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Man's World |  | Author: Rupert Smith
Publisher: ARCADIA BOOKS
Category: Book
List Price: £11.99
Buy New: £5.07
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New (17) Used (8) from £5.07
Seller: chaptersmedia_uk
Rating:  6 reviews
Sales Rank: 6327
Media: Paperback
Edition: First Edition
Pages: 220
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.8
Dimensions (in): 8.3 x 5.4 x 1
ISBN: 1906413401
Dewey Decimal Number: 823.914
EAN: 9781906413408
ASIN: 1906413401
Publication Date: February 18, 2010
Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days
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Product Description
London today: a world of sex and drugs and designer clothes, where Robert searches for fulfillment in gay clubs. London 50 years ago: Michael enters a secret queer underworld, negotiating the dangers of the law and the closet. Past and present collide when Robert moves into a new block of flats, and discovers that history is alive in his doorstep.
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| Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 1-5 of 6
 Genuinely unputdownable July 4, 2010
Stephen Tall (Oxford, UK)
It was the endorsement from the fantastic Jake Arnott which sold this book to me: "funny, dirty, deeply romantic". And, boy, does Man's World lives up to its billing.
Two gay Londons separated by half a century are intertwined: Robert's modern, narcissistic clubbing lifestyle, and Michael's grim, shadowy, closeted 1950s' National Service. Some of the mirroring of their stories is over-contrived - Robert's blog and Michael's diaries, Robert's uploaded Xtube exploits, Michael's naught nudie snaps - but the overall effect is terrific.
The characters are quickly, tightly, believably drawn: and it's because we care about them that this book (for once) lives up that dust-jacket cliche, `unputdownable'.
It is a man's world March 16, 2010
Edward Wilson (Chediston, Suffolk)
1 out of 3 found this review helpful
This excellent novel deserves a wide readership. Man's World is about the struggle to be free - and not just free in terms of sexuality. It is a book that celebrates the right of all us, gay and straight, to be hedonistic, narcissistic and to live the life we want to live. `I want to go out dancing, take drugs, listen to deafening music, show off my muscles and forget about everything...' Why not? All the characters in this book understand the risks they take. But there is no guilt and no recrimination. And when things go wrong - and someone ends up in prison or homeless - there is never any moaning or self-pity. The title is apt in the old fashioned sense of the term - as I suspect Rupert Smith intended. It is `a man's world' because you have to be tough, brave and non-complaining to live in it.
Pure, poignant truth, then and now February 24, 2010
Ventura Angelo (Brescia, Lombardia Italy)
4 out of 4 found this review helpful
Once upon a time, in Englan you could go to jail for being gay,even if you, like Alan Turing, helped save the world. you had to practiceyour "vice" in secret, in hidden places at night, Then homosexuality was decriminalized, then came the sexual revolution, a change of mores, and, AIDS and Margaret Thatcher's homophobia notwithstanding, now gays in london are free to live their life in the open, like the young protagonist of this novel, who we see move in his new apartment "helped" by a rather exploitive and egotistic friend. Parallel to the blog of the modern gay runs the secret diary of Mychael in the London of fifty years ago, till then and Now shall meet and appraise each other, both searching for love and happiness, but the old cowing in the underground, the new so often taking lightly for granted a freedom the old could only dream and had to fight hard to conquer.
This novel, deliciously witten, with very sympathetic and interesting characters, is one of the best gay novels i've rad. Highly recommended!
Step into the pages of "Man's World" and prepare to be seduced... February 19, 2010
Cora Pearl
8 out of 8 found this review helpful
This book is a rare treasure - an elegantly woven tapestry of gay life, moving deftly between modern-day gay London and the queer underworld of the 1950s. There are so many alluring things about "Man's World"...to name just a few...the way in which Rupert Smith captures the covert, sexy, shadowy world of the 1950s with such vivid intensity....the slow-burn sexual tension and longing in the unfolding relationship between Michael and the gorgeous prize-winning boxer Mervyn....the depiction of friendships between gay men being tentatively forged across generations. This bridging of generations has particular significance, as the younger gay men in the story begin to understand and appreciate the value of the older gay men: how these fabulous, fascinating and brave queens of the past paved the way for the younger gay men, in so many ways. Simultaneously laugh-out-loud funny, deeply thoughtful and breathtakingly sexy, this book will inspire, intrigue and seduce you. It's the first Rupert Smith book I've read and it was an absolute pleasure...can't wait to discover his other works...
Between two (gay) worlds February 16, 2010
S. Beretta (Milan, Italy)
10 out of 10 found this review helpful
Blurbs often say that a book is "unputdownable" or "a pageturner". If that is often a way to trick potential readers into buying worthless rubbish, it's not the case of Rupert Smith's "Man's World". What you have here is a real feast for the reader. When you start reading it, you must reach the end as soon as possible... and then you'd wish to have more and more. "Man's World" tells the fascinating story of a group of gay men in two very different times: England and London in the Fifties and nowadays. Those who take all our modern freedoms for granted hardly know how difficult it was then to live as a gay man and how many hurdles you had to overcome in order to simply survive. Robert (and his friend Jonathan) belong to those who don't know and don't care, as long as they can revel in their world made of drugs, sex, shopping and clubbing... But soon Robert meets 70-year-old Michael, his new neighbour, and discover his past. And little by little Robert understands how lucky he is and how grateful he should be to men like Michael and Stephen for fighting for him too. Written in the form of Michael's diary and Robert's weblog, "Man's world" is funny and sad, wise and moving, sexy and thoughtful. Not only is it extremely readable - in the best tradition of English speaking literature -, but it also conveys what once was called "a message", without ever being highbrow or boringly intellectual. Rupert Smith's best literary achievement so far.
Showing reviews 1-5 of 6
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