<p><b>The first novel in the beloved</b><b><i>Tales of the City</i></b><b>series, Armistead Maupin¿s best-selling San Francisco saga, is an uproariously moving novel and an indelible portrait of cultural change from the seventies.<br><br>Named as one of the BBC¿s 100 Most Inspiring Novels,</b><b>a PBS Great American Read Top 100 Pick and Britain¿s favourite gay/lesbian novel from <i>The Big Gay Read</i></b><br><i><b>____________________</b></i><br><br>Originally serialised in the <i>San Francisco Chronicle </i>in the 1970s<i>,</i> Armistead Maupin¿s <i>Tales of the City</i> afforded a mainstream audience of millions its first exposure to straight and gay characters experiencing on equal terms the follies of urban life.<br><br>Among the cast of this ground-breaking saga are the lovelorn residents of 28 Barbary Lane: the bewildered but aspiring Mary Ann Singleton, the libidinous Brian Hawkins; Mona Ramsey, still in a sixties trance, Michael ''Mouse'' Tolliver, forever in bright-eyed purs