The Unofficial Gay Manual [Paperback]

Kevin DiLallo (Author), Jack Krumholtz (Author), Robert Hickey (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 1, 1994

Featuring essays, multiple-choice and true-false tests, lists, sidebars, and charts, the humorous but useful handbook for the gay lifestyle includes ""10 Things Not to Say When Telling Your Mother"" and ""A Guide to Gay Flora and Fauna.""

Product Details

• Paperback: 240 pages
• Publisher: Main Street Books; 1st edition (October 1, 1994)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0385474458
• ISBN-13: 978-0385474450
• Product Dimensions: 8.1 x 5.5 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #179,353 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars A Little too Close to be Funny, March 31, 2001

By 

Jonathan Burgoine "bookseller" (Ottawa, Ontario Canada) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Unofficial Gay Manual (Paperback)

A laughing friend thrust this book into my hands, saying that it had really made him laugh. I took it home, and sat down with it, and started to chuckle. But by the end of the book, I wasn't laughing nearly as much as I thought I would.

Here's the deal: It's not really all that funny, because although it's right on the nose and pokes a lot of fun at our own gay ideosyncracies, the book is also showing just how shallow, lacking, and fundamentally messed up gay culture is.

Now, I'm certainly not going to say that this wasn't a pleasure to read, it just left me with a melancholy feeling: Gosh, isn't it sad that we're pretty much just a joke. It was fun, but sometimes bitter, light, but sometimes kind of mean, this book seems to adeptly sum up the so-called gay culture: Laughable, but not all that funny sometimes, and very often pretty damned sad and lacking in self-esteem.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Lent it out and never saw it again..., March 28, 2004

By A Customer

This review is from: The Unofficial Gay Manual (Paperback)

I first bought this hilarious book in 1995 at the UBC bookstore, and its humour helped me through a difficult time. Having grown up in small-town Alberta, I had always associated being openly gay with shame and fear, but this book light-heartedly revealed a world I had no idea of (remember, this was pre-Internet time and there were no bookstores with gay and lesbian literature sections.)

I read it several times before lending it to a friend, and both were soon long gone. I've been looking for it ever since and just today I chanced upon it here and immediately ordered it.

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Whimsical and true to life too., June 10, 2000

By 

John W. Morse (Albany NY) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Unofficial Gay Manual (Paperback)

Delightful, expert mixing of deadpan-style narration and photographs. Thoughtfully-written work is another fabulous creative triumph for gay and lesbian brethren. I recommend "...Living The Lifestyle" for skeptical "straight" folks as a great ice-breaker, conversation-starter, and laugh-inducer. So much in book sounds "true to life", e.g., beginning and ending relationships in tongue-in-cheek manner. Just seeing the cover of this book always brings a genuine smile to my 37-year-old face. Carefree guy.