One of the few things I still collect for myself are book catalogues, auction catalogues and bibliographies that deal with gay literature. So I was delighted to buy this recently and it arrived during our little sojourn in East Anglia this week. Lambda Rising in Washington, and then in Baltimore as well was, until it closed in 2010, one of only a handful of dedicated gay bookstores in the world. That may sound like an overstatement and I am aware, of course, that there have been many others and still are a few remaining (including the UK's own Gays The Word of course). But relative to the populations they serve, dedicated gay bookshops have been a rare breed. The Wiki article on Lambda Rising is very good and tells the story succinctly whilst still giving an idea of the importance of the place in gay history.
Now I know I do realise how this next statement is going to make me sound but: I will thoroughly enjoy reading this catalogue. In particular, this catalogue has a paragraph about each of the books giving some idea of what it's about, something that secondhand sellers like myself often don't bother with although we should, and there are plenty of titles here, even from just 1984, which I have never heard of and a list like this always gives me the sense that I might just be about to discover a hidden classic...
