If you read my posts over the weekend, you know that my Saturday lesbian fiction for the Kindle post was way long. I cut it short at five books and did the remaining five on Sunday. Well, yesterday the gay fiction post ran way long too. I cut that “Top 10″ post at the first five books also.

Here are the remaining five of the top ten most popular works of gay fiction currently published for the Amazon Kindle in order (as of today’s date, March 6th, 2012):

Come Unto These Yellow Sands by one of the biggest names in gay mystery fiction, Josh Lanyon. At the time of my writing, this book had 33 reader ratings and 32 of those were 5 stars. The lone 3 star reviewer made some valid points too it would seem though most people did not agree with him. The synopsis: “Lover of fine poetry and lousy choose-your-own-adventure novels, Professor Sebastian Swift was once the bad-boy darling of the literati. The only lines he does these days are Browning, Frost and Cummings. Even his relationship with the hot, handsome Wolfe Neck Police Chief Max Prescott is healthy. When one of his most talented students comes to him bruised and begging for help, Swift hands over the keys to his Orson Island cabin—only to find out that the boy’s father is dead and the police are suspicious. In an instant, the stable life Swift has built for himself hangs on finding the boy and convincing him to give himself up before Max figures out Swift’s involvement in the case. Max enjoys splitting an infinitive or two with his favorite nutty professor, but he’s not much for sonnets or Shakespeare. He likes being lied to even less. Yet his instincts—and his heart—tell him his lover is being played. Max can forgive lies and deception, but a dangerous enemy may not stop until Swift is heading up his own dead poet’s society.”

Between Sinners And Saints by Marie Sexton, the author of many male/male romance novels. “Levi Binder is a Miami bartender who cares about only two things: sex and surfing. Ostracized by his Mormon family for his homosexuality, Levi is determined to live his life his own way, but everything changes when he meets massage therapist Jaime Marshall. Jaime is used to being alone. Haunted by the horrors of his past, his only friend is his faithful dog, Dolly. He has no idea how to handle somebody as gorgeous and vibrant as Levi. Complete opposites on the surface, Levi and Jaime both long for something that they can only find together. Through love and the therapeutic power of touch, they’ll find a way to heal each other, and they’ll learn to live as sinners in a family of saints.”

The Painting of Porcupine City: A Novel by popular gay fiction author Ben Monopoli. “Brazilian graffiti artist Mateo Amaral is looking for his heaven spot, the one perfect place to paint. His coworker Fletcher Bradford is looking for a heaven spot of his own, and his is even more elusive. Out since age 12, Fletcher’s been around more blocks than Mateo has ever painted. He’s dated all the jerks, all the creeps, all the losers in between. At 26 he’s decided the only way to meet a nice guy is just never to give him a chance to prove otherwise. When he’s introduced to Mateo, Fletcher expects to add another notch to his bedpost. But Mateo is different–and from him Fletcher will rediscover a long-lost feeling: surprise. What Fletcher finds in the trunk of Mateo’s car will change his life in ways he never imagined–and may help him find what he’s always wanted.”

The Cranberry Hush: A Novel also by Ben Monopoli (published a few months before Porcupine City). “Vince Dandro might be going through the quietest quarter-life crisis of all time. He lives alone, works at a comic book shop, and has a crush on his coworker he can’t seem to act on. His life is just fine, but only just fine. Everything changes when Vince’s long-lost friend Griff shows up at his house in the middle of a blizzard. They were roommates in college, so close back then that Griff’s girlfriend called them “lifebuddies” — but Vince’s love for Griff ended the friendship, he thought, forever. They haven’t spoken in years. Why has Griff shown up again? And, more importantly, can Vince handle his return? Vince and Griff are two twentysomethings struggling to find their places in the world and in each other’s lives. This is a story of friendship and love, both unrequited and requited, and learning how to fly through the post-college void, where sometimes the only sound you can hear is The Cranberry Hush.”

And last, but by no means whatsoever least, is the book that – because of its 466 mostly 4 star+ reader ratings and counting – pops to the top of almost any LGBT or gay book search on Amazon:

  The Picture of Dorian Gray The literary classic by the bisexual/gay author Oscar Wilde.  I read this in high school over 25 years ago. I didn’t get it all then. It was too much for my early teenage brain to handle. The bonus is that I can read it now again, free for the Kindle (or people who just have the Kindle software for now like me).

The Amazon review:

“A lush, cautionary tale of a life of vileness and deception or a loving portrait of the aesthetic impulse run rampant? Why not both? After Basil Hallward paints a beautiful, young man’s portrait, his subject’s frivolous wish that the picture change and he remain the same comes true. Dorian Gray’s picture grows aged and corrupt while he continues to appear fresh and innocent. After he kills a young woman, “as surely as if I had cut her little throat with a knife,” Dorian Gray is surprised to find no difference in his vision or surroundings. “The roses are not less lovely for all that. The birds sing just as happily in my garden.”

As Hallward tries to make sense of his creation, his epigram-happy friend Lord Henry Wotton encourages Dorian in his sensual quest with any number of Wildean paradoxes, including the delightful “When we are happy we are always good, but when we are good we are not always happy.” But despite its many languorous pleasures, The Picture of Dorian Gray is an imperfect work. Compared to the two (voyeuristic) older men, Dorian is a bore, and his search for ever new sensations far less fun than the novel’s drawing-room discussions. Even more oddly, the moral message of the novel contradicts many of Wilde’s supposed aims, not least “no artist has ethical sympathies. An ethical sympathy in an artist is an unpardonable mannerism of style.” Nonetheless, the glamour boy gets his just deserts. And Wilde, defending Dorian Gray, had it both ways: “All excess, as well as all renunciation, brings its own punishment.”

Two extremes of Amazon Kindles:

The most basic Kindle

The most advanced Kindle, The Kindle Fire