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In Honor Of Pride Month: Celebrating Authors Who Identify With The LGBT Community

6/23/2016

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Above is a photo showcasing my collection of LGBT authors, from Elizabeth Bowen to Thornton Wilder. Certainly not an exhaustive list.

June is Pride Month. In light of Orlando, I believe it is even more important this year to stand as ONE solid community. No more prejudice. No more hatred. No more injustice. Equality for all. No matter your views (political, spiritual, etc.), surely we can all agree to kindness and love.

Okay, I am off my soapbox now...now back to the books shall we?

For something a little different let's look at what these authors have to say...a quip, a quote, a saying...either from one of their books or characters, or from them personally.


Elizabeth Bowen

"Art is one thing that can go on mattering once it has stopped hurting."
Truman Capote

"Life is a moderately good play with a badly written third act."


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​William S. Burroughs

(First Printing, part of The Nova Trilogy)


​Burroughs was a prolific and dynamic mover and shaker during the Beat Generation.  One of the major postmodernist authors during this time.



"After one look at this planet any visitor from outer space would say 'I want to see the manager'."
- oh so true!

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John Cheever

​(First Printing, National Book Award)

Cheever mostly wrote about the suburbs of New York and the villages of New England, giving him the titles: "The Chekhov of the suburbs" and "The Ovid of Ossining".


"Art is the triumph over chaos."

"I can't write without a reader.  It's precisely like a kiss - you can't do it alone."  

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Michael Cunningham

(Signed First Printing, Pulitzer) 


Cunningham is a superb novelist, and one in which I collect all of his work.  


"There is beauty in the world, though it's harsher than we expect it to be."


Willa Cather

"There are some things you learn best in calm, and some in storm." 
T.S. Eliot

​"If you aren't in over your head, how do you know how tall you are?"


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E. M. Forster

(First Printing)

You may know Forster's popular novels, such as: Howards End and A Room With A View. Maurice is a lesser known novel, yet a ground-breaking one.  First written in 1913 and not published until 1971, it deals with the taboo (especially then) subject of homosexuality.  Beautifully written.


"So, two cheers for Democracy: one because it admits variety and two because it permits criticism." 
- perhaps lost in today's America 

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Andre Gide

(First American Edition, Nobel Prize)

​Talk about ground-breaking. Gide first published these dialogues in 1911 with the title C.R.D.N. and without an author's name.  Reason being?  Perhaps because of the theme:  Sexual Differentiations.


"Man cannot discover new oceans unless he has the courage to lose sight of the shore."

"Be faithful to that which exists within yourself."
   


Allan Hollinghurst

"The great wisdom for writers, perhaps for everybody, is to come to understand to be at one with their own tempo."
Selma Lagerlof

"The ways of Providence cannot be reasoned out by the finite mind...I cannot fathom them, yet seeking to know them is the most satisfying thing in all the world."  


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Chuck Palahniuk

(First Printing)


Sure, you've seen the movie.  But have you read the book?  Last year Palahniuk released Fight Club 2 in the form of 10 comic books.  Quirky idea and spot on!


"We all die. The goal isn't to live forever, the goal is to create something that will."

"Nothing of me is original. I am the combined effort of everybody 
I've ever known."

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Benjamin Alire Saenz

(Signed Frist Edition, PEN / Faulkner)

Saenz is a fellow Texan, and the chair of the Creative Writing department at the University of Texas El Paso.


"I didn't think it was my job to accept what everyone said I was and who I should be."

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Susan Sontag

(Signed First Printing, National Book Award)

Sontag was not only a writer. She was 
also an activist who traveled the world writing and speaking about photography, culture, media, AIDS, and human rights.  

"Interpretation is the revenge of the intellectual upon art."


Thomas Mann

​"A man lives not only his personal life, as an individual, but also, consciously or unconsciously, the life of his epoch and his contemporaries."
W. Somerset Maugham

"My own belief is that there is hardly anyone whose sexual life, if it were broadcast, would not fill the world at large with surprise and horror."


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Gore Vidal

(Signed First Printing, part of the Narratives of Empire series)

Vidal was a prolific writer of fiction, as well as a political commentator and essayist.  His principle subject was the United States and it's society, as evidenced by the Narratives of Empire series.

"Never pass up a chance to have sex or appear on television."
- perhaps the best quote here

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Alice Walker

(Signed First Printing)

Walker is best known for The Color Purple.  She is the first African-American woman to be awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.  A gifted writer of novels, stories, essays, and poetry.

"The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don't have any."


Walt Whitman

​"Re-examine all that you have been told...dismiss that which insults your soul."
Thornton Wilder

"I am convinced that, except in a few extraordinary cases, one form or another of an unhappy childhood is essential to the formation of exceptional gifts."


