This book, by Lurleen Johnson, is a quirky and irreverent lexicon of all things lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender, including the history of everyday words attached to gay sub-culture, heroes and villains, sexual practices, useful web addresses and recommendations from the worlds of film, TV and literature, written in Lurleen's unique style. This unique style which seems unique to every drag queen (Ah jest wanted ta tell everyone that ma ……) I meet these days is an Irving Welsh style of Southern Drawl and it really irritated me after a short while, however to be fair my mate loved it and she has been quoting from it all month! (which has irritated me even more)

I didn’t learn anything new from this book, but then I’m an LGBT trivia freak but this is the perfect book to have on a shelf in the toilet or next to the sofa when you’re fingers are worn out from zapping channels. My mother loved it. It’s full of smoothly interesting factlets tucked into Lureens particular take on the words we all use in Queer Land every day and Simona Connelly aka Lurleen has certainly done lots of research. The entry for 'mince' kept me giggling for days.

One HUGE complain’moan darling, the setting out! Who in their right mind convinced your editor to typeset the book like that? It looks like it’s been cut and pasted out of Word 97.  A real pity as it distracted me from the enjoyment of reading through out this.


Lurleen is white trailer trash in the best John Walters varicose vein and there are flashes of genius in this book too, but you’d have to be aware of contemporary American/UK culture and politics to get some of them. The effortless charming way that this book unfolds, with some lovely colour photo’s of Lurleen in action made this slip down easier, I particular liked Lurleens smooth dismissals and deconstructions of some of our more unpleasant enemies.

Well done Madam, a good addition to any LGBT bookshelf or library, now let’s sip some Mint Juleps and wait for the Egg Man together.

Out now from Amazon order here: