Book Club

I am joining a book club! I'm really excited about it since it's something that I've always wanted to do. I am joining a Portland gay mens book club with just over 100 members. They meet about every 3 weeks and the spaces are limited to 15 members per meeting. A few days later they will have another meeting on the same book so that another 15 can meet, so essentially you can choose whichever day will work out better for you. The book that they are reading this time is called 'Dude You're A Fag' by C. J. Pascoe. It's a look into high schools and the way that they view homosexuality. The Amazon.com review described it as follows:

High school and the difficult terrain of sexuality and gender identity are brilliantly explored in this smart, incisive ethnography. Based on eighteen months of fieldwork in a racially diverse working-class high school, Dude, You're a Fag sheds new light on masculinity both as a field of meaning and as a set of social practices. C. J. Pascoe's unorthodox approach analyzes masculinity as not only a gendered process but also a sexual one. She demonstrates how the "specter of the fag" becomes a disciplinary mechanism for regulating heterosexual as well as homosexual boys and how the "fag discourse" is as much tied to gender as it is to sexuality.

I just finished 'Geisha, A Life' yesterday so this is perfect timing to start a new novel. I have a lot of books that I have stacking up to read, and picked up 'The Boy In The Striped Pyjamas' from the library this morning along with 'Dude You're A Fag'. With how voraciously I've been devouring books these past couple of weeks I'm sure there won't be a problem with me finishing everything that I've checked out by the due date.

My friend (and fellow MoHo) Pablo sounded interested when I mentioned to him that I was joining the group so I am going to report back and let him know how things when after the meeting on the 10th. I'm looking forward to having conversations with people that have an interest in expanding their literature base and are well read. We will see how it goes!