“The Joy of Collecting Gay Books”

I began collecting gay books -- books by or about lesbians and gay men in the early 1970's. I was always an avid reader, so it was only natural that I would turn to books when I began to deal with my sexual identity. Unfortunately for me, most of the available literature at that time consisted of pseudo-psychological, homophobic crap like David Reuben’s Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Sex (But Were Afraid to Ask). Fortunately for me, I soon discovered gay liberation and pornography.

Like many a gay boy, I was fascinated by gay erotica long before I realized that I was gay. As a kid, I would glance at the physique magazines that were sold at my local newsstand before I was chased away. As a teenager, I would sometimes come across a dog-eared, gayrotic paperback, which I would devour behind locked doors. Though their literary quality left much to be desired, “one-hand novels” gave me more than sexual titillation. They also taught me that one could be both gay and happy. The guys in those books were handsome, well-adjusted men-loving men whose sexual experiences were not traumatic or anxiety-ridden but sources of great joy. To this day I retain a certain affection for the adult bookstores of my youth, not as sex palaces but as the only places where I could find books that told me that Gay is Good.

While in college, I frequented the campus library, which furthered my gay education in two ways. One was by way of the library’s second floor men's room, which I won't go into. The second was through the library's extensive (for its time) collection of gay books. Looking back, I am certain that the librarian was gay, if only because s/he had filled the stacks with some of the new, gay-positive literature that emerged from the emerging lesbian and gay movement. The books that I borrowed from the college library are still among my favorites: I Have More Fun With You Than Anybody by Lige Clarke and Jack Nichols; Out of the Closets: Voices of Gay Liberation by Karla Jay and Allen Young; Society and the Healthy Homosexual by George Weinberg; and my personal favorite, The Gay Mystique by Peter Fisher. At that time (1973), I also began my own gay collection with a paperback copy of The Gay Crusaders by Kay Tobin and Randy Wicker.

Soon after that I moved out of my parents' home and began my gay book collection in earnest. I also befriended two extraordinary men whose love of books equaled my own: Mark Silber and Joel Starkey. Silber, who now lives in Philadelphia, was the founder of the Stonewall Library (1973). Starkey, who has since died of AIDS complications, started the Southern Gay Archives and published a newsletter, the Southern Gay Liberator, out of his Boca Raton apartment. Both the Silber and Starkey collections later merged to become the Stonewall Library and Archives, the largest GLBT collection in the South. Silber and Starkey (and their libraries) were essential in the development of my own collection.

My career as a gay book maven was enhanced in 1977, when I began writing book reviews for South Florida’s gay community newspaper, The Weekly News (TWN). My book review column, "The Book Nook," now appears in various GLBT print and online publications. Meanwhile, my personal library had grown to include several thousand volumes, to my partner's consternation and my apartment's disarray. Though I keep donating some of the surplus material to the Stonewall Library and Archives, my books keep spilling out of their bookcases into boxes, closets, and even a warehouse space.

When I began my collection, I had the naive notion that I would be able to collect every book that dealt with GLBT people or issues. I have since limited my collection to gay male titles, restricting my lesbian, bi and trans material to literary classics, Lambda Literary Award winners, and a few favorites. Even within the realm of gay male books, I have had to restrict my scope to certain topics of interest: histories, biographies, gay politics and spirituality, science fiction, the Beat Generation, Jews, Latinos, bears, leather, erotica from the "Golden Age" (1966 to 1974, which happen to be my "formative years"), everything that I have written for, and books about the "male art form" -- nude photography and art.

As any book collector would tell you, a good bibliography is essential. Unfortunately, there are so many queer books today that it is impossible to compile a bibliography that is as comprehensive as The Lesbian in Literature by Barbara Grier or The Male Homosexual in Literature by Ian Young, both of which were last published in 1981. The Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgendered Round Table (GLBTRT) of the American Library Association has published a series of useful book lists; and the Lambda Book Report is an excellent source for current GLBT publications. Finally, many studies of GLBT history, spirituality, politics or literature have excellent bibliographies. A good example of this is the list that Louis Crompton included in his monumental Homosexuality and Civilization.

Gay book collectors, like all others, begin small and build their way up. The person who wishes to start from scratch should begin with a visit to the local GLBT bookstore or a chain store like Borders or Barnes & Noble. Collectors who live in small towns or rural areas can take advantage of Internet sources like Abebooks.com, Amazon.com, Alibris.com, Bolerium.com or even stores with online service like A Different Light (ADLbooks.com) or Calamus Books (calamusbooks.com). All in all, the single best source for GLBT books is the InsightOut Book Club (insightoutbooks.com), which I praised in a previous column. For the adventurous, I recommend a visit to used bookstores, flea markets, thrift stores, yard sales or even Uncle Joe's attic. You might find some lost or hidden treasure.

My gay book collection is an endless source of satisfaction, entertainment, education and validation, as I hope it would be to the members of the Stonewall Library and Archives, which will get my collection when I'm gone. Few things are more thrilling than finding a rare gem in a used book store, garage sale or even online. In my humble opinion, an old lesbian or gay classic can be as enjoyable now as it was the day that it was published. Queer books run the gamut of time, space and topic, bound together by the sexual or gender diversity which, in spite of our differences, makes us one.

Jesse Monteagudo is a freelance writer and activist who has been working for GLBT rights in South Florida for thirty years. Write him at jessemonteagudo@aol.com.