Literary Lesbians

Lesbian chick lit, Aussie crime or a bit of Harry Potter, whatever reading matter takes your fancy, there's a book group that's just right.

For marketing specialist Sally, 31, being part of the Literary Lesbian Book Club feeds both social and intellectual wants. The book club was started by her friend Samantha and another woman in May last year. "They were saying it would be really nice if they could read some literature either by lesbian authors or with lesbian themes," Sally says.

The group of 13 women, who range in age from early 20s to 40, meets every six weeks and welcomes new members (it is not a prerequisite to be a lesbian, although Sally says they have had only one member who wasn't).

The group researches authors, compiles a list of books, then votes, ending up with a final list of six to 10 books, most of which have to be ordered from overseas. Sally counts The Case of the Not-So-Nice Nurse by Mabel Maney as one of her favourites, although she says "some of the books we've read have been quite cheesy".

"It's certainly to get some more chick lit on our bookshelves that is lesbian themed, but it is also a bit of a social catch-up too. The last time I was looking around the room at all these really intelligent, great women and we were all just laughing away and it was just really, really nice."

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