Book picks similar to
The Letters Of J. R. Ackerley by J.R. Ackerley
biography
biography-memoir-gay-bisexual
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letters
The Scarlet Professor: Newton Arvin: A Literary Life Shattered by Scandal
Barry Werth - 2001
He cultivated friendships with the likes of Edmund Wilson and Lillian Hellman and became mentor to Truman Capote. A social radical and closeted homosexual, the circumspect Arvin nevertheless survived McCarthyism. But in September 1960 his apartment was raided, and his cache of beefcake erotica was confiscated, plunging him into confusion and despair and provoking his panicked betrayal of several friends.An utterly absorbing chronicle, The Scarlet Professor deftly captures the essence of a conflicted man and offers a provocative and unsettling look at American moral fanaticism.
Love, Ellen: A Mother/Daughter Journey
Betty DeGeneres - 1999
Twenty years ago, during a walk on a Mississippi beach, Ellen DeGeneres spoke those simple, powerful words to her mother. That emotional moment eventually brought mother and daughter closer than ever, but it was not without a struggle. In Love, Ellen, Betty DeGeneres tells her story: the complicated path to acceptance and the deepening of her friendship with her daughter, the media's scrutiny of their family life, and the painful and often inspiring stories she's heard on the road as the first nongay spokesperson for the Human Rights Campaign's National Coming Out Project.Insightful, universally touching, and uncommonly wise, Love, Ellen is a story of friendship between mother and daughter and a lesson in understanding for all parents and their children.
Lucky Jim
James Hart - 2017
Charming, funny, and a great listener with a guru's insight, his success in life and business was based on his ability to connect with others, from people recovering in 12-step groups in Upstate New York to those living in the rarified air of Martha's Vineyard. But after 20+ years sober, one slip-up triggered an active addiction that threatened his relationships with his then-wife, singer-songwriter Carly Simon, his recovery friends, his severely disabled son, and even with himself as he began to confront his sexuality.
Buddy Babylon: The Autobiography of Buddy Cole
Scott Thompson - 1998
His outrageous monologues made him a legend on tv's The Kids in the Hall. Now he's back--with the life story only he could tell."My goal is not to shock and horrify, but to tell the truth. And if that truth shocks and horrifies, well . . . maybe you should get out more."Spinning martini-fueled tales from his stool in his favorite gay bar, acid-tongued raconteur Buddy Cole became one of The Kids in the Hall's most beloved and enduring characters. Now, brought to you by Kids star Scott Thompson with series writer Paul Bellini, Buddy Babylon takes you on a jaw-dropping tour of Buddy's flashy, trashy life, filled with tales of poignant, heart-wrenching romance, lurid sexual debauchery, the birth of synchronized swimming, and the ugly, never-before-revealed truth behind the Prettiest Feet in Quebec contest.Join Marco (Buddy's cosmetically challenged sidekick), Cornygirl (the loyal corncob doll who rarely leaves his side), and a cast of unforgettably offbeat characters as Buddy blazes a trail across the deep Canadian forest, through the darkest corners of the big city, and back to his signature barstool. From his humble beginnings as the twenty-third child of poor pig farmers, to his moment in the spotlight in the tabloids, Buddy Babylon lays bare a lifetime of madness, chaos, and things your mother warned you about--the essential Buddy Cole.After Kids' six-year run on CBS, HBO, Comedy Central, and the CBC in Canada, Scott Thompson joined the cast of the critically acclaimed HBO series The Larry Sanders Show. He is also a frequent guest on Politically Incorrect and The Late Show, and continues to do stand-up comedy, which includes performances in the character of Buddy Cole.
