'Swimming in the Dark'; a balanced, ideally paced novel

Tomasz Jedrowski's debut novel 'Swimming in the Dark' tells a time-honored story, gay first love, in a setting that has become all but expected in gay literary fiction: Eastern Europe under the dark clouds of political oppression.

Frank Kameny's cause: Eric Cervini's 'The Deviant's War' traces early gay history

It's rare that a non-fiction book as richly detailed as 'The Deviant's War: The Homosexual vs. The United States of America' (Farrar, Straus and Giroux) moves along at the brisk clip of Eric Cervini's new account of Frank Kameny's pre-Stonewall activism.

Interrelated fates: sexuality in 'Enter the Aardvark,' 'The Wanting Life'

It's both amazing and somehow gratifying that the literary genre of the closet novel still has any juice left. Two just hit the market: Mark Rader's debut novel, 'The Wanting Life' and Jessica Anthony's 'Enter the Aardvark.'

Advanced and enchanting - Jean-Baptiste Lully's 'Isis' on CD

The curtain had barely come down on the final performance of his tour of the Jean-Baptiste Lully's opera, 'Isis,' when Vienna's Theater an der Wien was forced to lock its doors indefinitely. The CD recording captures its audible beauty.

Disc love in the time of contagion: Tchaikovsky's 'Eugene Onegin'

I watched the new DVD of Tchaikovsky's 'Eugene Onegin,' the most emotionally brutal of the Tchaikovsky operas, in a Bolshoi production by Dmitri Tcherniakov, my personal favorite of the current gang of opera enfants terribles, from my bed.

Lionizing lying

Two misfortunes, one likely unforeseen, attend the publication of Peter Kispert's new short story collection "I Know You Know Who I Am" (Penguin).

Rough Hough

Writing deeply informed reflections about classical music in language that engages the non-specialist, Stephen Hough's pieces are collected in "Rough Ideas: Reflections on Music and More" (FS&G).

Bottoms up: gay poets go there

When I read about Malcolm Tariq's new poetry collection "Heed the Hollow" (Graywolf Press), with three poems entitled "Malcolm Tariq's Black Bottom," I was there.

Slings & arrows of an operatic 'Hamlet'

It's been a very good year for French opera and vocal music on recordings.

'Cleanness' in the I of the beholder

Garth Greenwell's new story collection, "Cleanness," includes a raw account of an internet-initiated S&M hookup so minutely observed that readers seeking porn only will avert their eyes.

Beyond Western imagination: Tash Aw's "We, the Survivors"

There's so much to appreciate in Tash Aw's new novel "We, the Survivors" that a deep plunge into its contents might overlook how remarkable the writing is.

Best classical recordings of 2019

My love of historical recordings doesn't blind me to the fact that we live in a golden age of music-making now, and that it is preserved at a higher rate than ever.

Best books of 2019

I don't at all restrict my reading to LGBTQ authors and topics, but I could have in 2019 and still had an extraordinary reading year.

Reynaldo Hahn, in search of lost songs

It's become the work of recordings to restore composer Reynaldo Hahn's work to the acclaim it warrants and almost inevitably brings.

It takes two to tangle

Carmen Maria Machado's new memoir "In the Dream House" addresses the topic of lesbian domestic abuse, though it also circles the subject.

Monster mash

Jeanette Winterson's 11th novel is "Frankissstein: A Love Story" (Grove Press).

Talking puppets talking trash

Call it an uptick in the collective unconscious or call it news, there's no mistaking the mushrooming of new books, fiction and non-, about Fascism.

Telepathic hackers: Caleb Crain's 'Overthrow'

From its very title, Caleb Crain's second novel, "Overthrow," is comedy of the highest order.

This 'Faust' makes the right bargains

If San Francisco Opera's "Romeo and Juliette" left you with a sweet tooth for Gounod, a dessert buffet has just arrived.

32 by 32: Pinnacle of piano

The 32-year-old Igor Levit, three of whose four commercial releases for Sony have included Beethoven, has just seen the release of "Beethoven: The Complete Sonatas," all 32 of them.

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