With the dog days of summer upon us, it’s time to retreat to a cool corner of your garden or a breezy spot on Bradford Beach (don’t get too distracted by the volleyball players) and open a book. There’s a full range of genres to choose from, including many books by local authors.
Carla Anne Ernst’s Life Without Pockets: My Long Journey into Womanhood presents the author’s personal story of self-acceptance and transition in a candidly emotional yet educational way. It should be on the reading list of anyone who seeks inspiration and courage to confront their own challenges, but it is also for those who need to learn about the trans experience. A well-known Milwaukee activist, musician and volunteer, Ernst died suddenly in June.
We’ve Been Here All Along is Richard Wagner’s newly released history of LGBTQ Wisconsin. The first of two volumes, which begins with the reporting on the Oscar Wilde trials of 1895, chronicles the decades through Sen. Joe McCarthy’s Lavender Scare of the 1950s to the 1969 Stonewall Riots; Wagner’s well researched study recounts the times of gay suppression and the resistance of individuals to it that would eventually lead to Stonewall. Among Wisconsin’s first out politicians, Wagner served in various offices and on numerous committees and boards in Dane County and Madison, allowing him a perfect perspective and understanding of the spirit of LGBTQ resistance.
Turning to fiction, local writer David S. Pederson has just published his latest of four gay murder mysteries, Death Takes a Bow. Set in a theater, Detective Heath Barrington pursues various suspects while romantic intrigue intervenes to complicate the case. Boswell Book Co. hosts Pederson for a reading and book signing Wednesday, July 31, at 7 p.m.
In the poetry corner, recommendations include any of three poetry collections by Milwaukee lesbian Latina poet Carmen Murguia. Her latest, A Poem for All My People, is a vibrant exploration of life’s beauty and pain dedicated to her friends, fellow artists, lovers and all people. Gregg Shapiro launches his two new poetry collections, More Poems about Buildings and Food and Sunshine State, at Outwords Books on Thursday, Aug. 8, at 7 p.m. Among other works, Shapiro has also published short story collections How to Whistle and Lincoln Avenue.
Other summer reading ideas can be taken from the current selections of Milwaukee’s oldest LGBTQ community book clubs, the Outwords Men’s Book Group and its Lesbian Reading Group. The men are reading Jake Wolff’s The History of Living Forever: A Novel. It combines the mystical and romantic in the protagonist’s quest to complete the recipe for the Elixir of Life. The women, meanwhile, dive into In at the Deep End, a debut work by Kate Davies, in which a twenty-something Londoner discovers she’s looking for love in all the wrong places… namely, men.
Outwords Books proprietor Carl Szatmary can provide additional suggestions from his vast inventory of LGBTQ romance novels, histories, biographies, prose, poetry and other relevant literature. Of course, you can always join one of his book clubs and keep reading year ’round.
