Journalist and book aficionado Claire Gummer gives her pick of 2004's best LGBT reads. It's not every year a gay writer wins the Booker Prize. In fact, it's never happened before. So Alan Hollinghurst's fourth novel THE LINE OF BEAUTY has to be number one on this list. What's more, Hollinghurst is coming to NZ in 2005 for the Auckland Writers and Readers Festival, so there's another incentive to familiarise yourself with this acclaimed book. The Line of Beauty is set amid Britain's Tory set during the Thatcher era and stars gay man Nick Guest. The chair of the Booker's judging panel (who happens to be gay) has described it as “exciting, brilliantly written... the search for love, sex and beauty is rarely so exquisitely done.” There are a few links between A Line of Beauty and the second book on my list: THE MASTER by Irishman Colm Toibin. Both were on this year's Booker shortlist; both have gay authors; Hollinghurst's novel makes mention of the American writer Henry James and Toibin's brings him centre-stage. James is widely perceived either to have been homosexual himself or to have had an “unresolved” sexual identity. The Master has had great reviews from world-renowned gay writers Edmund White and Michael Cunningham, and it received a lot of attention when Toibin visited New Zealand in 2004. Of course, this country has its own book awards, and all three novels on the shortlist for this year's Montana Deutz Medal have gay themes (this is unprecedented!). All three are also set in New Zealand's past. The winner was SLOW WATER: lesbian Annamarie Jagose's exquisite and evocative account of the missionary William Yate's life, loves and downfall. The runners-up were Maurice Gee's THE SCORNFUL MOON and Peter Wells' IRIDESCENCE. Peter Wells also makes an appearance in the NEW PENGUIN BOOK OF GAY SHORT STORIES, a fat little collection whose cover is a delicate shade of pink (don't let that put you off). It's an update of an earlier volume and is edited by David Leavitt and Mark Mitchell. Not all the writers included are gay men: one of the stand-out stories - Brokeback Mountain - is by Annie Proulx, who tells the incredibly moving tale of two Wyoming cowboys. One of the more unusual books of the year is Monique Truong's debut novel, THE BOOK OF SALT. There's plenty between its covers to interest lesbians, gays and anyone who likes food. The central character is a gay Vietnamese chef whose employers are those international icons of lesbian togetherness, Gertrude Stein and Alice B Toklas. David Sedaris's new collection of autobiographical comedy - DRESS YOUR FAMILY IN CORDUROY AND DENIM - has already made it onto at least one mainstream list of the year's best books. I think it's a must for any queer list as well. Although I've only just started reading, it promises to be just as funny as his earlier book Me Talk Pretty One Day. Sedaris has a wonderfully wry gay take on family life (and he's one of the few American writers/performers who knows what irony is and can use it well). Back home again, and GHOST DANCE by Douglas Wright is surely a contender for next year's Montana Book Awards. Douglas is one of New Zealand's best dancers and choreographers - some would say he's THE best - and his considerable abilities as a writer are to the fore in this memoir/love story. Ghost Dance takes us from centre-stage in New York and London to the back rooms of Manhattan's gay baths. It's far too easy to get the name of local design expert Douglas Lloyd Jenkins confused with those of two fellow NZ gay/artistic notables - choreographer Douglas Wright and writer Douglas Jenkin - not to mention American architect Frank Lloyd Wright. I hope we'll soon get it right because Douglas Lloyd Jenkins deserves major recognition for AT HOME - A CENTURY OF NEW ZEALAND DESIGN. This beautiful new coffee-table book examines New Zealand's architecture, fine art and ‘homeware' (such as furniture and pottery) in an integrated way. I'm convinced that it will be in the running for next year's Montanas. Another stylish new publication comes from Hinemoana Baker - a writer, musician and broadcaster who is very much part of Wellington's queer community. MATUHI - NEEDLE, Baker's first collection of writing, has been co-published by Victoria University Press and Lord of the Rings star Viggo Mortensen's Perceval Press. It features impressive, insightful poems with a strong Maori focus, is beautifully illustrated by Ngai Tahu artist Jenny Rendall and comes with a CD on which Baker reads several poems and sings a song she's written. When Charmaine Pountney launched Sue Fitchett's new book of poems at the Women's Bookshop recently, she mentioned the insights that Fitchett's lesbian feminism and work as a clinical psychologist bring to this volume, PALAVER LAVA QUEEN. For anyone who finds that off-putting I should mention that this is a wonderful collection: acutely aware of the queen city and its volcanoes, yet playful and powerful far beyond the Auckland isthmus. I found the book so inspiring that I put fingers to keyboard in a grand poetic endeavour as soon as I got home from the launch. This “best books” list wouldn't be complete without a couple of titles aimed at teen readers. Veteran Kiwi writer William Taylor's THE BLUE LAWN won the Children's Book Award for Senior Fiction after its first publication here in 1994. That outraged the homophobes, because the book's subject (very sensitively dealt with) is the love between two teenaged boys. For a long time this novel was available only in an American edition but it's been republished locally in 2004 - the second title to appear in the Collins Modern New Zealand Classics series. (Taylor came out on National Radio this year in a superb interview with Kim Hill.) Finally, American Brent Hartinger's novel Geography Club is a delightful, easy-read story about a bunch of queer high-school kids who decide to hang out together. They figure that by calling themselves the Geography Club, they will keep sticky-beaks away and stay out of trouble themselves. The book has had fantastic reviews; I'd recommend it for any teen who's ever felt like an outsider. Claire Gummer is a former express editor who works in publishing. She talks books once a fortnight on the G