Wright tells the stories of Manny, Julius, Carlos and their friends. These are young gay men of color who are desperately seeking the basics of life--a home that is more than just shelter and security from so many things other than disease and violence. They have few resources.

Wright describes these young men's sometime tragic lives, though there are the moments of heroic achievement. Manny is a working-class city kid with typical teenage struggles. He and his best friend Jason have a casual love, held together by drugs and sex for money. Manny comes to realize the many demons Jason has to deal with. Manny becomes an activist.

Julius left his rural home for the big city. But without any navigation skills in New York, Julius winds up homeless, hustling and with a drug habit. Wright finds Julius in a gay-friendly shared house on the east side of Brooklyn. Carlos considers the same house as his lifesaver.

Wright explores these difficult and troubling stories with intelligence and compassion, giving us a poignant insight into often overlooked lives.

DRIFTING TOWARD LOVE is a hardcover from Beacon Press, $24.95

Lawless is a Minneapolis restaurateur and an amateur sleuth. She's ringing in the New Year with friends and family and some very dry champagne. But the party gets crashed by some bigwigs in state politics who make the pitch to Jane's father: did he want to run to be the next Governor? Ray Lawless, a retired defense attorney, agrees. It looks like he has a good chance until the press and opponents start turning up dirt. Ray's family is fair game, as are his campaign managers. The secrets are secret no more, including the mysterious death of a young woman, which happened after some of the campaign managers came back from the Vietnam War.

Hart has won the Lambda Literary Award as well as the Minnesota Book Award. THE MORTAL GROOVE is a hardcover from St. Martin's Minotaur, $25.95

Along with the other closeted cadets, Lehmkuhl developed an intricate skein of lies, deceits and secret love affairs to keep the brass from making their lives even more miserable. This is an incisive and quite detailed look at life inside an elite military school (it was Rep. Barney Frank who gave Lehmkuhl his nomination to the Academy). He touches all the bases: the intensity of the training, the institutional bullying, the bigotry of some the Christian fundamentalist types that were present on the staff and faculty, the intense friendship among some cadets, and the transformative experience of it all.

Lehmkuhl was graduated from the Academy and fulfilled his contract with the Air Force. He then went on to open his own business and, through a lucky break, wound up with a second career in the entertainment industry. HERE'S WHAT WE'LL SAY was recently published in trade paperback, with a new afterword, $16.00

Also in the 60s, Isherwood gave a series of lectures at various California universities on the theme "A Writer and His World." It is these lectures that form the new book, ISHERWOOD ON WRITING. It can be argued that Isherwood liberated the memoir and became one of the innovators of modern gay writing. Isherwood explores the intricacies of his craft--whether writing novels or for the stage or the movies--and on the role of spirituality in his life. He comments on his working relationship with W.H. Auden, his literary friendships with E.M. Forster, Virginia Woolf, Stephen Spender, Aldous Huxley and Somerset Maugham.

ISHERWOOD ON WRITING was edited by JAMES J. BERG. The foreword is by CLAUDE J. SUMMERS. The book is a hardcover from the University of Minnesota Press, $25.95

Howard Kohler is a professor at Farrar University. His partner has recently died. There are lots of attractive young men in his classes. There is one that merits his special interest--Tate Logan. Kohler, in the past, has resisted temptation. But he finds out that Logan is willing to make himself available for cash; they get involved. Logan becomes an addiction. Their relation becomes a torrid spiral of sexual frenzy and ethical challenges which threaten to ruin Kohler's career.

TEACHER IS THE BEST EXPERIENCE is a trade paperback from StarBooks, $17.95

Watching the TV one day, he gets a bright idea. What if he asks Sal, the gay senior at school, to give him a cool makeover and make him irresistible? He runs it by Sal who agrees. There's just one catch. Carlos has to help Sal start a Gay-Straight alliance. This throws him for a loop. If he does, what will his friends think? And, after all, is he ever going to get some sex?

GETTING IT is a trade paperback from Simon Pulse, $8.99

It is the dawn of the Third Republic in France. Arthur Rimbaud arrives in Paris, fresh out of school. He is precocious and more than a little wild. This young man from Ardennes brings to the capital not only his good looks and energy but a bundle of poems that are nothing less than radical and innovative. Also in his pocket is a letter from Paul Verlaine, requesting that they meet.

Rimbaud has figured out that his road to greatness will be the way of excess. He's ready to try anything and scandalize everybody. He quickly seduces Verlaine and turns Paul's bourgeois world upside down. Verlaine is closeted, in an unhappy marriage and ten years Rimbaud's senior, and he is not prepared for the whirlwind of passions and events that engulf him.

The subject is fascinating; the text of this book is very sexually graphic; it's also quite smart. ARDENNIAN BOY is a hardcover from MLR PRESS, $32.99

BRANDY PURDY's novel, THE CONFESSION OF PIERS GAVESTON, is the famous story from Gaveston's point of view. And he has tales to tell!

THE CONFESSIONS OF PIERS GAVESTON is a trade paperback from iUniverse, $13.95

Blonde is gorgeous. He's gay. And he makes the bad guys pay. A hairdresser by trade and a secret agent by choice, this former Navy Seal can handle an Uzi like a teasing comb. His faithful pedicurist is Precious Needmore; the two of them lead a band called the Pink Berets to save the world from bad hair and bad air.

Deep beneath his hair salon is situated the headquarters of STOP (Stop Terrorizing Our Planet). This is a secret environmental espionage agency created by Jayms and his fabulous celebrity clientele. From this HQs they launch their campaigns against ZENRON, the bad guys. Armed with bulletproof mousse, Uzi blow-dryers and hair curler hand grenades, STOP is determined to rescue both the dude-in-distress and the whole planet. And none too soon!

THE HAIR-RAISING ADVENTURES OF JAYMS BLONDE is a trade paperback from iUniverse, $14.95

MAN TO MAN puts photographs made by, for and of homosexual men into historical perspective. This book includes 350 images, some familiar, some unpublished. Through them we can follow the thematic and aesthetic developments of amateur as well as professional photographers who came before the great social changes and those who documented them.

MAN TO MAN is an oversized hardcover, published by The Vendome Press, $85.00