Indie Awards 2011 - Exciting GLBTQ Releases

You may, or may not know that I'm a panellist for the Indie Lit Awards GLBTQ panel again this year (I haven’t been the best promoter, what with dropping out of blogging regularly over the last few months). I thought I’d take a moment to share some of the books I’m positively drooling over that I would love to be asked to read, once nominations open for the award (September 2011 – December 2011). Massive thanks to those who posted these books on their blogs and brought them to my attention:

Young Adult

‘Sister Mischief’ - Laura Goode: I almost bought this yesterday despite, but I desperately need new holiday clothes out of this month’s pay packet and do not need new books because I have a bazillion already (stupid logic and money). I first saw it mentioned at Reading in Color. The author’s recent essay at Diversity in YA made me definitely decide that I want to experience its particular combination of friendship, romance and hip-hop.

‘Huntress’ - Malinda Lo: I finished reading this one recently, so I won’t say too much about it yet, but thanks go to Renay for encouraging me to read it asap in order to produce a companion post to her thoughts on ‘Ash’.

‘Witch Eyes’ - Scott Tracey: I can’t quite remember where I saw this one first, but I suspect it was in a Booksmugglers Radar post. The hero has magical eyes; the author’s name sends a geek girl thrill through me every time I read it. Logic doesn’t always come into my book choices.

‘With or Without You’ - Brian Farrey: Karen Mahoney’s blog recently mentioned this project from editor turned writer Farrey, which has the coolest music referencing title I’ve seen in a long time. Sinister secret societies and divided loyalties make it sound a dark, mysterious book.

‘I am J’ - Cris Beam: The story of a transgender boy’s teenage years, which I’m drawn to by the strong simplicity of the title. I think I first saw this one at Doret’s blog and she has a fantastic list of GLBTQ titles up, where I also found this next book...

‘Boyfriends with Girlfriends’ - Alex Sanchez: I wasn’t totally won over by Sanchez’s ‘The God Box’ and sadly Phoebe North’s review makes me think he might not be a writer whose style I’ll ever get on with. But Sanchez’s big name pull is hard to resist and again there’s a damn fine music reference in the title (I’m a sucker for a clever musical title).

Adult

‘The Lover's Dictionary’ - David Leviathan: A new David Leviathan book is always to be celebrated. I have to credit a non-blog source for my first sighting of this as I read about it in The Times supplement, but you can’t read that online so I’ll send you over to Simon’s post instead.

‘Rory's Boys’ - Alan Clark: The next three books popped up on Savidge Reads, where Simon is preparing for the second Green Carnation Prize. This story about a retirement home for gay men sounds cockle warming...

‘Stranger's Child’ - Alan Hollinghurst: ...Alan Hollinghurst’s newest sounds like an engrossing country house saga...

‘History of a Pleasure Seeker’ - Richard Mason: ...and finally we have a decadent offering full of scandal and beauty

‘A Study in Lavender’ – ed. Joseph R G Marco: http://www.cheryl-morgan.com/?p=11141 Cheryl Morgan mentioned this anthology which queers the Sherlock Holmes stories and um, yes, I want that.

‘The Song of Achilles’ – Madeline Miller: A final, late entry to this list that I just found out about today, comes from Cornflower Books. ‘Something deeper’ (oh, what a quaint description) than friendship blossoms between Achilles and Patroclus in this war torn love story of ancient Greece.

Adult non-fiction

‘The Queen’s Throat:Opera, Homosexuality, and the Mystery of Desire’ – Wayne Kestenbaum: How rare for me to say I want to read a non-fiction book! Jessa Crispin at Bookslut just makes http://www.thesmartset.com/article/article07121101.aspx books about opera sound so frustratingly appealing.


Possibly eligible

‘Sky Academy: The Pearl Wars’ - Nick James: I can’t find much information about this book yet, so I’m assuming that it fits the criteria for the GLBTQ indie lit award. The blurb sets my ‘subtle marketing disguising of subject matter’ alarms tingling. ‘Witch Eyes’ appears in the Amazon recommendations for ‘other books you might like’. Can anyone confirm or deny whether this young adult fantasy novel contains any GLBTQ characters?

What am I missing? What other GLBTQ 2011 releases should I be excited about?