I read E.M. Forster's long-suppressed novel, Maurice, in college. It was the tale of an aristocratic university
student in Edwardian England — the titular Maurice — who falls in love with a
poor gamekeeper named Alec. Although Maurice and Alec ended up with each other
at the end of the first book, I always questioned how their relationship could
survive in repressive England.Alec is a modern
sequel that attempts to answer just that.
As a working-class man, Alec enjoys
some personal freedom in a society that thinks and expects very little of him.
Yet maintaining a secretive gay relationship proves even more complicated when
a world war interferes.
Written in an explicitly honest voice, this is probably
the book about being gay and British that Forster could never have imagined
writing.
William di Canzio's Alec, inspired by Maurice, E. M. Forster's secret novel of a happy same-sex love affair, tells the story of Alec Scudder, the gamekeeper Maurice Hall falls in love with in Forster's classic, published only after the author's death.
Di Canzio follows their story past the end of Maurice to the front lines of battle in World War I and beyond. Forster, who tried to write an epilogue about the future of his characters, was stymied by the radical change that the Great War brought to their world. With the hindsight of a century, di Canzio imagines a…
As a lifelong Batman fan, this book appealed to me on many
levels. It deals with the "lost years" of Jason Todd, Batman's second
Robin.
An unpopular and ultimately tragic character, Todd was brutally murdered
by The Joker in an infamous storyline from the 1980s called "A Death in the Family." But
a quirk of fate resurrected him five years later.
This book deals with what
happened from when Jason found himself six feet underground in a coffin to his
work with a shadowy band of assassins to finally recasting himself as the
vigilante Red Hood. Moreover, it deals with Jason's unresolved feelings for his former partner — Gotham's Dark Knight — who never bothered to avenge him.
Under the
Red Hood was originally a collection of comic books, but don't let that fool you. It's also a powerful piece of supernatural horror!
The mysterious Red Hood returns to Gotham with a vengence! Former Robin Jason Todd parted ways with the Batman over their vastly different approaches to crimefighting. Eventually, Jason trained himself to be a killer and a mercenary, and he took on a new identity and code name the Red Hood in order to strike his own brand of fear in Gotham s criminals. And now Batman must confront old wounds in an effort to stop the masked vigilante Red Hood.
Like many people, I heard about the USS
Indianapolis in the movie Jaws during Robert Shaw's fantastic monologue. The
memory of that scene and that story never left me, and decades later, I
stumbled upon this book in a used bookstore. Written in a third-person voice
and using all the tools of a fiction writer, the author spins a much stranger
tale than a Steven Spielberg movie could ever be.
It is a fascinating and
horrifying account of the greatest naval disaster in the U.S. Navy's history,
caused by cascading foul-ups, miscommunications, and oversights in the final
days of World War II.
It was an engaging read that kept me up dreaming about
swarming sharks for several nights in a row.
On 30 July 1945 the USS Indianapolis was steaming through the South Pacific, on her way home having delivered the bomb that was to decimate Hiroshima seven days later, when she was torpedoed by a Japanese submarine. Of a crew of 1196 men an estimated 300 were killed upon impact; the remaining 900 sailors went into the sea. Undetected for five days, they struggled to stay alive, fighting off sharks, hypothermia and madness. By the time rescue arrived, only 317 men were left alive.
Interweaving the stories of some of these survivors (including the ship's Captain Butler McVay, who would…
Two years
ago, Quinton Wyatt had the worst summer vacation of his life... but Summer
Break '79 looks like a winner.
Quint loves his job at a local movie theater, he
adores his new baby brother, and he and T.J. Shapleigh aren't just close — they're
downright inseparable. But sometimes fate, like a desert monsoon, can roar in
and wash away everything. When tragedy strikes, it tests not only Quint's
relationship with T.J., but how he sees himself.
My Summer Under A Crescent
Moon is Book 2 in the Quinton's Curious Mind Series.
