A riveting, powerful telling of the story of the grassroots movement of activists, many of them in a life-or-death struggle, who seized upon scientific research to help develop the drugs that turned HIV from a mostly fatal infection to a manageable disease. Ignored by public officials, religious leaders, and the nation at large, and confronted with shame and hatred, this small group of men and women chose to fight for their right to live by educating themselves and demanding to become full partners in the race for effective treatments. Around the globe, 16 million people are alive today thanks to their efforts. Not since the publication of Randy Shilts's classic And the Band Played On has a book measured the AIDS plague in such brutally human, intimate, and soaring terms. In dramatic fashion, we witness the founding of ACT UP and TAG (Treatment Action Group), and the rise of an underground drug market in opposition to the prohibitively expensive (and sometimes toxic) AZT. We watch as these activists learn to become their own researchers, lobbyists, drug smugglers, and clinicians, establishing their own newspapers, research journals, and laboratories, and as they go on to force reform in the nation s disease-fighting agencies. With his unparalleled access to this community David France illuminates the lives of extraordinary characters, including the closeted Wall Street trader-turned-activist, the high school dropout who found purpose battling pharmaceutical giants in New York, the South African physician who helped establish the first officially recognized buyers club at the height of the epidemic, and the public relations executive fighting to save his own life for the sake of his young daughter. Expansive yet richly detailed, this is an insider's account of a pivotal moment in the history of American civil rights. Powerful, heart-wrenching, and finally exhilarating, How to Survive a Plague is destined to become an essential part of the literature of AIDS.

    This timely collection of essays by writers such as Patrick Califia, Kate Bornstein, Carol Queen, Charlie Anders, Benjamin Shepard, and others shows what the new queer resistance looks like. Intended as a fistful of rocks to throw at the glass house of Gaylandia, the book challenges the commercialized, commoditized, and hyper objectified view of gay/queer identity projected by the mainstream (straight and gay) media by exploring queer struggles to transform gender, revolutionize sexuality, and build community/family outside of traditional models. Essays include "Dr. Laura, Sit on My Face," "Gay Art Guerrillas," "Legalized Sodomy Is Political Foreplay," and "Queer Parents: An Oxymoron or Just Plain Moronic?"

    Here is his story of growing up gay in America.

    A rent boy with a heart of gold. These two will leave you breathless in more ways than one. Get five books for the price of one in this hotter-than-you-can-handle bundle! Jacob's never really found the "right" person for him, which is why he's left a virgin nearing his 30th birthday. Finally giving in, he hires a rent boy to break him in gently. He isn't expecting it to turn into more. Evan is highly sought-after rent boy with one goal: keep his customers happy. When that turns out to mean visiting his virgin billionaire over and over again, never quite sealing the deal, he's left wondering why the man keeps seeking him out. And why Jacob seems like he's teetering on the brink of jealousy. Will Evan manage to break down Jacob's steel-plated walls? Or will Jacob keep the world from seeing who he really is forever? These five titles are intended for adults only. Grab this bundle now to swoon over friends becoming lovers, swanky billionaires, first-timers, virgins, and so much more. Remember, no matter what, there's always a happily ever after by the last page and no cheating!

    There were. Like thousands of other young people, Jones, nearly penniless, was drawn in the early 1970s to San Francisco, a city electrified by progressive politics and sexual freedom.Jones found community--in the hotel rooms and ramshackle apartments shared by other young adventurers, in the city's bathhouses and gay bars like The Stud, and in the burgeoning gay district, the Castro, where a New York transplant named Harvey Milk set up a camera shop, began shouting through his bullhorn, and soon became the nation's most outspoken gay elected official. With Milk's encouragement, Jones dove into politics and found his calling in "the movement." When Milk was killed by an assassin's bullet in 1978, Jones took up his mentor's progressive mantle--only to see the arrival of AIDS transform his life once again.By turns tender and uproarious--and written entirely in his own words--When We Rise is Jones' account of his remarkable life. He chronicles the heartbreak of losing countless friends to AIDS, which very nearly killed him, too; his co-founding of the San Francisco AIDS Foundation during the terrifying early years of the epidemic; his conception of the AIDS Memorial Quilt, the largest community art project in history; the bewitching story of 1970s San Francisco and the magnetic spell it cast for thousands of young gay people and other misfits; and the harrowing, sexy, and sometimes hilarious stories of Cleve's passionate relationships with friends and lovers during an era defined by both unprecedented freedom and possibility, and prejudice and violence alike.When We Rise is not only the story of a hero to the LQBTQ community, but the vibrantly voice memoir of a full and transformative American life--an activist whose work continues today.

    From the "a-ha" moment in junior high school that inspired his very first guitar, Taylor has been living the American dream, crafting quality products with his own hands and building a successful, sustainable business. In Guitar Lessons, he shares the values that he lives by and that have provided the foundation for the company's success. Be inspired by a story of guts and gumption, an unwavering commitment to quality, and the hard lessons that made Taylor Guitars the company it is today.

