Book Description:

When I wrote my answers for Sean’s TMI about books, I read some of the other responses. One of the authors that kept popping up on those TMI,s and from suggestions from my readers, was Josh Lanyon, particularly his Adrien English series.  I had recently read his book Fair Game and by coincidence had bought Fatal Shadows: The Adrien English Mystery Series, the first book in the Adrien English series.  So the next logical step was to read it.  Over the weekend I did in my moments of free time.  I really enjoyed the book and now can’t wait to read the other four. Josh Lannyon writes in an even, unpretentious, relaxed style. There is very good character development, ingenuity of plot, believability, dialogue, and pacing.  Once you start reading it, you will find it difficult to put down.

Book Desceiption:

For five years, Zach Tyler, son of one of the world’s richest software moguls, was held hostage, tortured, and abused. When he is rescued at last from the Venezuelan jungle, he is physically and psychologically shattered, but he slowly begins to rebuild the life he should have had before an innocent kiss sent him into hell. His childhood best friend David has lived those years with overwhelming guilt and grief. Every relationship David has tried has fallen apart because of his feelings for a boy he thought dead. When Zach is rescued, David is overjoyed—and then crushed when Zach shuts him out. Two years later, David returns home, and he and Zach must come to terms with the rift between them, what they feel for each other, and what their future could hold. But Zach has secrets, and one of them might well destroy their fragile love.

Finding Zach is for sure one of those novels that uses angst to involve people in the story, but it also has its moments of tenderness and sweetness: in the end, the romance is so strong that it outbalances the sadness. This book was amazing. It started off and I was hooked immediately. My first thought was that I was afraid it was going to be a super quick read, but the author continues to spin the story, feelings and emotions together and around, pulling in new pieces seemingly forever.  In some books, that might be incredibly frustrating, but this is a book that you don’t want to end.

Finding Zach is a novel that pulls at your heart strings.  This novel takes you through a roller coaster of emotions: sadness, lust, love, frustration, etc.  In parts, the book is very erotic, but not pornographic.  In an article I recently read, the author Greg Herren (one of my absolute favorite writers) wrote about the difference between erotica and pornography:

To me, pornography is writing about sex itself; the characters really don’t matter, the setting doesn’t matter, and there really is no story. Two men (or two women) meet, are attracted to each other, have some blistering hot sex, and then go their merry ways. We don’t know anything more about them than we did when we first met them.

Erotica, on the other hand, is about the characters; and needs to actually tell a story. Erotic fiction, to me, has to meet the standards of fiction—there has to be a change of some sort in the main character by the end of the story; the sex itself needs to be revelatory to the character in some way. (When I teach workshops, I say “If you can change the sex scene in your story to nothing more than and then they fucked, and the story still works, then it’s erotica.”)

I have to disagree when it comes to Finding Zach.  The sex scenes are an integral part of the book.  It helps the reader understand the characters in a more intimate way.

A little warning to the reader: don’t feel discouraged from the first pages; at first the story appears dark and without hope. This feeling will dissipate soon, and as I said, on the average there is more sweetness than angst; the relationship between Zach and David starts almost as soon as they meet again, and even if it will be not an easy ride, it will be something they will do together.

I hope that some of you will read this book.  It is well worth it.

On Sean’s blog, Just a Jeep Guy (Jeeps are my favorite vehicle, by the way), he posted on Tuesday “TMI TUESDAY QUESTIONS: BOOKS BOOKS BOOKS.”  And I decide that because of my love of books and because my love of books in the gay genre of fiction helped me with coming to terms with my own sexuality, that I would answer his questions.  So here we go:

1. eBooks or real books? If an eBook: Kindle, Nook or other?

Though I occasionally read books on my iPad or the Kindle app on my phone, I prefer the feel and smell of reading a real book. There is just something about turning the page that I love, and I love having books around my house, even if I don’t always have a place for them.

