NEW: LGBTQIA+ Book Group at Kirkdale Bookshop!

[thebookshop]

We're very excited to announce that on Friday 30th August at 7:30pm - we'll be hosting our first ever LGBTQIA+ Book Group!

This Book Group is the GBF* to our Open Book Group and aims to focus on LGBTQIA+ literature and narratives. It will be running on the last Friday of every other month and absolutely anybody is welcome to join us as we discuss our chosen book over a glass of wine.

To start us off, we’ll be reading and discussing James Baldwin’s seminal and sublime second novel published in 1956; Giovanni’s Room.

Haunting, controversial and a classic of gay literature. Set in a 1950s Paris swarming with expatriates and characterized by dangerous liaisons and hidden violence, an American finds himself unable to repress his impulses, despite his determination to live the conventional life he envisions for himself. After meeting and proposing to a young woman, he falls into a lengthy affair with an Italian bartender and is confounded and tortured by his sexual identity as he oscillates between the two.

Examining the mystery of love and passion in an intensely imagined narrative, Baldwin creates a moving and complex story of death and desire that is revelatory in its insight.

*Gay Best Friend

[Robin Orton]

I'd say 'Google it, Rod' if I didn't think you knew perfectly well already and were just being mischievous.

[thebookshop]

Hi Rod!

LGBTQIA+ stands for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer/questioning, intersex, asexual and many other terms (such as non-binary and pansexual).

We hope this helps!

[stuart]

It might be helpful to have the group's mission. Does LBGTQIA+ reflect the composition of the group, the books chosen or both?

Stuart

[thebookshop]

As stated, the book group aims to focus on LGBTQIA+ literature and narratives. We welcome anyone who wishes to join no matter how they identify.

[thebookshop]

Actually, I do identify as a member of this community and that is why I have decided to set up this book group. We in no way intend to profit or patronise. While the word 'queer' has been used as a derogatory term for gay men in the past and indeed still can be - it has also been reclaimed by members of the community who feel that perhaps past labels don't quite cover how they may identify. The violence of the word is negated in this reclamation to turn its original intent on its head, to give power and agency to those who wish to identify as it.

Here is a great article about reclaiming the word:
https://www.gaytimes.co.uk/community/11 ... n-in-2019/

[thebookshop]

.

[Hissing Syd]

Hi TheBookshop,

Thanks for organising this and for putting it out there. To ask a potentially stupid question, what does one have to do - just read the book in question and turn up, and is there a fee, or do you require a contribution on the wine front?

Hoping to attend, so sorry if that's a daft question! Thanks.

[thebookshop]

Hi TheBookshop,

Thanks for organising this and for putting it out there. To ask a potentially stupid question, what does one have to do - just read the book in question and turn up, and is there a fee, or do you require a contribution on the wine front?

Hoping to attend, so sorry if that's a daft question! Thanks.

Hi HissingSyd,

It’s completely free! The idea is to have read the book beforehand and then come along for a little discussion about it etc. I chose a relatively small book for the first one to ease us all in. There will be a few bottles of wine for everyone and then providing the first evening is a success I was thinking a little sojourn in The Greyhound afterwards might be nice.

[John H]

How do you know? Are you suggesting that only white, elderly and straight people participate? Where is your evidence? Could it be that birds of a feather flock together... and tend to have similar interests?


Are you proposing the people you do not include in your arguably racist, ageist and homophobic comment should be forced to participate?

You can't be homophobic against straight people. You can't be racist against white people. As Holaquease intelligently points out - the default is white and old. Therefore it is a reasonable assumption that most forum contributors are old, straight, white people.

It sounds like you need to be educated my friend.

Racist... so far as there is a definition means discriminating on the basis of race. Therefore you can be racist towards white people and in my experience this is the direction of most racism.

Similarly discrimination for or against any group is an ism... You are guilty in particular of ageism. That is one of the most repugnant isms in the book.

The group is only too white, too straight or too old if those who choose to participate find their own views objectionable. In your case I would agree. Your views are socially unacceptable.

You need to do some race awareness, age awareness and gay awareness training.

[thebookshop]

Either come along to the book group and see for yourself what it turns out to be, it could perhaps be quite enlightening. Or, keep posting badly researched jargon that refuses to acknowledge or listen to the actual matter at hand.

If you cannot do either, take your comments elsewhere. They do not belong in this thread.

I’m looking forward to seeing those who wish to attend, discussing a frankly brilliant author and a brilliant novel over some wine.

[carty]

Sadly, this forum will just implode on itself

[John H]

Either come along to the book group and see for yourself what it turns out to be, it could perhaps be quite enlightening. Or, keep posting badly researched jargon that refuses to acknowledge or listen to the actual matter at hand.

If you cannot do either, take your comments elsewhere. They do not belong in this thread.

I’m looking forward to seeing those who wish to attend, discussing a frankly brilliant author and a brilliant novel over some wine.

My comments most certainly belong in this thread. There is question over whether or not your advertisement should have been allowed though.

[RJM]

Why on earth would an event advertisement not be allowed? They're very common on the forum and they're an important part of the community. The abbreviation used is very common, some people have (reasonable) issues with part of it but no one appears to be upset at the event in question. Why on earth should it not be allowed?

[thebookshop]

Q can also stand for ‘questioning’ - and I don’t think it right to remove a letter that stands for something some people genuinely identify as just because one person who refuses to listen to reason finds it offensive.

LGBTQ (and the IA+) is a genuine acronym that is well known and has been well known for years. If we start policing who and what is included, we enter a frankly terrifying time.

Come and talk about a nice book guys! There’s nothing like literature and wine to bring us all together.

[thebookshop]

As I have tried to explain - people do not solely identify as just ‘gay’ and so other terms have cropped up or been reclaimed in order to best describe how people are choosing to identify.

I apologised and know full well that Queer is a derogatory term and I also tried to explain and provide a link to the understanding of its reclamation and the empowerment that comes with that reclamation for a lot of members of the community. To refer to it as hate-speech when that is clearly not its intention (with an acronym I have not coined myself I might add) is hyperbolic at best.

Many people of my generation were referred to as gay at school as it was used as a method of bullying. Queer had long been a strange old word that didn’t factor into the vocabulary of the young at the time. For many years ‘gay’ became my generation’s ‘queer’ and it took me years of shame and years of study, particularly in the fields of gender and sexuality, and indeed years of coming to understand myself, that I was able to look upon the word as something to be proud of and thus to be proud of myself.

I will apologise once more for the offence that has been taken by the inclusion of what is now a genuine way to identify for people as I am well aware of its contentious history. But it is included for a reason, and that sure as Hell is not for the purpose of hate.

[thebookshop]

I did not have the title modified. I do not think it right to erase members of the community who have reclaimed the word and who identify as it and embrace it for their own empowerment. I have made a copy of everything that has happened on this thread and and am requesting for it to be deleted because I am frankly appalled at the behaviour and manner of some posters and generally appalled at the forum.

[admin]

I have attempted to split this topic so that the arguments are confined to a topic of the same name in the Pub.
Apologies if this makes either or both of the respective threads read rather strangely.
I have also returned the "Q" to the title of this part of the topic.
Please be kind, I'm trying to do my best!

admin

[Hollykathleen]

Anyway, back to the book club!

What is the vibe Bookshop, shall we bring wine and nibbles? X

[thebookshop]

There will be some wine and nibbles supplied but a BYOB can never hurt!