    Hiding among the choir, he was content to be ignored at school. But in order to make his singing dreams come true and win the scholarship, he has to push aside that shyness and stand out. When new kid, Maverick Cole shows up, all of Ashton’s plans are thrown into chaos. Now he has to work with his new duet partner to perfect their song for the biggest choir competition in the country. The moment things start to look up, Ashton suddenly finds himself at the lowest point in his life. His new friend steps in to save him, proving their friendly rivalry might be more than friendship, on and off the stage. If only he could tell Maverick how he really feels. With his heart and his future on the line, will Maverick and Ashton be able to work together to make this work or will the pressure of winning tear them apart? The stakes are high, so Ashton will have to be ready to not only stand out, but come out. Especially if he wants to win both the competition and his Maverick’s heart. Besides, who needs therapy when you have harmony? *The Boy I Love The Most is a young adult gay romance*

    Stoner and Peter A. Conway tell for the first time in full detail the twisted story of a pair of young, aspiring gay adult film producers whose quest for fame at any cost leads to the gruesome murder of the man who stands in their way, gay porn entrepreneur Bryan Kocis.News of the killing of the forty-four-year-old (stabbed twenty-eight times, his throat slashed to near decapitation) in his suburban home sends shock waves through the bucolic Pennsylvania town. Neighbors were horrified to hear about the murder but equally astonished to learn that Kocis ran a small but thriving online porn operation from his home.The murder investigation leads police and prosecutors to the far reaches of the country, from Virginia to New York City, to Las Vegas, and ultimately to a nude beach in San Diego, where investigators facilitate an incredible clandestine suspect surveillance. The manhunt nets Harlow Cuadra and his lover Joseph Kerekes, both former military men, turned male models, turned hustlers, turned porn producers, who finally land at the bottom of a deadly conspiracy.Cobra Killer takes readers into the sometimes alluring, sometimes dangerous and often surprising world of gay porn and the deceit, schemes, and ultimate betrayals lying underneath the fantasy.

    Born into a Metis family of Cree, Scottish, English and French descent, but never told of his heritage, Gregory knew he was different, his feelings of displacement only heightened by a family life marked by poverty, illness, abuse and loss. Separated from his mother when he was just five, sent to live with strangers and extended family, he tried to make sense of a world which often didn't make any sense at all. As he grew, clinging to the edge of an already misunderstood society, Gregory faced his own diversity and rejection from the Native community, who were unable to accept him for himself.This is Gregory Scofield's traumatic, tender and redeeming story of his fight to discover himself -- a young man who has become an acclaimed, award-winning poet, celebrated for his sensual imagery and lyrical use of Cree words and rhythms. He is a gifted writer, inspired by his heritage, his "brothers and sisters, " and his art. Thunder Through My Veins is proof of that art, a story of wholeness, of a young man finally able to harmonize often very disparate voices into one joyful song. Universal in its themes and in the delicate but powerful emotional moments that speak to all readers, Thunder Through My Veins is a beautiful, painful and tremendously hopeful book.

    Just two years after the Stonewall riots, Miller wrote an essay for the New York Times Magazine entitled "What It Means To Be a Homosexual" in response to a homophobic article in Harper's Magazine. Miller's writing, described as "the most widely read and discussed essay of the decade," along with an afterword chronicling his inspiration and readers' responses, became On Being Different — one of the earliest memoirs to affirm the importance of coming out. This updated edition includes a foreword by Dan Savage and an afterword by Charles Kaiser to highlight the impact of Miller's classic work.

    Provocative and inspiring, Radical Hope offers readers a kaleidoscopic view of the love and courage needed to navigate this time of upheaval, uncertainty, and fear, in view of the recent US presidential election.

    From the stirrings of his adolescent libido to his eventual death from AIDS, Oscar Moore's hero confronts his destiny with raw candour, shocking self-awareness, and frightening fatalism.

    This book will stay with me the rest of my life. ...I wish this book could be distributed to every church and made required reading." Amazon Reviewer AndreamsCan a gay person change--with the help of Hugh Hefner and Jesus Christ? Few social issues ignite such passion from all sides. For those who see homosexuality as immoral and a sin, the notion of "gay marriage" is intolerable. For those who are gay, being demonized and shamed is simply intolerant. Bryan Christopher's life has been spent straddling this great divide.As a boy raised under the blinding Friday Night Lights of the Bible belt of Texas--from the playground to the pulpit--one message was clear: "queers" deserved to be smeared. And at the dawn of puberty, Bryan knew he was in trouble: he was staring limply at the pages of his dad's Playboy. That's when the hiding began. And in his neck of the woods, it left him with one option: change! "Hiding from Myself: A Memoir" chronicles the author's zealous crusade: from ringing doorbells for Jesus in the Castro of San Francisco to sorting through Hugh Hefner's dirty laundry as a butler at the Playboy Mansion; from the beer-soaked trenches of his UCLA fraternity house to wholehearted immersion into "ex-gay" conversion therapy.With this raw and moving testimony, the author offers healing and a fresh perspective on perhaps the most divisive cultural issue of our time. Bryan's story is not a "gay" story or even an "ex-gay" story; his is a human story--a testament to the innate universal need for love. And the things that can sometimes get in the way...

     Glen Retief's childhood was at once recognizably ordinary--and brutally unusual.Raised in the middle of a game preserve where his father worked, Retief's warm nuclear family was a preserve of its own, against chaotic forces just outside its borders: a childhood friend whose uncle led a death squad, while his cultured grandfather quoted Shakespeare at barbecues and abused Glen's sister in an antique-filled, tobacco-scented living room.But it was when Retief was sent to boarding school, that he was truly exposed to human cruelty and frailty. When the prefects were caught torturing younger boys, they invented "the jack bank," where underclassmen could save beatings, earn interest on their deposits, and draw on them later to atone for their supposed infractions. Retief writes movingly of the complicated emotions and politics in this punitive all-male world, and of how he navigated them, even as he began to realize that his sexuality was different than his peers'.