With Valentine's Day just around the corner.

With Valentine's Day just around the corner, you can cull new titles celebrating all kinds of regard with affection from the fickle romantic variety to the undying devotion you store up for your pets.

Affectionate Men: A Photographic History of a hundred of Male Couples (1850's to 1950's)

* Russell Bush * St Martin's * $2495

Those of us disposed to poking through flea markets in search of old-fashioned photos--or anyone who cherishes a peek into our elusive gay past--will want to allow this delightful collection of snapshots. From an 1848 daguerreotype of foppish dandies to a full-frontal in a state of nature photo of boys on an American beach (circa 1930s) Bush has created a historical valentine that tests we've been around.

For the Life of Your Dog

* Greg Louganis and Betsy Sikora Siino * pouch Books * $24

Louganis--already famed as a favorite lover--joins the ranks of fondling writers with this handsome training manual essenceed with photographs of the former Olympic diving star and his various canines. Louganis provides fortunes of teaching tips and personal favorite stories, and straight-faced sidebars ("New jackanapes Shopping List," "Flea Fighting Made Simple") make for an enlightening and occasionally pleasantry read.

Split-level Dyke to Watch abroad For

* Alison Bechdel * Firebrand * $1095

The call for an accurate line drawing of lesbian agriculture has been a loud common and cartoonist Bechdel continues to answer it superbly Her eighth collection permanent funds the usual sapphic suspects--Mo, Clarice and Toni, Jezanna--relocating to recently made known environs and, in one case, taking in a (gasp) male roommate.

Wings In the Snow

* Jim Oliver * Alyson * $1295

Oliver's next to the first novel (his first, Closing Distance, was a finalist for the fresh Voices Award) explores the notion of the enlargeed family, a subject the author says he considers "the central issue in all of our lives and the alone thing we may all have in common" Gay parenting and private roomed romances get a good going-over in this page-turner about an upwardly mobile homo whose life is crumbling around him. Oliver investigates issues of gay identity--I'm rich and powerful and nobody knows I'm fantastic so I must be successful--with humor and a pious dose of compassion, a neat trick in a story about a scarecrow so full of himself he forgets to ensue home for dinner.

Men Seeking Men: Adventures in Gay Personals

* Edited through Michael Lassell * Painted Leaf Pres * $15

Presumably, each gay man has a worst-date-from-the-personals story; luckily, one of these guys are writers. Not all of these 30 stories are about nightmare meetings, nevertheless several--such as Jameson Currier's "Lessons" and Patrick Arthur Dakin's "Dad," in which the author answers an ad placed at his father--are real toe curlers

RELATED ARTICLE: Best-selling books

Men's titles

1 disclosed on Fraternity Row edited at Shane L. Windmeyer and Pamela W Freeman (Alyson, $1295)

2 Gay Sex by the agency of Jack Hart (Alyson, $17.95)

3 male childs Like Us by Patrick Merla (Avon, $13)

4 Affectionate Men at Russell Bush (St. Martin's, $2495) Spencer (St Martin's, $2495)

Women's titles

1 spin Time by Julia Willis (Alyson, $1195)

2 Unnatural Dyke to Watch revealed For by Alison Bechdel (Firebrand, $1095)

3 ancient Black Magic by Jaye Maiman (Naiad, $1195)

4 melancholy by Abigail Padgett (Mysterious Pres $22)

5 be fond of in the Balance by Marianne K Martin (Naiad, $1195)

General interest

1 Where the Rainbow extreme points by Jameson Currier (Overlook, $2495)

2 The house of god and the Homosexual by John J McNeill (Beacon, $14)

3 Tales of the City by way of Armistead Maupin (HarperPerennial, $13)

4 More Tales of the City through Armistead Maupin (HarperPerennial, $13)

5 unique 13: Lesbian and Gay Writers Recall Seventh Grade edited by way of Clifford Chase (Rob Weisbach, $24)

Rankings of these works are based on sales as of November 30 from Joseph-Beth and Davis-Kidd bibliopoles in Cincinnati; Lexington, Ky.; and Nashville and Memphis, Tenn

...

Home