Exploring Top Books of Shelfari

The Grass Harp : Including a Tree of Night and Other Stories (First Vintage International)

The Grass Harp : Including a Tree of Night and Other Stories (First Vintage International)

by Truman Capote

Set on the outskirts of a small Southern town, The Grass Harp tells the story of three endearing misfits--an orphaned boy and two whimsical old ladies--who one day take up residence in a tree house. AS they pass sweet yet hazardous hours in a china tree, The Grass Harp manages to convey all the pleasures and responsibilities of freedom. But most of all it teaches us about the sacredness of love, "that love is... (more)

Other Voices, Other Rooms (Vintage International)

Other Voices, Other Rooms (Vintage International)

by Truman Capote

Published when Truman Capote was only twenty-three years old, Other Voices, Other Rooms is a literary touchstone of the mid-twentieth century. In this semiautobiographical coming-of-age novel, thirteen-year-old Joel Knox, after losing his mother, is sent from New Orleans to live with the father who abandoned him at birth. But when Joel arrives at Skully’s Landing, the decaying mansion in rural Alabama, his... (more)

Point to Point Navigation: A Memoir

by Gore Vidal

The brilliant sequel to Gore Vidal ’ s acclaimed, bestselling memoir, Palimpsest . In Point to Point Navigation , the celebrated novelist, essayist, critic, and controversialist Gore Vidal ranges freely over his remarkable life with the signature wit and literary elegance that is uniquely his. The title refers to a form of navigation he resorted to as a first mate in the Navy during World War II. As he says,... (more)

I Am My Own Wife

Studies for a Play About the Life of Charlotte Von Mahlsdorf

by Doug Wright

Winner of the 2004 Pulitzer Prize for Drama From the Obie Award-winning author of Quills comes this acclaimed one-man show, which explores the astonishing true story of Charlotte von Mahlsdorf. A transvestite and celebrated antiques dealer who successfully navigated the two most oppressive regimes of the past century-the Nazis and the Communists--while openly gay and defiantly in drag, von Mahlsdorf was both... (more)

The Lost Language of Cranes: A Novel

by David Leavitt

David Leavitt's extraordinary first novel, now reissued in paperback, is a seminal work about family, sexual identity, home, and loss. Set in the 1980s against the backdrop of a swiftly gentrifying Manhattan, The Lost Language of Cranes tells the story of twenty-five-year-old Philip, who realizes he must come out to his parents after falling in love for the first time with a man. Philip's parents are facing... (more)

Summer Crossing: A Novel (Modern Library Paperbacks)

Summer Crossing: A Novel (Modern Library Paperbacks)

by Truman Capote

Thought to be lost for over 50 years, here is the first novel by one of the greatest American writers of the 20th century. Set in New York during the summer of 1945, this is the story of a young carefree socialite, Grady, who must make serious decisions about the romance she is dangerously pursuing and the effect it will have on everyone involved. Fans of Breakfast at Tiffany’s and Capote’s short stories... (more)

Michael Tolliver Lives

by Armistead Maupin

Michael Tolliver, the sweet-spirited Southerner in Armistead Maupin's classic Tales of the City series, is arguably one of the most widely loved characters in contem-porary fiction. Now, almost twenty years after ending his ground-breaking saga of San Francisco life, Maupin revisits his all-too-human hero, letting the fifty-five-year-old gardener tell his story in his own voice. Having survived the plague that... (more)

More Tales of the City (Showtime Tie-In Edition)

More Tales of the City (Showtime Tie-In Edition)

by Armistead Maupin, Maupin Armistead

"An extended love letter to a magical San Francisco." -- New York Times Book Review The internationally beloved classic comes to life in a Showtime miniseries. Few works of fiction have blazed a trail through popular culture like Armistead Maupin's Tales of the City series. Since its publication as a daily newspaper serial in 1976, Maupin's incisive comedy of manners has expanded into six bestselling novels,... (more)

Oldest Living Confederate Widow Tells All: A Novel (Vintage Contemporaries)