2. Which book are  you currently reading?

Currently, I am reading Sleeping Angel by Greg Herren.  I will blog more about the recent books that I have read and am reading tomorrow.

3. How many books have you read in 2012? How has reading blogs, FB, and/or tweeting affected your book reading?

Not nearly as many as I would like to have read.  It’s been a really busy year, and though I have probably started on 3 or 4 dozen different books, I think that I have only finished maybe half a dozen.

4. What genre(s) of book do you enjoy reading?

I love reading mysteries, but more fun gay fiction is nice too.  I tend to read kind of trashy gay books filled with a fair amount of sex, LOL.  I also enjoy action adventure books like from author Steve Berry, Dan Brown, Will Adams, etc.  those books tend to have a historical feel to them that I enjoy.

5. Have you read the Kama Sutra or The Joy of Sex? Helpful?

Yes, and maybe a little.

Bonus

What was the first erotic novel you read that matched your sexual orientation? 

Hmm, I’m going to have to think on that one.  It would have had to have been a book I ordered from Amazon.com, because our local bookstores did not carry such books.  Though I used to love the gay stories in “Penthouse Letters.” I read a fair number of gay short stories and stuff on Nifty Archives.  However, I do remember the first gay book I ever bought which was Giovanni’s Room by James Baldwin. I actually got up the nerve to go in the local Barnes and Nobles and buy it.  Though not erotic by today’s standard, it was pretty damn erotic to me because I was reading about gay men for the first time.

When I was first contacted about reviewing Kay Larson’s book Where the Heart Beats: John Cage, Zen Buddhism and the Inner Life of Artists I knew very little about who John Cage was. So I did a little cursory research.  I found out that he was a musician, composer, artists, and a Buddhist homosexual. He sounded like an interesting and quirky individual, especially considering that his most famous composition is a piece titled 4’33”.  It was composed in 1952 for any instrument (or combination of instruments), and the score instructs the performer not to play the instrument during the entire duration of the piece throughout the three movements (which, for the first performance, were divided into thirty seconds for the first, two minutes and twenty-three seconds for the second, and one minute and forty seconds for the third). The piece purports to consist of the sounds of the environment that the listeners hear while it is performed, although it is commonly perceived as “four minutes thirty-three seconds of silence”. Needless to say, I was intrigued and was interested in reading the book.

At first you might think that Where the Heart Beats is another biography of John Cage. Though there is a strong biographical element in the book, it is more the biography of an idea, a study of the way Zen Buddhism came to be at the center of the working life of a group of artists, centered on John Cage. There is a lot of name dropping in the book of those of the Beat generation who Larson believes influenced Cage’s music and Zen philosophy.  Central to this is Cage’s attendance at the lectures of Daisetz Teitaro Suzuki in New York in the 1950’s. Suzuki, a Zen Buddhist teacher, was an influential figure in the spreading of of Zen Buddhism to the West.  The description of Suzuki is intriguing, telling that he was not a Zen master, though still considered an expert on Zen.  He was not formally educated, but clearly a master of languages, having taught himself Sanskrit, Tibetan Sanskrit, and Pali, and fluent in Japanese, English, classical Chinese, and “several European languages.”

Larson’s book is divided into three parts, which attempt to follow the arc of revelation as Cage comes to discover Zen Buddhism and through it effect changes to his work.  The first part, Mountains are Mountains, is largely narrative and biographical though it is more of a collage than a single biography, with portraits of Cage and his colleagues, teachers and influences brought together into a single narrative.  The middle section, Mountains are no longer Mountains, covers just the years 1950-52.  The final section Mountains are again Mountains deals with the years afterwards, the after shock. But Larson is not really interested in Cage the man at this stage, more in the way his ideas are transmitted. She gives us a series of vignettes and snapshots as knowledge and influence move out in increasing circles from Cage himself.

