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LGBTQ+ LITERATURE
Reading Gay Secondhand Books — Unique Legacies for New Generations
Who, I wonder, read this gay novel before me? What did they go through in their own lives? What did this book mean to them?
Cruising for Books
I collect gay fiction, but I don’t consider myself a serious collector. I collect new books but also used or secondhand books. I don’t need them to be first editions. It doesn’t have to have a dust jacket. It doesn’t even need to be in good shape, as long as I can still read it.
A surprising amount of gay fiction remains out of print. Those that have come back into print are usually available only as trade paperbacks or e-books. I prefer hardcovers if I can get them.
So I go out cruising for books. Old hardcovers are my type.
In New York City, I haunt The Strand. In Los Angeles, it’s The Last Bookstore. You can find me at a Goodwill, or, when I’m in London, an Oxfam charity shop. Then there are local library sales.
Online purchases from AbeBooks are fine, but buying online takes the thrill out of discovery. In a bookstore, you can stumble across things.
Gay Readers Leaving Their Mark
Gay male fiction “finds” are important to me. It’s reasonably safe to assume each one was previously owned by another gay man whose own story I’ll never know.
Lots of these books have been read multiple times. Pages might have dog-eared corners. Smudge marks are visible on dust jackets. Sometimes there’s a ring stain from an old beverage — water, coffee, wine, martini?
Some contain other mysteries like old bookmarks, or stamps from the original bookshop. Below is one from the inside of my copy of Radcliffe by David Storey (a book I’ve written about separately in another article):
