Waltzing in like you've cut yourself a key

[sovay]

With apologies if I have accidentally stalked anyone on or adjacent to my friendlist, I am fascinated by how difficult it has just proven to locate a print copy of a small-press queer novel published ten years ago. I discovered Adam/M. A. Fitzroy's Make Do and Mend (2012) through a page of Natalie Marena Nobitz's History's Queer Stories: Retrieving and Navigating Homosexuality in British Fiction about the Second World War (2018); the romantic pairing of a wounded naval officer and a conscientious objector pinged my attention even before I scrolled back and found Nobitz describing the novel as "a modern re-write of Renault's novel that opts for an idealistic ending to signal its liberationist consciousness." I thought to myself that I would totally read a quasi-fix-it of The Charioteer (1953) and decided to see if I could acquire a copy. Not from my local library system. Not from AbeBooks, either. Out of luck with the Book Depository. Amazon seemed to suggest the possibility of used copies if I was willing to deal with their marketplace, but trying to follow the relevant link revealed that they have confused the novel with an entirely different book of the same name. I found a nice interview with the author from 2013 and became depressed that my own copy of Nicholas Monsarrat's The Cruel Sea (1951) has been in storage for almost that long—also slightly wary that I might have banged into the author on AO3—but the link to the publisher's website was d-e-d dead. If the author has a website of their own where I could drop a line and ask if we could arrange some sort of exchange of goods and services, I couldn't find it. Over at Barnes and Noble, I can with no difficulty at all find a recently released e-book, but I don't like e-books. I don't even like e-books of my own books except that other people buy them. I will read books online and as pdfs if I have no other options, but I do best with print and ink and in the case of this novel I don't see how to get hold of any. I genuinely did not expect it to be this complicated. I would rely on the random luck of used book stores, but I haven't been inside one in almost three years.

Comments

[luzula]

Oh hey, this is also on my long list of books to check out, though I don't remember how it got there.

One possible solution is to learn bookbinding? It's a lot of fun, and it has let me do things like have my friend's self-published ebook novel that I have beta-read in my book case, and also bind it for her. But of course, it does take time and energy that not everyone has.

[sovay]

Oh hey, this is also on my long list of books to check out, though I don't remember how it got there.

Oh, cool. I had no idea it existed until this evening. Based on fandoms and also general interests, I don't see how I missed it.

But of course, it does take time and energy that not everyone has.

At this point in my life, I don't think I do, but I'm glad it's something you do.

[luzula]

Ah, now I see: I got the rec off my friend hyarrowen’s goodreads reviews. She has tagged it books-by-friends (though I don't know whether the friend is in fannish spaces). Also from her Goodreads reviews, I have noted down the historical m/m romances Across Your Dreams, The Peacock's Eye, Dance of Stone, by Jay Lewis Taylor, which also seem quite interesting, though I haven't gotten around to trying any of these yet.

[sovay]

Also from her Goodreads reviews, I have noted down the historical m/m romances Across Your Dreams, The Peacock's Eye, Dance of Stone, by Jay Lewis Taylor, which also seem quite interesting, though I haven't gotten around to trying any of these yet.

I appreciate your passing on the recommendations!