Secret Historian

I just finished reading Secret Historian: The Life and Times of Samuel Steward, Professor, Tattoo… by Justin Spring. If there's a better non-fiction book publish this year or in the last ten, let me know. For more check out my review.

I didn't know about this book; I must read it. I find Steward endlessly fascinating. He led such varied lives!

Thanks - I've just gone to my library's website and put it on hold. Seems pretty popular! All copies are either checked out or on hold.

Is it bad that I've memorized my library card #?

Nor did I know about it, so thank you for posting your comments.

Nine copies in the Toronto Public system and 45 holds. It will be a while before I get to it.

Is it bad that I've memorized my library card #?
If it is then I must be in a really bad way, I have mine memorized as well as the # of OH's card. :)

The NYT reviews and the former (retired) facilitator of our defunct local gay reading club both steered me quickly to the Steward bio. For anyone who's intrigued by the archival challenges facing the biographer of a deceased, two elements leap out in this work: the priceless availability of an attic-full of fetishistic and miscellaneous memorabilia (courtesy of a dedicated Berkeley librarian professional) and the (scarcely outlined, but the hints are intriguing) somewhat vaster repertoire of "secure and classified" (and on occasion just "recorded received, but lost and irretrievable") material at the Kinsey Institute.
That having been said, anyone interested in Steward's generation (born in the teens), or gay academics who reinvented themselves in totally new venues and uncharted waters, would enjoy this. As someone who's lived in both Chicago and Berkeley I was fascinated by the local history dimension providing backdrop for his lives. Gay biography and memoir is such a deep vein it deserves more thoughtful comment later, but let me just add you can do worse than the Felice Picano triptych (Men Who Loved Me; A House on the Ocean A House on the Bay; and Art and Sex in Greenwich Village) or Edmund White (fiction and non-fiction).

The author is speaking at the Border's in Chicago's Lincoln Park neighborhood tonight. Unfortunately, I can't make it.

I expect it will be a bit of a party, because, in other news, Illinois passed civil union legislation today.