Double Life: A Love Story from Broadway to Hollywood
Alan Shayne - 2010
The human story at the center of this debate is told in Double Life: A Love Story, a dual memoir by a gay male couple in a 50 plus year relationship. With high profiles in the entertainment, advertising and art communities, the authors offer a virtual timeline of how gay relationships have gained acceptance in the last half-century. At the same time, they share inside stories from film, television and media featuring the likes of Marlon Brando, Katharine Hepburn, Rock Hudson, Barbra Streisand, Laurence Olivier, Truman Capote, Bette Davis, Robert Redford, Lee Radziwill and Frances Lear.“We both grew up at a time when homosexuality was not even spoken about,” the couple writes. “There were certainly no books that could help a young person understand that two people of the same sex could build a happy, productive and loving life together. When we entered our 50th year, another same sex couple told us we were ‘an inspiration’, so we began to feel we had the responsibility to make what we’ve experienced available to others. We also wanted to show people who were not gay that our life was not unlike theirs. We are all pretty much the same, so we deserve equal protection under the Constitution.”Alan Shayne retired as President of Warner Brothers Television in 1986, following a career that included Broadway, playing opposite Lena Horne and spanned forty years. As a leading casting director, he worked on such films as Catch 22, All the President’s Men and many others. At Warner Brothers, he shepherded such long-running television series as Alice, Night Court and The Dukes of Hazard.Norman Sunshine was a successful magazine illustrator in New York who went on to be a painter and sculptor whose works are in museums and in important collections. In the early years of his career, he was vice president, creative director of an advertising agency, and coined the phrase, “What Becomes a Legend Most?” as well as “Danskins are not just for Dancing.” He interrupted his painting career when Frances Lear asked him to spearhead Lear’s Magazine in the 1980s.Upon the two men meeting in New York in 1958, “We didn’t want to live together,” says Shayne. “We didn’t have any examples of what a good love relationship between two men could be. And there was always the problem of hiding so no one would know we were gay. There was no question that if I were known to be gay, living with another man, it would make it more difficult for me to get work as an actor.”As an artist, Sunshine was able to maintain a moderately out lifestyle. But when the first exhibition of his paintings in New York brought on a profile in The New York Times in 1968, he was photographed in the apartment that he admitted sharing with Shayne. At both his advertising agency and Shayne’s television production company, the article was met with absolute silence.Even in the 1970s, when Sunshine won an Emmy for the graphics and title design he had created for one of Shayne’s television productions, “Alan and I agreed it was not a good idea for us to be seen together at an industry event,” he remembers. “Alan, after all, was one of the very few homosexuals who had such a powerful, high profile job, and who lived openly with a man. Homophobia had its adherents and some ruthless climber up the executive ladder would certainly love an opportunity to use it…’Better to be seen with a woman,’ we were advised by a very trusted friend, ‘Makes everyone more comfortable.’”Happily, in 2004, the State of Massachusetts allowed the opportunity for the couple to be married on a beach in Nantucket. “We were like a long, empty, closed-up house where the windows have just been opened,” writes Shayne. “The fresh air thrilled through us, and after years of only being who we were in the privacy of our homes or with a few friends, we were out in the world, under the sky, no longer pretending. We were at last free.”Double Life is a trip through the entertainment world and a gay partnership in the latter half of the 20th century. As more and more same sex couples find it possible to say “I do,” the book serves as an important document of how far we’ve come.
Crossing the Line: Losing Your Mind as an Undercover Cop
Christian Plowman - 2013
When he finally achieved his ambition, becoming one of only a dozen full-time undercover officers, the reality of covert work turned his life into a nightmare.To catch criminals, Christian bought and sold drugs with taxpayers' money, was beaten up, arrested at gunpoint and barricaded in a pub by a gang of marauding travellers - all in a day's work. At one stage, he was running almost a dozen mobile phones to keep track of his different identities and had so many aliases that he nearly forgot who he was. He put his life on the line for the job but was to find that being the 'best of the best' wasn't all it was cracked up to be. The pressure became so intense that he even contemplated suicide.Crossing the Line is a visceral, gripping account of what it really takes to be an undercover cop, going behind the scenes to reveal the harsh realities of modern covert police work.
The Krays and Me
Charles Bronson - 2004
Charlie Bronson met the Kray twins in prison and eventually became a trusted friend. Here he tells the inside story of the infamous duo and sets the record straight once and for all.
Life of Brine
Phil Jarratt - 2017
Jarratt, who has often courted controversy in his long career as a journalist, editor and documentarian, pulls no punches as he rides an exhilarating wave of nostalgia from the Sixties up until now, through the heady days of drugs, alcohol and excess from Bali to Biarritz, Morocco to Malibu, and other exotic locations in between. Filled with the carefree, sometimes reckless enthusiasm of youth, yet balanced by reflection and insight, this is a book that will be devoured by surfers young and old, and by free spirits of all kinds and all ages. About the authorPhil Jarratt has worked in surf publishing and the surf industry for more than forty years, and is regarded as one of the sport’s foremost authorities. The editor of Tracks and Australian Surfer’s Journal and an associate editor of Surfer, Phil has received the Australian Surfing Hall of Fame Media Award four times and has won numerous other awards for his work. He has authored thirty-five books including award-winning surf histories and bestselling biographies.
Born to Be Brad: My Life and Style, So Far
Brad Goreski - 2012
Fans of The Rachel Zoe Project and It’s a Brad, Brad World already know that there’s no one on reality TV more fearless or savvy when it comes to style. But Born to Be Brad gives the world its first behind-the-scenes look at how Brad became the stylist he is. This is not just a how-to style book. It’s a sublimely written, riveting life story with the power to take you to the top of your fashion game—right along with Brad.