Oldest Living Confederate Widow Tells All: A Novel (Vintage Contemporaries)

by Allan Gurganus

Allan Gurganus's Oldest Living Confederate Widow Tells All became an instant classic upon its publication. Critics and readers alike fell in love with the voice of ninety-nine-year-old Lucy Marsden, one of the most entertaining and loquacious heoines in American literature. Lucy married at the turn of the last century, when she was fifteen and her husband was fifty. If Colonel William Marsden was a veteran of the... (more)

Miss Mapp

by E. F. Benson, E.F. Benson

E. F. Benson's strikingly original comic creation Miss Mapp is an arch-schemer and social climber from the British town of Tilling who spends her days using opera glasses and a notebook to chart her neighbors' affairs. Among her interests are Major Benjamin Flint, whom she has been trying to marry for years, and the underhanded Miss Susan Poppit.

Pericles (Arden Shakespeare)

by William Shakespeare

Controversy has surrounded "Pericles" for centuries, due to the fact that critics and editors have argued that much of the play was written between 1607 and 1608 by one of Shakespeare's inferior collaborators, and that it shows in both its style and content. However, Shakespeare was clearly the driving force behind the play, and it is important to remember that it was one of the most popular plays of its time.

Virginia Woolf: A Biography

by Quentin Bell

The first full-scale biography of the eminent British writer, written by her nephew. Index; photographs.

The Complete Saki

by Saki

Saki (Hector Hugo Munroe) is perhaps the most graceful spokesman for England's "golden afternoon" - the slow and peaceful years before World War I. This volume contains the whole of Saki's work - all the short stories, his three novels and three plays.

Five Novels

by Ronald Firbank

Firbank, Five Novels. Part high-camp comedy of manners and part fairy tale.

Washington Square

by Henry James

With a new afterword by Michael Cunningham What Catherine Sloper lacks in brains and beauty, she makes up for by being "very good." The handsome Morris Townsend would do anything to win her hand-even if it means pretending that he loves the homely ingénue, and cares nothing for her opulent wealth.

Mapp and Lucia

by Edward Frederick Benson

This is the fourth installment in the delicious "Mapp & Lucia" series, and a hilarious study of 1930's manners and the pecking order in the fictional English village of Tilling. Having long ago conquered the timid town of Riseholme, Emmeline "Lucia" Lucas finds herself rather bored and so rents a summer place in Tilling. To be specific, she rents the home of Miss Elizabeth Mapp, queen of all she... (more)

Faggots

by Larry Kramer

Larry Kramer's Faggots has been in print since its original publication in 1978 and has become one of the best-selling novels about gay life ever written. The book is a fierce satire of the gay ghetto and a touching story of one man's desperate search for love there, and reading it today is a fascinating look at how much, and how little, has changed.

Shakespeare

by Michael Wood

In this absorbing historical detective story, acclaimed broadcaster and historian Michael Wood takes an entirely fresh approach to the Bard's life, vividly re-creating the turbulent times through which he lived and painting a more convincing and complete portrait of the artist than has ever before been thought possible. Drawing on an extensive range of sources, Wood takes us back into the staterooms and back... (more)

One for the Gods: A Novel (Peter & Charlie Trilogy) (One for the Gods)

One for the Gods: A Novel (Peter & Charlie Trilogy) (One for the Gods)

by Gordon Merrick

Collected Poems

by James Ingram Merrill

The publication of James Merrill's Collected Poems is a landmark in the history of modern American literature. His First Poems —its sophistication and virtuosity were recognized at once—appeared half a century ago. Over the next five decades, Merrill's range broadened and his voice took on its characteristic richness. In book after book, his urbanity and wit, his intriguing images and paradoxes, shone with a... (more)

Shelfari Book Activity

Tags: gay literary icon

by Truman Capote

by Truman Capote

by Gore Vidal

Studies for a Play About the Life of Charlotte Von Mahlsdorf

by Doug Wright

by David Leavitt

by Truman Capote

by Armistead Maupin

by Armistead Maupin, Maupin Armistead

by Allan Gurganus

by E. F. Benson, E.F. Benson

by William Shakespeare

by Quentin Bell

by Saki

by Ronald Firbank

by Henry James

by Edward Frederick Benson

by Larry Kramer

by Michael Wood

by Gordon Merrick

by James Ingram Merrill