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Sarah Waters

(Signed First Printing)

​Waters is a writer I have recently discovered and am glad I have done so. The Paying Guests takes place in 1922 and involves the taboo subject of homosexuality...very taboo in the 20's.  


"I barely knew I had skin before I met you."  

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Patrick White

(First U.K. Edition, Nobel Prize)


Definitely the coolest cover of all of these books.  The Australian born White won the Nobel Prize for Fiction in 1977.  The Vivisector (1970) is the novel that put him on the literary map.


"Life is full of alternatives but no choice."

"If truth is not acceptable, it becomes the imagination of others."

Hope you enjoyed this post.  Once again, Thank you!

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A Walk Through My Home Library: National Book Award Fiction

6/16/2016

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Welcome back to my home library.  Last time we were here we looked through my Pulitzer Prize collection.  This time, let's peruse my collection of NBA winners.  No, not basketball teams, but rather the National Book Award winners for Fiction.  The National Book Award, or NBA, has been around since 1950.  Their mission is to acknowledge and celebrate the best of American Literature.  

Let's go inside shall we...

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Photo above showcases all of the NBA winners I own...all First Editions First Printings and several are signed. 

A total of 75 novels have won this exceptional award, from Nelson Algren's inaugural win The Man With The Golden Arm to the latest champion, Adam Johnson's Fortune Smiles.  

​Authors who have won the NBA multiple times:  William Faulkner (1951, 1955), Saul Bellow (1954, 1965, 1971), Wright Morris (1957, 1981), Bernard Malamud (1959, 1967), Philip Roth (1960, 1995), John Updike (1964, 1982), and William Gaddis (1976, 1994).  Impressive, to say the least!

Dual winners of both the Pulitzer and NBA (for the same Novel):
*1971:  Mr. Sammler's Planet by Saul Bellow
*1974:  Gravity's Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon 
 1982:  Rabbit Is Rich by John Updike
 1983:  The Color Purple by Alice Walker
 1993:  The Shipping News by E. Annie Proulx
* Pulitzer shortlisted, no award given that year

Out of the 75 novels awarded the NBA for Fiction, I own a total of 72.  I am only missing Goodbye, Columbus, The Color Purple, and The Shipping News.

Here are just a few of the signed ones I own... 


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A sample of the signed NBA novels I own.  Out of the 72, 15 are signed. (Oddly the exact number of signed Pulitzer winners)
  • The Adventures of Augie March (1954)
  • Morte D'Urban (1963)
  • Herzog (1965)
  • Mr. Sammler's Planet (1971)
  • Chimera (1973)
  • Dog Soldiers (1975)
  • Going After Cacciato (1979)
  • World's Fair (1986)
  • Paris Trout (1988)
  • Middle Passage (1990)
  • Mating (1991)
  • Charming Billy (1998)
  • In America (2000)
  • Three Junes (2002)
  • Fortune Smiles (2015)

I have read 15 of the National Book Award for Fiction novels thus far...

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Here is a quick list and rating for each:

The Man With The Golden Arm by Nelson Algren:  ***

From Here to Eternity by James Jones:  ****

The Moviegoer by Walker Percy:  ****

Herzog by Saul Bellow:  ****

The Eighth Day by Thornton Wilder:  *****

Paris Trout by Pete Dexter:  ****

Mating by Norman Rush:  ****

All The Pretty Horses by Cormac McCarthy:  *****

Sabbath's Theater by Philip Roth:  ****

Waiting by Ha Jin:  ****

The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen:  ****

Tree Of Smoke by Denis Johnson:  *****

The Round House by Louise Erdrich:  *****

The Good Lord Bird by James McBride:  ****

Redeployment by Phil Klay:  ***

Interesting, mostly 4 stars, and only one 3 star so far.

My 3 Favorites:
  1.  All The Pretty Horses
  2. Tree Of Smoke
  3. The Round House

Which National Book Award winners have you read?
Which ones do you recommend?

​Once again, Thank you!
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Los Angeles Area

6/9/2016

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I don't know about you, but when I think Los Angeles I think funky. I have lived in the L.A. area twice in my life (Marina Del Rey & Calabasas) and I thoroughly enjoy the vibe and energy that L.A. exudes! It is not weird like Austin. Or as hip as Portland. Or as fast-paced as New York City. But it certainly reeks (in a good way) with eccentricities. Every kind of art can be found in this city. Not to mention every kind of human being!

I visit the Los Angeles area at least 3 times a year, mostly for business. Spend a lot of my time in Pasadena (north of LA). And I enjoy perusing Downtown L.A., Hollywood, and Beverly Hills.

