A masterpiece, now a Penguin Modern Classic, is Shadow Game by Michael Power. It was the first fiction to deal with gay men in love across the colour line in apartheid South Africa. Written during apartheid's heyday, it was published in 1972 under a pseudonym and promptly banned in South Africa. Its writing style and the accuracy of the setting make this a human tale that rings true.
Please advise me which Mysore booksellers stock Carnatic music books (any language)?
I couldn't pass by this notion from Jermaine Fowler's Substack post without having a look/listen. From his first recommendation is The Dispossessed by Ursula la Guin he quotes:
''You cannot buy the revolution. You cannot make the revolution. You can only be the revolution. It is in your spirit, or it is nowhere'.
I know it's Sunday, and I should be posting my most fabulous pic. However, I am more inclined to offer this song. Close your eyes and think of your love, or of the one you want to love and be loved by.
When I need hope, Sam Cooke comes to me - https://youtu.be/wEBlaMOmKV4?list=RDwEBlaMOmKV4.
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Orlando by Virginia Woolf is a literary offering to lover and close friend, Vita Sackville-West. The novel follows the career of Orlando who changes into a woman halfway through their life.
The novel inspired numerous stage and film productions; the 1992 film with Tilda Swinton as Orlando is my favourite.
Vita's son, Nigel Nicholson wrote: 'The effect of Vita on Virginia is all contained in Orlando, the longest and most charming love letter in literature, in which she explores Vita, weaves her in and out of the centuries, tosses her from one sex to the other, plays with her, dresses her in furs, lace and emeralds, teases her, flirts with her, drops a veil of mist around her'.
I see it today as a love-letter to women who love women, as -- perhaps especially -- an embrace of the dear ones we call trans, and to all queers.
Shehan Karunatilaka and Shyam Selvaduri are among my favourite authors. I suggest starting with Chinaman by Karunatilaka and Cinnamon Gardens by Selvadurai. Apropos Chinaman: If you told me I'd be hooked by a book about two old guys obsessed by cricket and would fall off my chair laughing, I'd not believe you. This is that book.
Robert Harris. Lustrum. Recommended. A surprisinly engaging historical novel about Cicero and his times. Far from being just the model orator and lawyer that I took him for, Cicero was a crucial politian in Rome. He spent years fighting against the strong push to imperial rule driven primarily by Julius (later Caesar) but also Pompey and others. JC and his political and military collaborators were set on grabbing power.
Cicero was all about ensuring the Senate retained the central governing institution and that Roman law remained intact.
Harris brings the day to day lives of the Roman upper class to life in a gripping story, and the actors are not puppets but believable, fleshed out people. This would make a brilliant, intelligent tv series.
We know a lot about Cicero as his right hand man, a slave, kept copious notes and wrote his biography. To his shame, Cicero never gave him his freedom.
Robert Holtom A Queer Case. Won the Lambda Award for best queer mystery 2026. Set in 1920s UK. Entertainingly written with surety and has twisty plot and humour.
SJ Naude. Fathers and Fugitives. Recommended. A tale in two parts: 1. The protagonist lives between London and South Africa and his difficult, emotionally hard interaction with two Serbian men over several years in London and Serbia. Dramatic and believable. 2. Years later as an old man, he looks back on a very unsettling episode in which agroup of friends are involved in the death and disposal of body of one of them. It's well worth reading. Good insights into character. Translated from Afrikaans.
Michiel Heyns A Poor Season for Whales. Recommended. A sophisticated, 50-something architect moves to a home she built in Hermanus. Her circle of friends and two adult children visit and feed into the story as does her former household helper and pet dog. She meets a bright, dropout architecture student, who's a beautiful, challenging, annoying but helpful and engaging 20-something. He's the son of a deceased black freedom fighter and an Afrikaner socialite from Joburg. A trickster figure, he also has scary local connections and there is real danger to the architect and himself. Heyns does a good job of keeping interest in the inner and social lives of the characters as the plot unfolds. I thoroughly enjoyed it.
Gaar Adams. Guest Privileges. Queer Lives and finding home in the Middle East. Not dense academic writing. A memoir with some analysis. American guy narrates some queer lives among migrants, many of them South Asian, (who form the majority of the population in the UAE). I was annoyed at the beginning as he does go on a bit much about his expat reactions to life in Dubai. It gets better as he gets out and about. And he finds love and, pitential reader, he marries him. Worth reading to get a sense of the less glamorous side of the UAE.
Hi. I wonder if you could you recommend a competent, gay-friendly doctor in Mysore? I'm new in town and need a GP.
I'm posting this link in response to a request.
My partner and are keen to settle in Almora or a nearby place. We're from the South and want to spend some months in the mountains to figure things out. I think we will run away for winter, but we'll get used to it. I imagine it will be best to ask around for a convenient rental. A concern is good wifi access. Both of us work online. Even though I'm a pensioner, I am an author and musician a and need to be I. touch with people regularly for classes. I teach and I study. Any advice would be gratefully received.
Many thanks.
