Bay Area Reporter :: Books News

'Small Rain' - Garth Greenwell's remarkable new novel

September 8, 2024 | by Tim Pfaff

Garth Greenwell's generous, expansive new novel, "Small Rain" (Farrar, Straus & Giroux) is built on the author's own experience of a dozen-day stay in the hospital, gazing into the maw of death from an infrarenal aortic dissection.

Jeannette de Beauvoir's 'The Fine Art of Deception: A Provincetown Mystery' - art fraud in P'town

by Laura Moreno
Sep 7, 2024

Jeannette de Beauvoir's "The Fine Art of Deception: A Provincetown Mystery" is the ninth finely crafted book in the Provincetown Mystery series, but it is a stand-alone work in itself. Whether you have any knowledge of art or not, this is a must-read.

Megan Davis' 'What Breaks Us' - an insightful new poetry collection on love & healing

by Laura Moreno
Aug 26, 2024

Actress Megan Davis, who's also a screenwriter, shares another of her talents with her debut poetry book, "What Breaks Us."

Robert Raasch: author discusses 'The Summer Between'

by Michele Karlsberg
Aug 25, 2024

The author of the acclaimed coming of age novel set in 1970s Greenwich Village discusses his work process and inspiration behind the story.

Patrick Nathan's 'The Future Was Color' travels through history

by Gregg Shapiro
Aug 18, 2024

Spanning a nearly 80-year period, from the 1940s to the present day, Lambda Literary Award finalist Patrick Nathan takes readers from Hollywood to New York to Las Vegas to Paris, all the while seamlessly incorporating significant historical events.

August Thompson's 'Anyone's Ghost' - a genre novel with a twist

by Tim Pfaff
Aug 11, 2024

August Thompson's "Anyone's Ghost" shows that there's still life in the currently overdone genre of drug-fueled, sex-driven, gay coming-of-age stories.

David Hockney at 87 in new book; swimming pools, beautiful boys, and cigarettes

by Robert Brokl
Aug 6, 2024

"The World According to David Hockney," by Martin Gayford, Thames & Hudson publishers, seems designed as a holiday stocking stuffer: colorful images by Hockney, including several greatest hits, and Hockney quotes, or "epigrams" as Gayford describes them.

'Karma' - Boy George tells all

by Cornelius Washington
Aug 6, 2024

One of the primary prerequisites of being a true star is that the general public never grows tired of seeing or hearing you. Boy George's "Karma: My Autobiography" (Blink Publishing) proves his merit as a gender-blurring pioneer as well as a musician.

'Seeing through' - Composer Ricky Ian Gordon's sex, drugs, and opera memoir

by Tim Pfaff
Aug 6, 2024

"Seeing Through: a Chronicle of Sex, Drugs, and Opera" is a long-winded but often touching first-person memoir by the prodigious American composer, Ricky Ian Gordon. If gossip is the fruit of love, Gordon is usually tender in his mentions of others.

Donna Minkowitz: acclaimed journalist & author takes us to 'Donnaville'

by Michele Karlsberg
Jul 29, 2024

Donna Minkowitz has been a dynamic force in the literary world for decades. Her journalism and memoir have won acclaim. Now she's taking us on a multiple (and single?) character novel set in her self-named town.

Brontez Purnell: Author, choreographer and musician to perform his great-uncle's blues music at Berkeley Art Museum

by Jim Provenzano
Jul 29, 2024

Award-winning queer author, dancer, choreographer and musician Brontez Purnell will break out a new style when he performs classic blues songs written and performed by his great uncle J.J. Malone at the Berkeley Art Museum on August 16.

Daniel Lefferts' 'Ways and Means' - a powerful debut novel of money, love and corruption

by Laura Moreno
Jul 27, 2024

Set in 2016 in New York City, "Ways and Means" is about money and becoming aware of the personal dramas caused by it. Author Daniel Lefferts, 35, paints a compelling picture of the strange things cold-hearted capitalism spawns.

Kathya Alexander's 'Keep A'Livin' - a civil rights-era novel in verse

by Laura Moreno
Jul 21, 2024

"Keep A'Livin'" is the story of 12-year-old Mandy Anderson and her mother Belle in the rural South during the Civil Rights movement in the 1960s. Kathya Alexander's insightful new novel was recently released by the SF feminist press Aunt Lute Books.

'Queering Rehoboth Beach' - James T. Sears on the beach town's evolution

by Gregg Shapiro
Jul 15, 2024

The dramatic and inspiring story of how Rehoboth Beach came to be what it is today can be found in gay historian James T. Sears's revealing new book "Queering Rehoboth Beach: Beyond the Boardwalk."

Gil Cuadros' 'My Body Is Paper' - Unflinching honesty in stories and poems

by Laura Moreno
Jul 2, 2024

Gil Cuadros' long-awaited posthumous new book of short stories and poems, "My Body Is Paper," was recently released. Although Mr. Cuadros died in 1996 of AIDS, the book's editors worked to bring this new book to fruition.

Arts & Culture :: Books