Book Recommendations: January 28, 2025
This Week Our Panelists Are Picking Up:
Bob Erlenback recommends:
The Romantic Tragedies of a Drama King by Harry Trevaldwyn
Red Tower Books, 352 pages
Genres: YA, LGBT
Publisher Synopsis: Heartstopper meets Derry Girls in this wonderfully hilarious rom-com about finding your first love when your personality might be too big for the world around you.
Jennifer Chen recommends:
The In-Between Bookstore by Edward Underhill
Avon Books, 272 pages
Genres: LGBT
Publisher Synopsis: A poignant and enchanting novel about a magical bookstore that transports a trans man through time and brings him face-to-face with his teenage self, offering him the chance of a lifetime to examine his life and identity to find a new beginning.
Trey Radu-Blackburn recommends:
Hogarth Press, 272pages
Genres: Fiction
Publisher Synopsis: Han Kang’s most revelatory book since The Vegetarian, We Do Not Part tells the story of a friendship between two women while powerfully reckoning with a hidden chapter in Korean history.
Amma Marfo recommends:
Cocktails with George & Martha by Philip Gefter
Bloomsbury Books, 368 pages
Genres: Nonfiction, Hollywood
Publisher Synopsis: An award-winning writer reveals the behind-the-scenes story of the provocative play, the groundbreaking film it became, and how two iconic stars changed the image of marriage forever.
From its debut in 1962, Edward Albee's Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? was a wild success and a cultural lightning rod. The play transpires over one long, boozy night, laying bare the lies, compromises, and scalding love that have sustained a middle-aged couple through decades of marriage. It scandalized critics but magnetized audiences. Across 644 sold-out Broadway performances, the drama demolished the wall between what could and couldn't be said on the American stage and marked a definitive end to the I Love Lucy 1950s.
Then, Hollywood took a colossal gamble on Albee's sophisticated play-and won. Costarring Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton, the sensational 1966 film minted first-time director Mike Nichols as industry royalty and won five Oscars. How this scorching play became a movie classic-surviving censorship attempts, its director's inexperience, and its stars' own tumultuous marriage-is one of the most riveting stories in all of cinema.
Now, acclaimed author Philip Gefter tells that story in full for the first time, tracing Woolf from its hushed origins in Greenwich Village's bohemian enclave, through its tormented production process, to its explosion onto screens across America and a permanent place in the canon of cinematic marriages. This deliciously entertaining book explores how two couples-one fictional, one all too real-forced a nation to confront its most deeply held myths about relationships, sex, family, and, against all odds, love.
Do you have a book you’d like us to consider for inclusion? Drop a comment on this article or email us!