From the very outset, Larson sees Zen in everything.  She became a convert of Zen Buddhism in 1994. Larson extensively quotes from Cage’s own writings, putting these passages separately so that it seems as if Cage is himself contributing. But Cage is an unreliable observer of his own life, tending to re-shape events to suit the legend. Larson’s writing style is often hard to understand. She waxes philosophically about the influences of Zen Buddhism, and her flowery writing style is one of my pet peeves.

This was a book that I wanted to like more than I was able to. I have to confess that I found it a little heavy going. There are so many people mentioned that it sometimes becomes rather difficult to keep up with who’s who unless you are already familiar with all the names mentioned. Larson’s goal was an interesting goal, but the outcome was not nearly as interesting as I hoped it would be. It demonstrates the centrality of Zen Buddhism to Cage’s thinking. If you have a serious interest in the subject of John Cage and of Zen Buddhism, then I believe that you would enjoy the book.  Though I teach about Buddhism in my classes, Zen Buddhism is not a concept I am greatly familiar with, therefore I found myself lost at times reading this book.  Also, I have to admit that I might have found this book more interesting and an easier read had I not read it while sitting in a hospital’s noisy ICU waiting room.

Yesterday, when I asked for book suggestions, (thanks everyone for their wonderful suggestions) I was quite surprised by Jay’s suggestion to read anything by Michael Holloway Perronne.  I was surprised because I had read Perronne’s A Time Before Me several years ago when I was living in Mississippi.  After I had read A Time Before Me, I had posted on MySpace (yes, this was back when MySpace was popular) that he was now one of my favorite authors.  What surprised me the most is that a month or so after that, I received an email from Michale thanking me for listing him as one of my favorite authors.  I wrote back about how much I had enjoyed A Time Before Me, and he then sent me an autographed bookmark in the mail as a thank you. Michael always struck me as a very kind person, so I liked him even more.  Then as things got busier in my life as they often do, I sort of lost track of his newer books, so thank you Jay for reminding me that he has continued to write and that he is still an enjoyable author.  Here is a little biography of Perronne from Wikipedia.

Michael Holloway Perronne (b. 1979, Mississippi) is an American author. His novels include: “A Time Before Me”, “Starstruck: A Hollywood Saga”, “Falling Into Me”, “Embrace the Rain”, and “A Time Before Us.”

Perronne received a great deal of publicity after sending a copy of his novel, A Time Before Me, to Alabama state lawmaker Gerald Allen who proposed that all books mentioning gay content should be banned. Allen was quoted saying, “I guess we dig a big hole and dump them in and bury them.” In response, Perronne said, “”If Mr. Allen is determined to bury such great works as The Color Purple, The Picture of Dorian Gray, and Brideshead Revisited, then I would be honored to have my own work buried with such classics.” The controversy led to Perronne making appearances on national television and mentions in national gay newsmagazines. 

His debut novel, “A Time Before Me” won the Bronze Award, ForeWord Magazine’s 2006 Book of the Year Award in the Gay/Lesbian fiction category. Perronne is openly gay.

Some of his later works, including “Falling Into Me” and “A Time Before Us,” dealt with common issues gay men in their thirties face with growing older. “Embrace the Rain” examined cultural clashes between ethnic groups in a post-Hurricane Katrina coastal Mississippi where Perronne is a native.

Michael was born and raised in Picayune, Mississippi. He received a BA in Film from The University of Southern Mississippi and an MFA in Drama and Communications from the University of New Orleans.

For a few years he worked as a production assistant in television and film, in both New Orleans and Los Angeles, on such projects as the television series The Big Easy and the television movies Rag and Bone and Introducing Dorothy Dandridge. Following that, he worked as the Conference Services Coordinator for the [[National Association of Television Program Executives]]. He did script reading and analysis for the Los Angeles Film Festival and the Los Angeles Film Collaborative.

A screenplay he co-wrote with his friend, Gina Bono, Millennium Babes From Mars, was optioned by an independent film production company.

He currently resides between Los Angeles and Mexico.