Need a few GLBT books to take along for summer vacation or for lazy days by the pool? Check out these books below. Plus, find out what two of Nashville’s GLBT book clubs are reading in July.

Devil’s Gambit by Jay Gordon

​Local author, Jay Gordon’s second novel, Devil’s Gambit, is a modern GLBT fantasy set in a world much like our own – but it is a world full of mystical and magical forces harnessed by wizards and mystics, as well as cultists, sorcerers and necromancers.

One man, Professor Tom Corman, who has already lost one love to a random hate-crime, finds himself once again drawn into the world of the living. Corman even begins to build a very nontraditional family, taking in the Dawson brothers, victims of ritual and sexual abuse at the hands of their family’s cult, while trying to shore up his new relationship with the handsome policeman, Aiden O’Connel. But even as life seems to be getting better for Tom Corman, human agents of evil are hatching a plot to release one of Hell’s dangerous demon-lords, who himself has a sinister, secret plot dark enough to unsettle even his brother demons.

In his quest to save his new family, and the world, Corman will push himself over the edge, and ask a diverse group of friends, from an aristocratic English wizard and ex-lover to a French mystic and rabbi, to do the same. Tom and his friends utilize their minds, bodies, magics, and their very souls to save the human world from being destroyed by a demon once banished and sealed away by his own kind. Can these brave and powerful friends save humanity and the known universe? And at what cost? Follow Jay Gordon at jaygordonstories.com

The Rebellion of Miss Lucy Ann Lobdell by William Klaber

One day in 1855, a real woman named Lucy Lobdell cut her hair, and put on pants.  She wanted to earn men’s wages, sit at a bar, carry a weapon and travel alone, but the changes went far beyond anything she had imagined.  The Rebellion of Miss Lucy Ann Lobdell is the account of Lucy’s extraordinary foray into the world of men and her inward journey to a new sexual identity.  It is her promised memoir, as heard and recorded a century later by William Klaber, an upstream neighbor.

Lucy promised to write a book about her “adventures in male attire,” but that book was never found.  Instead, more than a century later, author William Klaber received the gift of a satchel filled with letters and other documents concerning Lucy’s life.  Recognizing the historical importance, Klaber set out to do justice to a piece of forgotten Americana—to tell the story of what happened to Miss Lucy Ann Lobdell once she changed into pants.

It’s Not Who I Am by Kylie Rae

Born as a man and living an artificial existence, Kylie had no choice but to go through a total transformation. She had to become a woman to truly be happy. It’s Not Who I Am is the inspiring true story of author Kylie Rae’s heroic journey of having a complete sex change in order to live the way she always intended. She underwent multiple procedures in order to finally feel at peace with herself.

Black Diamond: The Real Illusion by Scott Allen Nollen

Black Diamond: The Real Illusion, is the biography of Theron Denson, the world's only African American Neil Diamond tribute artist. An account of triumphs, tragedies and fortitude in never giving up his dream of being The Black Diamond. Written by Scott Allen Nollen, who has written books about Frank Sinatra, Louis Armstrong, John Wayne, Robert Louis Stevenson and Boris Karloff among others, Black Diamond is based on 150 interviews with people from Theron's life on earth thus far. Follow the book at Facebook.

Cowboys, Armageddon, and the Truth: How a Gay Child Was Saved from Religion by Scott Terry

In Cowboys, Armageddon, and The Truth: How a Gay Child Was Saved from Religion, Scott Terry offers an illuminating glimpse into a child’s sequestered world of abuse, homophobia, and religious extremism. Scott Terry’s memoir is a compelling, poignant and occasionally humorous look into the Jehovah’s Witness faith—a religion that refers to itself as The Truth—and a brave account of Terry's successful escape from a troubled past.

At the age of ten, Terry had embraced the Witnesses’ prediction that the world will come to an end in 1975 and was preparing for Armageddon. As an adolescent, he prayed for God to strip away his growing attraction to other young men. But by adulthood, Terry found himself no longer believing in the promised apocalypse. Through a series of adventures and misadventures, he left the Witness religion behind and became a cowboy, riding bulls in the rodeo. He overcame the hurdles of parental abuse, religious extremism, and homophobia and learned that Truth is a concept of honesty rather than false righteousness, a means to live life openly as a gay man. Follow Cowboys on Facebook.

Nashville Book Clubs

Two area book clubs meet monthly at OutCentral. The first, the OutCentral Book Club, reads contemporary award winners and meets the third Thursday of every month at 6 p.m.. Their July selection is The Round House by Louise Erdrich, a recent National Book Award Winner.

The Round House- One Sunday in the spring of 1988, a woman living on a reservation in North Dakota is attacked. The details of the crime are slow to surface as Geraldine Coutts is traumatized and reluctant to relive or reveal what happened, either to the police or to her husband, Bazil, and thirteen-year-old son, Joe. Increasingly alone, Joe finds himself thrust prematurely into an adult world for which he is ill prepared. While his father, who is a tribal judge, endeavors to wrest justice from a situation that defies his efforts, Joe becomes frustrated with the official investigation and sets out with his trusted friends, Cappy, Zack, and Angus, to get some answers of his own. Their quest takes them first to the Round House, a sacred space and place of worship for the Ojibwe. And this is only the beginning.

For more information contact del.ray@outcentral.org

The second, a Gay Men’s Book Club led by Vanderbilt librarian Larry Romans, meets the third Sunday of each month at 3 p.m.. Focusing on primarily gay male-themed fiction, their July selection is The Paternity Test by Michael Lowenthal.

The Paternity Test- Having a baby to save a marriage—it’s the oldest of clichés. But what if the marriage at risk is a gay one, and having a baby involves a surrogate mother?

In one of the first novels to explore the experience of gay men seeking a child through surrogacy, Michael Lowenthal writes passionately about marriages and mistakes, loyalty and betrayal, and about how our drive to create families can complicate the ones we already have. The Paternity Test is a provocative look at the new “family values."

For more information, join the club's Yahoo group at nashvillegaybookclub-subscribe@yahoogroups.com.