(Part 4) Top products from r/gaybros

I'm a fan of Vidal, but he isn't at his best in the City and the Pillar - Myra Breckinridge or Duluth would be better choices.

Also, I think these, all of which came out in the last 6 months or so, would be worth considering:

The Snow Queen
by Michael Cunningham
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0374266328/ref=ox_sc_act_title_2?ie=UTF8&psc=1&smid=ATVPDKIKX0DER

"Cunningham’s elegant and haunting new novel examines the complex dynamics among a couple and a brother. In this configuration, Barrett Meeks, a poetically minded man in his late thirties who has just been dumped by his most recent boyfriend via text message, shares a Brooklyn apartment with Tyler, his older musician-bartender brother, and Beth, Tyler’s great love."

Satin Island
by Tom McCarthy
http://www.amazon.com/Satin-Island-novel-Tom-McCarthy/dp/0307593959

"U., a “corporate anthropologist,” is tasked with writing the Great Report, an all-encompassing ethnographic document that would sum up our era. Yet at every turn, he feels himself overwhelmed by the ubiquity of data, lost in buffer zones, wandering through crowds of apparitions, willing them to coalesce into symbols that can be translated into some kind of account that makes sense. As he begins to wonder if the Great Report might remain a shapeless, oozing plasma, his senses are startled awake by a dream of an apocalyptic cityscape."

Dear Thief
by Samantha Harvey
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1937894460/ref=ox_sc_act_title_4?ie=UTF8&psc=1&smid=ATVPDKIKX0DER

“A story about a long friendship and the betrayals that tore it apart, this thoughtful meditation, interspersed with reflections on philosophy, religion, and poetry, is about the passages of time, the accumulation of memory, and the hard-won wisdom of aging.” —Library Journal

The first one can be learned from Griffiths' text, but it's definitely an 3rd/4th year physics textbook. If you have a strong background in math, though, much of the physics can probably be gleaned quickly enough from online introductory material.

As for the second, I've been told that Emmy Noether's Wonderful Theorem is a great read, but I haven't taken the time to check it out yet.

Someone already suggested it, but I'd like to restate House of Leaves. Though perhaps it's not a good vacation book because it will suck you in and it's kind of a dark book.

The Xanth and Apprentice Adept series by Piers Anthony are really quick reads; they're corny as shit fantasy for teenage boys, but they got me through some rough years so I'll always have a spot for them. Also on the fantasy side, check out Hyperion.

On the nonfiction side: Stiff and Salt were both awesome. I've read a bunch of other books by the author of Stiff, and they're all worth it--she's very accessible and funny, but also serious and respectful of the topics.

You should check out the book Soldaten about German POWs living in the UK during WW2. It's a fantastic read. One of the best impulse buys I've ever made.

• Neil Degrasse Tyson - He makes science fun
  
• John Hopfield - He made the Hopfield Neural Network, which is potent for remote sensing.
  
• Bernard Sklar - He wrote this astounding book. I've been able to apply many of the topics in the book to my spinning lasers.
  
  There's more, but I do have to get back to writing a paper.
  edit: Used amazing twice, got rid of both instances, it's a milquetoast adjective.

It isn't quite true to say that Hebrew and Greek had words for homosexuality, but they did have extensive vocabularies for discussing sexual relationships between men.

In the New Testament, the Greek vocabulary for sex between men is not used. There are a couple of resources that go into this.

• Arsenokoités and Malakos: Meanings and Consequences by Dale B Martin
  
• Same-sex relationships: 1 Corinthians and 1 Timothy by me.
  
  I'm not as well-versed in the Hebrew side of things, but the book Wrestling with God and Men is a good place to start.

I actually just finished The Favored Daughter by Fawzia Koofi. It is an autobiography/memoir of the first Second Deputy Speaker of Parliament in Afghanistan, Fawzia Koofi. While the writing itself I don;t think is too groundbreaking, the story is and I think well worth the read.

