all eleven Dykes volumes. Here too are sixty of the newest strips, never before published in book form.Settle in to this wittily illustrated soap opera (Bechdel calls it “half op-ed column and half endless serialized Victorian novel”) of the lives, loves, and politics of a cast of characters, most of them lesbian, living in a midsize American city that may or may not be Minneapolis.Her brilliantly imagined countercultural band of friends -- academics, social workers, bookstore clerks -- fall in and out of love, negotiate friendships, raise children, switch careers, and cope with aging parents.Bechdel fuses high and low culture -- from foreign policy to domestic routine, hot sex to postmodern theory -- in a serial graphic narrative “suitable for humanists of all persuasions.”

Girl Friends: The Complete Collection 2


Milk Morinaga - 2008
    Not only has she inducted Mariko into a circle of new friends and helped her overcome her shyness and sense of isolation, but both girls have awakened feelings they never knew they had.In the course of their evolving relationship, Akko and Mariko have struggled against every emotional hurdle one would expect from a burgeoning romance between high school girls. One big question remains: are they ready to face the world as a couple?

I Can't Think Straight


Shamim Sarif - 2008
    As Tala’s wedding day approaches, simmering tensions come to boiling point and the pressure mounts for Tala to be true to herself.Moving between the vast enclaves of Middle Eastern high society and the stunning backdrop of London’s West End, I Can’t Think Straight explores the clashes between East and West, love and marriage, conventions and individuality, creating a humorous and tender story of unexpected love and unusual freedoms.

J.C. Leyendecker


Laurence S. Cutler - 2008
    C. Leyendecker captivated audiences throughout the first half of the 20th century. Leyendecker is best known for his creation of the archetype of the fashionable American male with his advertisements for Arrow Collar. These images sold to an eager public the idea of a glamorous lifestyle, the bedrock upon which modern advertising was built. He also was the creator instantly recognizable icons, such as the New Year’s baby and Santa Claus, that are to this day an integral part of the lexicon of Americana and was commissioned to paint more Saturday Evening Post covers than any other artist. Leyendecker lived for most of his adult life with Charles Beach, the Arrow Collar Man, on whom the stylish men in his artwork were modeled. The first book about the artist in more than 30 years, J. C. Leyendecker features his masterworks, rare paintings, studies, and other artwork, including the 322 covers he did for the Post. With a revealing text that delves into both his artistic evolution and personal life, J. C. Leyendecker restores this iconic image maker’s rightful position in the pantheon of great American artists.

The Slow Fix


Ivan E. Coyote - 2008
    Coyote featured insightful, deeply personal tales about gender, identity, and community, based on her own experiences growing up lesbian in Canada’s North. Ivan’s most recent book, Bow Grip, was her first novel; it was shortlisted for the Ferro-Grumley Prize for Women’s Fiction, was named a Stonewall Honor Book by the American Library Association, and won Canada’s ReLit Award for Best Novel of the Year.With The Slow Fix, Ivan returns to her short story roots in a collection that is disarming, warm, and funny, while it at the same time subverts our preconceived notions of gender roles. Ivan excels at finding the small yet significant truths in our everyday gestures and interactions. By doing so, she helps us to embrace not what makes us women or men, but human beings.Ivan E. Coyote is the author of five books, all published by Arsenal Pulp Press. Born in Canada’s Yukon Territory, she lives in Vancouver, BC.

Down to the Bone


Mayra Lazara Dole - 2008
    What if you don't follow the rules and it radically alters the course of your life?What if you get kicked out of the house and lose all your friends and everyone you love? Will you turn the corner into a world filled with unusual friends and create a new kind of family or self-destruct?BOOKLIST *STARRED* REVIEW

The Peach Blossom Debt 桃花债


Da Feng Gua Guo - 2008
    However, Yao Xiang has affinity for a poor scholar. Driven to despair, Song Yao mistakenly eats an elixir pill of immortality by chance, soaring into the heaven.Meanwhile, in heaven, Tianshu Xing and Nanming emperor are involved in a love affair. Because of this, they are demoted and forced to descend to earth by the Jade Emperor as a punishment. The Jade Emperor then ordered Song Yao to descend to Earth and break up the two lovebirds. Song Yao’s close friend, Hengwen Qing, accompanied him back to Earth. Decreed by fate, Song Yao is reborn as the eldest son of a feudal lord and brought the weak and fragile scholar, Tianshu Xing, into his mansion. The entanglement in his past life, the cause and effect of his reincarnation... Song Yao plays the role of a bridge connecting people with the red string of fate, while being destined to live a lonely life forever.丞相公子宋珧迷恋花魁瑶湘,瑶湘却与一个穷书生情投意合。失魂落魄的宋珧因缘际会误食了仙丹,就此飞升成了神仙。天庭的天枢星君和南明帝君犯了错,被玉帝贬下凡界,玉帝钦点宋珧下凡将他二人进行折磨。宋珧的知己好友衡文清君也随其来到人间,却遇上了命中注定的劫数。宋珧在下界做了一个藩王世子,把文弱的天枢星君强抢入府…前世纠葛,因果轮回,宋珧在别人的情戏里扮演搭线的桥,自己确是个永世孤鸾的命。

Crossing Borders: Love Between Women in Medieval French and Arabic Literatures


Sahar Amer - 2008
    In contrast, eroticism is explicitly celebrated in a large number of theological, scientific, and literary texts of the medieval Arab Islamicate tradition, where sexuality was positioned at the very heart of religious piety.In "Crossing Borders," Sahar Amer turns to the rich body of Arabic sexological writings to focus, in particular, on their open attitude toward erotic love between women. By juxtaposing these Arabic texts with French works, she reveals a medieval French literary discourse on same-sex desire and sexual practices that has gone all but unnoticed. The Arabic tradition on eroticism breaks through into French literary writings on gender and sexuality in often surprising ways, she argues, and she demonstrates how strategies of gender representation deployed in Arabic texts came to be models to imitate, contest, subvert, and at times censor in the West.Amer's analysis reveals Western literary representations of gender in the Middle Ages as cross-cultural, hybrid discourses as she reexamines borders cultural, linguistic, historical, geographic not as elements of separation and division but as fluid spaces of cultural exchange, adaptation, and collaboration. Crossing these borders, she salvages key Arabic and French writings on alternative sexual practices from oblivion to give voice to a group that has long been silenced."