Our Price: $21.00 | You Save: $9.00 (30%)   

HONORABLE MENTION: If you like "Out For Good," you might also like "Witness to Revolution," edited by Chris Bull.

2. "Times Square Red, Times Square Blue"
by Samuel Delany
An award-winning science fiction writer, esteemed professor of comparative literature at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst, and celebrated essayist and memoirist, Samuel Delany is one of America's keenest observers. He was also a longtime habitue of many of the sex theaters in New York City's Times Square, spending, by his own estimate, "thousands and thousands of hours" at the Capri, Variety Photoplays, the Eros, and the Venus. In the 1990s, all of these theaters were shut down through new restrictive zoning laws. In the two essays that compose this eloquent, provocative book, Delany grieves for the loss of this strip of sexual release. Though he is careful not to romanticize or sentimentalize the peep shows and porn theaters, he does illuminate the way in which these venues crossed class, racial, and sexual-orientation lines, providing a delightfully subversive utopia--and a microcosm of New York life. Read more

Our Price: $19.95   

3."Breakfast with Scot"
by Michael Downing
What happens when your very own mincing, makeup-sporting Mini Me comes to stay--forever? In Michael Downing's highly amusing and hugely touching "Breakfast with Scot," a couple takes on an 11-year-old with a difference. Sam's a prosperous chiropractor and Ed, the novel's narrator, works for the English-language edition of the highly pretentious magazine Figura. Within days of his arrival in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Scot's new guardians are "drowning in make-up policies and other moral imperatives," for he is an accessorizer par excellence, prone to wearing pantyhose, nail polish, and various other affronts to things masculine. He's also a catalyst for disaster, pointing up the shame and social booby traps that Sam and Ed have done their best to ignore. Nevertheless, their days slowly begin to take on a familial rhythm, and Downing effortlessly displays the depth and feeling that can come up in the most casual moments and conversations. He's equally good at overt disaster, and even as he never lets us forget the mortification that may be just around the corner, the author makes us believe in his triumvirate. Read more

Our Price: $16.80 | You Save: $7.20 (30%)   

4. "Finding the Boyfriend Within"
by Brad Gooch
Brad Gooch's take on the self-help genre is a self-described gay updating of Helen Gurley Brown's "Sex and the Single Girl," and it's a sensible, straightforward--and welcome--addition to the field. Who is the boyfriend within? Simply put, he embodies "qualities we find attractive in ourselves but often imagine others to possess more fully, as well as ... dormant qualities we wish to nurture and grow." His own inner boyfriend is a bit like a male version of Midge, the Barbara Bel Geddes character in "Vertigo," a constant (but not flashy) source of "sanity, peace, [and] happiness." But, he emphasizes, that's just his own--the love of your inner life may turn out to be completely different. Read more

Our Price: $14.70 | You Save: $6.30 (30%)   

5. "In September, the Light Changes"
by Andrew Holleran
"Who cares what straight people think about us?" complains one of Andrew Holleran's gay protagonists. "I don't care if they understand what I do in bed. I don't even understand what I do in bed, I could care less what they think about it." And just as many of the gay men in these 16 stories (only three of which have been previously published) refuse--or simply feel no need--to explain themselves, so too does Holleran explore his characters' lives with no effort to justify them. The stories are crafted with such polished prose--slyly humorous and achingly poignant in turn--that one is immediately struck by their beauty. Read more

Our Price: $16.77 | You Save: $7.18 (30%)   

6. "The Spell"
by Alan Hollinghurst
Alan Hollinghurst writes like a dream about the nightmare of unequal affection. In his third novel, "The Spell," four men dance around one another, their emotions and actions ranging from casual cruelty to anxiety to adoration. Hollinghurst's painful but smiling roundelay alternates between Dorset--where 40ish architect Robin shares a house with the impossibly self-involved Justin-- and London. When Justin's ex, Alex, arrives for a weekend in the country, the atmosphere is instantly rich with jealousy and power plays. And after the trio is joined by a younger gay man, Danny--who turns out to be Robin's son--the attractions and duplicities multiply exponentially. Read more

Our Price: $17.47 | You Save: $7.48 (30%)   