Reading - The Hearts of Men and will probably suggest it for the next book here. Very real.

Username/Name: blackmetallic

Location: NJ/NYC, but I'm visiting Chicago for a week, so hang out with me!

Age: 25

Favourite book ever: Hmm... I hate to pick a YA novel but this book is pretty important to me: The Man Without A Face

Pics: Oldie but a goody: Paul Weller and Me

Gay novels tend to read like soft core porn. The best books focus at the problem at hand and then look at the antagonists and protagonists as a tool that is used.

Most romance novels flip this, the antagonists and protagonists are the centre of the story and their love is what is causing the problem. Therein lies the problem with a gay novel. The problem is usually some sort of forbidden love, or lost love, or something along those lines.

That all being said, these two books I've found straddled the lines between. Both are coming of age stories, but they're both pretty decent overall.

http://www.amazon.com/How-Learned-Snap-Coming-Age/dp/0142002992

(On second thought this one is about exactly what I was mentioning being wrong with gay novels.)
http://www.amazon.com/The-Trouble-Boy-Tom-Dolby/dp/0758206178

Ron Chernow's biography of Alexander Hamilton. He was my favorite Founding Father when I started, and is even more so now.

I’m sorry to hear that, OP. You’re going to have a lot of emotions as you process all of this, and it’s ok to let them come, feel them and then let them go. I read a book after a loss called The Grief Recovery Handbook, which was super helpful. If you like to read, I would suggest it for you.

The Grief Recovery Handbook

A Case of Exploding Mangoes had a very unexpected man-on-man relationship. I read this book while working the stationary bike at the gym. Imagine my surprise and embarrassment due to a wild boner at the gym.

Update: I just saw that you specified sci-fi fantasy. My suggestion is fiction based off of real life. Sorry. Anything by Class Comics should fit that bill then.

> Unlike the vast majority of gay men, I have mental health issues and baggage.

99.9% of gay people have mental health issues, and everyone most certainly has their own baggage. If someone says they don't have baggage, they're just in denial and probably a giant fuckface, like your ex. If you're down, I suggest reading The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck by Marc Maron, it's a fairly profane approach to a zen-like mentality.

​

I'm reading two books at the same time, because I'm weird like that.

The first one I'm reading is Murakami's The Wind-Up Bird chronicle. I've been on a Murakami kick over the last few months, and this book is probably one of his better known ones. If you want Japanese surreal weirdness in literary form, this is your go-to guy.

Also, I'm reading Liao Yiwu's The Corpse Walker: Real Life Stories: China From the Bottom Up. It's a fascinating series of interviews written by a Chinese dissident who, among other things, has been put in prison for his writings. These transcripts were smuggled out of the country and put into print a few years ago. As a whiteboy who doesn't know much about China, it gives a very interesting perspective on Chinese society that I wasn't aware of.

Robopocalypse.

Also watch out for the movie in 2014.

The Glock company has done a great job with their culture, image, and marketing. It might have something to do with the fact that many PDs use the Glock as their service weapon, so the officers buy Glocks as their off-duty weapon and word-of-mouth takes it from there. New gun buyers see that so many people have Glocks, so they assume it's a reliable/good gun to buy. I think there's an entire book written about Glock culture. - Edit: The book http://www.amazon.com/Glock-The-Rise-Americas-Gun/dp/0307719952

GL on your qualifying! Don't get "Glock thumb."

How is it not well reasoned? I asked questions. I've read an entire book on this subject for a class I took - how much do people here actually know about the allegations and proceedings?

If you read my comment closely, you'll see I mentioned that it's the administration who should be punished, not the athletes. That's all. Pretending that "taking wins" from their record will somehow make up for the school's misconduct is illogical and erroneous. Erasing history isn't at all ameliorative for anyone - the individuals involved or the University community as a whole. Silence was their problem in the first place. Replacing that with a different kind of silence is absurd.