What brought me here this last time was business, a NASA Technology Conference to be specific.
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NASA is an enjoyable customer. As a kid we all dreamt of becoming an astronaut, right? Granted, just because NASA is my customer they have not knighted be an astronaut (yet...fingers crossed!), but I do get to see some pretty cool spacey things and have some great 'inside' conversations. Pictured above is a replica of the Mars Rover.

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If you have read any of my other posts you will know I am a foodie (despite being Celiac). And I enjoy discovering new restaurants, as well as new cocktail bars.

Faith & Flower was a real treat.  A brand new discovery for me and it was love at first taste! First off, they create all of their menus by re-making and printing over and through antiquated books.  I am never one for destruction of books, but seriously How cool is that?!

I started out with a refreshing gin fizz to go along with the delectable yellowtail ceviche and handmade potato chips.  For the main course I had the amazingly rich risotto with a perfect negroni.  And capping off the night, a seductive panna cotta accompanied with a delightful sherry.  A truly mesmerizing meal! 

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I couldn't do a blog post about Los Angeles and not write a blurb on In-N-Out Burger. Truly that would be considered blasphemy! The best burger in California. Some will argue and say the best in the whole Country but I beg to differ. I believe each state should boast about their own 'best burger'. And of course anyone who has been to Texas knows that Whataburger is indeed the best burger in the whole Country!

Here is a photo of a double protein style and animal style. Yum!

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The 2 bookstores I always visits when I am in the Los Angeles area:
​Book Alley in Pasadena and The Last Bookstore in Downtown L.A..
One really clean and pristine.  The other quirky and weird.  I always walk out of both of these bookstore with at least 1 book.

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This last time, I walked out of both stores with these gems...

Book Alley:   SIGNED Carter Beats The Devil by Glen David Gold.
The Last Bookstore:   SIGNED Christmas At Fontaine's by William Kotzwinkle.   

Other recommendations:

Hotels:
The Beverly Hilton
Peninsula Beverly Hills

Bookstores:
Caravan Book Store
Vroman's

Restaurants:
Mastro's Steakhouse
​Slater's 50/50 (Pasadena)

Cocktail Bars:
Library Bar
Hemingway's Lounge
Good Times At Davey Wayne's

What did I miss?
What do you recommend?

​Thank you!

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May in Review

6/1/2016

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I read a total of 4 books in May.  One thing these novels all have in common, they are all signed first editions. Really enjoy Pete Dexter, therefore I decided to read 2 of his novels. I then ventured into Robert Stone for the first time. Finishing up the month, I read the latest by Chuck Palahniuk.

May proved to be another busy month for me.  I conducted business in a total 4 different states and several different cities over the course of May: Albuquerque, New Mexico, Carlsbad, New Mexico, Odessa, Texas, San Antonio, Texas, Berkeley, California, Oakland, California, Pasadena, California, and Denver, Colorado.  Yet I still found time to read, either on the plane or while neglecting sleep...sleep is overrated anyway!
​

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National Book Award - 1988
Signed First Printing
****
Prior to this novel, I had read only 1 Pete Dexter work and that was Deadwood. Didn't take me long to realize this guy is the real deal.  Amazing and gifted, with a wonderful ability to mix violence with comedy.  The title character in Paris Trout is someone you utterly despise. One of the most hated antagonists I have ever come across...I seriously wanted to throat-punch him a few times.  
This is a gripping tale that puts a stranglehold on the deep south.   
​

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1983 (author's first novel)
Signed First Printing
****
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I so thoroughly enjoyed Paris Trout, I just had to pick up another Pete Dexter.  And boy was I not disappointed. God's Pocket is a little different, yet still reeks of the same Dexter essence with the perfect combination of violence and comedy relief.
A twisted heartfelt drama about the death of a troubled young man and how the aftermath is played out, from the killer to the reporter.     


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1997
Signed First Printing
​***

May was short story month, therefore I had to read at least one collection, right?  Decided to go with Robert Stone, since I do own most of his work, yet had not read any to date.  
Bear and His Daughter was good; but just that, good.  Didn't blow me away, yet it did give me an insight into Robert Stone and I do not hesitate to read more. My favorite was the title story, although disturbing it was great.

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2015
Signed First Printing
****
​Another short story collection to pay homage to the month, why not?
I have a sort of love/hate relationship with Chuck Palahniuk.  I either barely like his work or I love his work, there is no in-between for me.  
His first short story collection, Make Something Up...absolutely loved this!  Who knew Chuck could be so subtle as opposed to in-your-face?  My favorites were the quirky ones with all of the animal characters and the novella, "Inclinations".

What did you read in May?
What are you currently reading?
Anything you recommend?


Thank you and don't forget to check out my Goodreads Page!
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    Michael E. Johnson
    ​Father, Husband, Bibliophile, Traveler, Technologist

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