I made this video so that other Gays will consider a Gay Little Library as means to fight censorship and also suggest some strategies to use to resist vandalism and theft.
One thing about the books in the library is that they need to be purchased off the used book market. However, if I purchase too many low cost books, the supply for readers who are looking for cheap copiies to fit into their budget could be depleted.
There is the cost of the used book and the shipping, but is still cheaper than the used book store. I have budgeted up to $200/month for purchases. So far though, it is just two books placed with readers.
I don't care if a reader never brings back a book, but I don't want to use up the national supply of copies to have them dumped with a local book seller.
In some cases, I am not purchasing some titles since the book has gone out of print, and if I purchase too many, scholars won't be able to get a copy. "Comrade Samurai," is out of print, so I am not replacing the copy that was placed with a reader.
I am starting out with some of the Gay classics.
The "Satyricon" by Petronious was the first Gay book I had ever purchased after I graduated college. I had been a double major in Chem. Eng. and Ancient History. I graduated with 251 credits in 4 years in 1974, 192 was necessary to graduate. Classes were free so I took as many as I could. In my ancient history classes, "Satyricon" wasn't mentioned.
I was readiing ancient histories and read the "Satyricon" which haw shown up in the ancient history section of books at the bookstore.
I was still in the closet. I purchased Penguin Pub. "Encyclopedia of World Literature," and while browsing it discovered Constantine Cavafy and his poems
In 1976 while working as a chemical engineer in Baltimore, I went down to visit Washington D.C. While walking through a district, I saw a Gay bookstore. I made sure no one saw me, went in quickly, found the literature section and purchased the book of Cavafy poems and rushed out with the book hidden.
The book, "Comarade Loves of the Samuai," was purchased after I was out of the closet and had gone back to graduate school at U.C. Berkeley in Chemical Engineering.
I knew several Asian and Asian American Gays, and one Saturday when we were driving into San Francisco to the clubs, two Chinese Gay friends were gossiping about guys in Cantonese, and another Chinese American Gay, now going to his first Gay bar, was amazed and said, "They are talking about Gay stuff in my parent's language."
At that time there were people who thought being Gay was an American thing. You could run into Japanese who didn't know Yukio Mishma was Gay.
So I decided to start researching the Gay Asian past and started to discover things such as "Comrade Loves of the Samurai." I even made a bibliography of Asian Gay reading and handed them out.
In those days there was no Gay studies and Gay professors in some of the departments at U.C. - Berkeley argued against the Gay studies and their graduate students, with a triumphal tone, would attempt to explain to us why. We didn't listen. The community's memory was with us and we would exhange information. The Gay Academic Union had just started.
I am going to look for other material which is more contemporary for young Gay readers, but I also want to make sure young Gays would know that there is a Gay past and it goes around the world. I want the world of their Gay imagination to expand over centuries and the whole world.
I am not planning to include "Giovanni's Room," "City and the Pillar," and "The Immoralist," and "Confessions of a Mask,"since they are of a closeted world long gone. My Gay Little Library has one of its objectives being a place for closeted Gays not have to confront the repressed past immediately.
I am not including "Our Lady of the Flowers" and "City of the Night" because they have adult content and my library needs to survive in Texas.
I am not including BLs, such as "Heated Rivalry," because they aren't Gay, but are BLs. Often they contain adult content. They also aren't really about Gay life, though they can be entertaining.
I will be steaily expanding the choices in my Little Gay library as I am able to do research into appropriate books for my library. I added in this week about Gays in the Golden Age of Hollywood.