The Girls Next Door: Into the Heart of Lesbian America
Lindsy Van Gelder - 1996
But for all the interest in who's out and who's not (yet), there's been surprisingly little understanding of the diversity and richness of lesbian experience. This funny, lively, and perceptive book will change all that. Drawing on more than a hundred interviews with women around the country, and on their own keen wits and eyes, Van Gelder and Brandt have composed an unprecedented portrait of how gay women today—lipsticked and flannel-shirted alike—think, feel, love, and live. Three major "tribal" events—the long-running Michigan Womyn's Music Festival, "Dinah" (the annual Dinah Shore Golf Tournament and party circuit, a mecca for upwardly mobile luppies), and a cross-country trek with the activist Lesbian Avengers en route to the 1994 Stonewall commemoration—provide points of entry into an exploration of lesbian identity, social dynamics, and politics that's as entertaining as it is revealing. The result is a kaleidoscopic portrait that will resonate with lesbians themselves and reveal to their "neighbors" a world of unsuspected vibrancy and depth.
Man in the Middle
John Amaechi - 2007
Along the way, he endured endless obstacles to his hoop dreams—being abandoned by his father, being cut from his first college team, recovering from a life-threatening injury, playing for abusive coaches, and losing his mother -- while also protecting a vital secret that could have ended his career: John Amaechi was gay. Now in this poignant and intimate memoir, Amaechi takes us into the hypermasculine world of professional sports and into the very center of his soul. As tender as it is brutally frank, Man in the Middle follows him from the rough streets of Manchester to Penn State (where he first achieved basketball stardom and began to recognize his sexuality) to the cities (Orlando, Houston, Salt Lake City) and countries (Greece, France) in which he played. A moving story of adversity and diversity, Man in the Middle is a testament to the power of one man’s convictions and to the universal desire to make the world a better place.
Undercover - Ajit Doval in Theory and Practice
The Caravan Magazine - 2017
His designation grants him sweeping powers over the Indian security and intelligence apparatuses, and a say in foreign relations that he has exercised vigorously, particularly when it comes to the country’s neighbours. His outlook combines strident Hindu nationalism with habits learnt over his decades in the Intelligence Bureau. The results have been far from extraordinary—yet large sections of the media continue to laud him. Doval’s public persona as a super-spy and statesman may be too good to be true. The Caravan -India's finest magazine of politics, culture and business. Since its relaunch in 2010, The Caravan has earned a reputation as one of South Asia's most sophisticated publications, a showcase of the region's finest writers, with a distinctive blend of masterful reporting, unique criticism and stunning photo essays.
A Full Cup: Sir Thomas Lipton's Extraordinary Life and His Quest for the America's Cup
Michael D'Antonio - 2010
Today Lipton means tea. However, in his time Sir Thomas Lipton was known for much more. Raised in desperate poverty, he became rich beyond his wildest dreams. He built a global empire of markets, factories, plantations, and stockyards. And his colorful pursuit of the America's Cup trophy made him a beloved figure on both sides of the Atlantic. In A Full Cup, Michael D'Antonio tells the tale of this larger- than-life figure. Beginning with a journey across the United States just after the Civil War, Thomas J. Lipton developed the ambition and learned the business techniques that helped him create the first chain of grocery stores. Wealthy before the age of thirty, he set his sights on the tea trade, and soon his name became synonymous with his product. Lipton's great business success makes for a compelling story of innovation and achievement. Moreover, though, Lipton's most intriguing creation was a public persona-one of the first formed with the help of a modern mass media-that appealed to millions of ordinary people, as well as the elites in America and Europe. Concocting simple stunts like elephant parades, Lipton mastered the new art of obtaining free publicity. With shameless self-promotion, he became one of the world's most eligible bachelors, a patron of the poor, and ultimately reached legendary heights when he revived the competition for the America's Cup. With one losing attempt after another, the gallant Lipton, who didn't even know how to sail his own yacht, became ever more popular. D'Antonio's biography brings to vivid life this remarkable figure.
Confessions of a Good Girl: My Story
Andrea McLean - 2012
The honest, entertaining and often surprising autobiography of one of our favourite Loose Women.
Million Dollar Agent: Brokering the Dream
Josh Flagg - 2011
Within the first four years of his career, Josh participated in several record sales, including the highest sale in the history of Brentwood Park and the highest sales on the exclusive Roxbury, Foothill and Monovale Drives, making him one of Los Angeles' hottest agents. Flagg has participated in sales up to $25,000,000."The best thing I have seen Josh do, was wrap an entire house in a big red bow before delivering the keys to the new owners. He is very creative, and that is why he is so successful."In Josh s mind, there are no limitations. Josh is also one of the stars of BRAVO TVs, Million Dollar Listing, returning for its fourth season February 2011. In his new book, Million Dollar Agent: Brokering the Dream, Josh writes about having travelled to more than fifty countries, his years growing up in one of the most famous cities in the world (Beverly Hills) and how to develop a successful career in high-end real estate."My funniest experience so far was when I fell into the pool of a client s house in the middle of a showing, clothes, jewelry and all! Well I couldn t let that slow me down, so I put on the owners robe, threw on some slippers and continued the showing. The buyers sent me a pair of swim-trunks when we closed escrow." -- Josh Flagg