The Constitution Murders

Conover Hunt at the Hampton Yacht Club

Having majored in history in college, I love a good history book.  I also love a good mystery/suspense book, especially one with foreign intrigue.  In the Constitution Murders, available on Amazon, our dear friend, Conover Hunt has created a combination of the two.  Yes, many characters are fictional, but woven throughout are real nuggets of history - something Conover knows well given that she has written 7 or 8 history works and was the creator of the Book Depository museum in Dallas, Texas (she's an expert on the Madison administration and the JFK assassination).  She even works in a thread involving the Romanov dynasty - something of interest to me since Anna Anderson (who said she was the Grand Duchess Anastasia) was one of my neighbors in Charlottesville many years ago.  Also in the book are insider glimpses of Hampton and Richmond.

Regression in Norfolk - Loss of Lambda Rising

Last night I happened by the only gay book store in the area, Lambda Rising, and was disturbed to find out that the store will be closing at the end of June. When I asked why the store was closing, I was told that the gay community just did not support the store sufficiently. This is symptomatic of the biggest problem with the gay community here: too many are hiding “under the radar,” they do not support gay vendors and businesses as they should. To me, the area gays need to do what the small but very successful Jewish and Greek area communities have done for many, many years. Namely, when needing a service or commodity, if there is a community member that can provide what is sought as opposed to taking one’s business to a non-community member, they ALWAYS give the business to their fellow community member. Why give business to someone how hates you or doesn’t support your equal rights. To me, it’s a simple concept. I hope that perhaps HRBOR can help this stupidity cease.

As for Lambda Rising, while it has the obligatory gay porn magazines and videos, the bulk of its merchandise is (1) quality books on gay themes and issues or by gay authors, (2) great music CD’s and (3) gay themed movies that – OMG – have a real plot and story line. Among the book section, there are many books on religion and spirituality that I found to be an immeasurable resource in working through my coming out and religious recovery process. It will be a tremendous loss to the LBGT community not to have this resource. The b/f and I will greatly miss the store and will have to take advantage of the going out of business prices to stock up.