Book cover of A Fairly Honourable Defeat

Book description

An exploration of love and its excesses, missteps, and modest triumphs, from the Booker Prize-winning author of The Sea, The Sea

In a dark comedy of errors, Iris Murdoch portrays the mischief wrought by Julius, a cynical intellectual who decides to demonstrate through a Machiavellian experiment how easily loving couples,…

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Why read it?

1 author picked A Fairly Honourable Defeat as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

This intricately plotted semi-comic, semi-tragic novel, riffing off Much Ado about Nothing and A Midsummer Night’s Dream, keeps the reader guessing to the end.

Simon and Axel are the best gay male couple in fiction, for my money, quirky; adorable; absolutely believable characters whose relationship the villain tries to destroy as he does several other relationships.

I love the story of how they first met, their erotic banter, their clothes, their food and wine, and the way they move towards being more open about their relationship.

From Ruth's list on lesbian and gay literary fiction.

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Book cover of December on 5C4

December on 5C4 by Adam Strassberg,

Magical realism meets the magic of Christmas in this mix of Jewish, New Testament, and Santa stories–all reenacted in an urban psychiatric hospital!

On locked ward 5C4, Josh, a patient with many similarities to Jesus, is hospitalized concurrently with Nick, a patient with many similarities to Santa. The two argue…

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