news | Tuesday February 13, 2024

Happy Valentine's Day!

Chocolate and roses may be the cliché, but have you considered the ever-romantic book for Valentine’s Day? If you’re looking for love in all the literary places, allow us to recommend the following:

1. Blue Box by Carmen Aguirre is a sexy, fast-paced, and darkly comic memoir in the form of a one-woman play that follows Carmen, whose past has been interrupted and then shaped by the 1973 military coup that overthrew Salvador Allende, the democratically elected, socialist leader of Chile. She becomes a revolutionary, giving up everything for love of the cause. As an adult, Carmen once again unconditionally gives everything of herself – for love of a different kind. She begins a passionate but emotionally impossible relationship with a handsome Chicano TV star whom she pursues with abandon. Order a copy of Blue Box here.

2. From the vault, this iconic queer novel shook the bounds of what literature when it was first released in 1964. Desert of the Heart by Jane Rule follows Evelyn Hall, a literature professor who travels to Reno, Nevada in the summer of 1958 in order to obtain a divorce and thus put an end to her disastrous sixteen-year marriage. She is divorcing her husband on the advice of his psychiatrist because, this being the ’50s, he believes that Evelyn’s success is causing her husband’s depression. It is during her six-week stay at a boarding house that Evelyn meets Ann Childs, and everything changes. Pick up your copy of Desert of the Heart here.

3. It’s right in the name! Check out Rom Com by Dina Del Bucchia and Daniel Zomparelli. Vibrant and brimming with personality and charm, the poems in Rom Com deconstruct as well as engage in dialogue with romantic comedy films and the pop culture, celebrities, and tropes that have come to be associated with them. This dynamic duo of authors both have new books coming out with Talonbooks this spring, so watch this space! Grab a copy of Rom Com here.

Happy Valentine’s Day from all of us at Talonbooks!