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By Jan Wahl\u2014<\/p>\n
Every neighborhood should have a bookstore or a library within easy reach. In college, I lived at Castro and 22nd and would hang out at A Different Light bookstore down the street. It\u2019s now Fabulosa Books, and it is still very cool.<\/p>\n
Owner Alvin Orloff makes sure it is well-stocked with queer memoirs, obscure literary gems, books for kids, coffee table art books, and more. Since I am a book nerd, I was thrilled to talk to the Assistant General Manager, Dylan Lalanne-Perkins. She started by telling me about a runaway hit at the bookstore: a gay hockey romance called Heated Rivalry (which inspired the HBO Max series) by Rachel Reid. It\u2019s part of a series of books combining sports and romance. Dylan said that gays, lesbians, and allies enjoy this series equally. Another popular choice is Deep House: The Gayest Love Story Ever Told, a memoir of gay music and marriage history by Jeremy Atherton Lin.<\/p>\n
I asked Dylan about one of my favorite authors, Oscar Wilde, and was excited to learn that there is a new biography called After Oscar: The Legacy of a Scandal by Merlin Holland. I will be ordering that from their online service (https:\/\/www.fabulosabooks.com\/) or by calling them (415-658-7015).<\/p>\n
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I love to buy books as gifts, including coffee table art books. Since I\u2019ve been trying to get the Rainbow Honor Walk to highlight two amazing women who lived as out-of-the-closet lesbians, I asked about classic Hollywood director Dorothy Arzner and the diaries of Anne Lister, often called the first modern lesbian. It\u2019s wonderful to have a resource such as Fabulosa Books, and they have a book club that meets every week, too!<\/p>\n
Right now, I am joyfully digging into a book about Madeline Kahn\u2014Madeline Kahn: Being the Music, A Life\u2014by William V. Madison. This detailed biography answers my big question: What was Madeline thinking when she did the \u201cI\u2019m Tired\u201d musical number from Blazing Saddles? At the same time, I\u2019m reading City of Dreams: The Making and Remaking of Universal Pictures by Bernard F. Dick. Like I said, I\u2019m a real book nerd.<\/p>\n
One of my favorites is the Hollywood Scandal Almanac: 12 Months of Sinister, Salacious, and Senseless History by Jerry Roberts. From Bugsy Siegel\u2019s killing to Tyrone Power\u2019s on-set duel that killed him, every day brings some new crazy Hollywood story. Once in a while, I veer into the cold winds of Alaska and study the Gold Rush, if it\u2019s juicy enough for me. Right now, I\u2019ve got Klondike Fever: The Life and Death of the Last Great Gold Rush by Pierre Berton. My favorite look at this period is Lael Morgan\u2019s Good Time Girls of Alaska.<\/p>\n
Books open the world to all of us. How else could I go back to the 1800s and shake hands with Anne Lister, get to know the great Oscar Wilde, or understand how a major movie studio works? Books give it all to us.<\/p>\n
Jan Wahl is a Hollywood historian and film critic on various broadcast outlets. She has two Emmys and many awards for her longtime work on behalf of film buffs and the LGBTQ community.<\/p>\n
Off the Wahl
Published on July 17, 2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Jan Wahl\u2014 Every neighborhood should have a bookstore or a library within easy reach. In college, I…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":401906,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[101,103,102,104,106,105],"class_list":["post-401905","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-francisco","tag-san-francisco","tag-san-francisco-headlines","tag-san-francisco-news","tag-sf","tag-sf-headlines","tag-sf-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/401905","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=401905"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/401905\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/401906"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=401905"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=401905"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=401905"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}