7. "The Kid: What Happened After my Boyfriend and I Decided to Get Pregnant"
by Dan Savage
Best known for his syndicated sexual advice column, "Savage Love," Dan Savage shares his own story in "The Kid," a hilarious account of his efforts--along with his partner--to adopt a child. (Whoops, make that his boyfriend; Savage can't stand the "genderless" P word: "Straight people and press organs that want to acknowledge gay relationships while at the same time pushing the two-penises stuff as far out of their minds as possible love 'partner.' I hated it.") He's unapologetic about his sexuality, without painting a rosy picture of homosexual cohabitation--the very first scene finds Dan's boyfriend, Terry, locking himself in the bathroom after a fight over the music on the car stereo. The misadventures continue through each step of the open-adoption process, in which Dan and Terry get to know their baby's birth mother, and the first few weeks of parenthood. "The Kid" is a wonderful, charming account of real "family values" that proves love knows no limits. Read more

Our Price: $16.07 | You Save: $6.88 (30%)   

HONORABLE MENTION: "The Velveteen Father: An Unexpected Journey to Parenthood," by Jesse Green, was another popular gay parenting memoir of 1999, "a very moving examination of identity and the making of a meaningful adult life that resonates profoundly for people of every sexual orientation."

8. "Party Crasher"
by Richard Tafel
As the executive director of the Log Cabin Republicans, a political action committee for gay conservatives, Richard Tafel is used to criticism and scorn. "I've been demonized and been called names by those on the right who have never taken the opportunity to get to know me," he says. "And I've been caricatured and demonized by those on the gay left who also would rather despise what they think I am than find out who I really am." "Party Crasher" reveals a fascinating individual, an ordained minister comfortable debating scripture with fundamentalists, and a political activist unwilling to accept the common wisdom that gays and lesbians should give their allegiance to the Democratic Party. Tafel rejects the identity politics that lead to such unproductive alliances, favoring instead an emphasis on individual rights and responsibility in which political commitment is based on a desire to do the right thing personally rather than be "accepted" or "loved." "If you want to be embraced," he warns, "get a boyfriend or a dog. But don't get involved in politics because you need a hug; you'll just get hurt." Read more

Our Price: $17.50 | You Save: $7.50 (30%)   

HONORABLE MENTION: Balancing out the political spectrum, we have Martin Duberman's "Left Out: The Politics of Exclusion," a collection of essays spanning 35 years of activism and criticism.

9. "The Essential Gore Vidal"
by Gore Vidal
Nobody can accuse Gore Vidal of having narrow interests. A prolific novelist, Vidal has also enjoyed a career as playwright, essayist, and political commentator. In both fiction and nonfiction, Gore is mainly known for his cutting, satirical wit. But underneath the rapier verbiage is some serious food for thought. "The Essential Gore Vidal" includes excerpts from his finest novels, his play "The Best Man," some of his early fiction, and his most memorable essays on subjects as variegated as homosexuality, feminism, and the writings of Thomas Love Peacock. Though not comprehensive, this volume does contain the cream of Vidal's output and makes for an excellent introduction to one of America's great men of letters. Read more

Our Price: $27.97 | You Save: $11.98 (30%)   

HONORABLE MENTION: If you want to read more Gore Vidal, try "Sexually Speaking: Collected Sex Writings".

And, if you're interested in Vidal's life, Fred Kaplan, editor of "The Essential Gore Vidal," has brought out a biography.

10. "The Trouble with Normal: Sex, Politics, and the Ethics of Queer Life"
by Michael Warner
"The Trouble with Normal" argues passionately against same-sex marriage, but here's the twist--not because it denigrates the institution of marriage, but because it perpetuates the cultural shame attached to sex between consenting but unmarried adults. When gay men and lesbians try to claim that they're just like "normal folk," Michael Warner writes, they do a profound disservice to other queer folk who choose not to live in monogamous or matrimonial bliss and who believe that the solution to being stigmatized for your sexuality is not to pretend it doesn't exist. Warner's precise, straightforward argument is enlivened by numerous sharp zingers, as when he accuses Andrew Sullivan of "breath[ing] new and bitchy life into jesuitical pieties" about sexual morality. "The Trouble with Normal" is a bold, provocative book that forces readers to reconsider what sexual liberation really means. Read more

Our Price: $16.10 | You Save: $6.90 (30%)   

HONORABLE MENTION: Want to learn more about radical queer liberation? Try Michael Bronski's "The Pleasure Principle: Sex, Backlash, and the Struggle for Gay Freedom."

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