13 very gay and very good books you should read this Pri Month | Mashable

Contents:

• GAY BLUE COLLAR BOOKS
• 'GAY BAR' TRACKS THE WAVE OF A WHOLE CULTURE — AND ONE LIFE
• GAY BOOKS
• 13 VERY GAY AND VERY GOOD BOOKS YOU SHOULD READ THIS PRI MONTH
• CALIFORNIA STILL HAS AN ANTI-GAY MARRIAGE LAW ON THE BOOKS. VOTERS COULD REMOVE IT NEXT YEAR

GAY BLUE COLLAR BOOKS

(shelved 1 time as gay-blue-llar). Gay Bar: Why We Went Out, Jeremy Atherton L. "We go out to get some, " wr Jeremy Atherton L his new book, Gay Bar.

Gay Bar b memoir, history and cricism; 's a difficult book to p down, but that's what mak so readable and so endlsly fascatg.

Atherton L's book starts off a crowd room a gay bar where he's gone cisg wh his partner, whom he refers to throughout the book wh the Leonard Cohen-spired nickname Famo Blue Raat. That kd of gay bar — all kds of gay bars, really — are danger of closg, Atherton L wr, due to the populary of datg apps and risg property sts.

'GAY BAR' TRACKS THE WAVE OF A WHOLE CULTURE — AND ONE LIFE

He's ambivalent about the velopment, wrg, "I had to nsir whether gay bars promised a sense of belongg then lured to a trap.

In a gay bar, am I penned to mory stat, swallowg drks that nourish my opprsn — have gay bars kept me my place?

" The prospect of losg gay bars leads him to reflect on their prence his life. He wr betifully about his llege days Los Angel, where he went to his first one, though he n't rell the name, wryly notg, "Of urse I n't remember my first gay bar — I was dnk. " He's also spired to dig to the past: "Enough time has passed that gay bars, once a surge, have bee monumental their own way.

GAY BOOKS

" That history clus the famo 1969 uprisg at the Stonewall Inn New York, but Atherton L also div to other, lser-known bars, cludg on that endured police raids meant to put gay people their place.

13 VERY GAY AND VERY GOOD BOOKS YOU SHOULD READ THIS PRI MONTH

Throughout the book, Atherton L scrib the gay bars that he equented, and his scriptns of the tablishments are endlsly evotive.

" Atherton L explor topics like archecture and urban geography, as they relate to gay bars, betifully; he wr wh a real knowledge that's more than jt tellectual dilettantism. About the changg looks of bars before the turn of the century, he observ, "A new type of gay bar began to appear London's Soho the neti — airy, glossy, ntental.

CALIFORNIA STILL HAS AN ANTI-GAY MARRIAGE LAW ON THE BOOKS. VOTERS COULD REMOVE IT NEXT YEAR

The gay bars were born that way. They were nceived specifilly to take gay men's money.

" Along the way, Atherton L dips to other topics related to the gay muny: the appropriatn of gay culture by straight people, mic, drkg, and the valu of the younger generatn of LGBTQ people. Gay Bar is a book that's beyond imprsive, and Atherton L's wrg is both extremely telligent and rehgly unpretent. And while succeeds on many levels, perhaps the most remarkable one is Atherton L's nstant qutng of himself, and the realizatns of how he's changed sce he walked to his first gay bar years ago: "Maybe, I thought, I'm a dis ball.

(shelved 298 tim as gay). (shelved 185 tim as gay). (shelved 148 tim as gay).