Book picks similar to
Out of the Closet Into Our Hearts: Celebrating Our Gay/Lesbian Family Members by Laura Siegel
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Cruise Control: Understanding Sex Addiction in Gay Men
Robert Weiss - 2005
A timely and important contribution to the body of recovery literature, Cruise Control provides understanding, empathy and encouragement to gay men seeking healthy sexual expression.
The Misadventures of the Family Fletcher
Dana Alison Levy - 2014
Their year will be filled with new schools, old friends, a grouchy neighbor, hungry skunks, leaking ice rinks, school plays, wet cats, and scary tales told in the dark! There’s Sam, age twelve, who’s mostly interested in soccer, food, and his phone; Jax, age ten, who’s psyched for fourth grade and thinks the new neighbor stinks, and not just because of the skunk; Eli, age ten (but younger than Jax), who’s thrilled to be starting this year at the Pinnacle School, where everyone’s the smart kid; and Frog (not his real name), age six, who wants everyone in kindergarten to save a seat for his invisible cheetah. Also Dad and Papa. WARNING: This book contains cat barf, turtle pee, and some really annoying homework assignments.
The Editor
Steven Rowley - 2019
Jackie--or Mrs. Onassis, as she's known in the office--has fallen in love with James's candidly autobiographical novel, one that exposes his own dysfunctional family. But when the book's forthcoming publication threatens to unravel already fragile relationships, both within his family and with his partner, James finds that he can't bring himself to finish the manuscript. Jackie and James develop an unexpected friendship, and she pushes him to write an authentic ending, encouraging him to head home to confront the truth about his relationship with his mother. Then a long-held family secret is revealed, and he realizes his editor may have had a larger plan that goes beyond the page... From the bestselling author of Lily and the Octopus comes a funny, poignant, and highly original novel about an author whose relationship with his very famous book editor will change him forever--both as a writer and a son.
Mommy Man: How I Went from Mild-Mannered Geek to Gay Superdad
Jerry Mahoney - 2014
Hey, why not? It seemed much more attainable and fulfilling than the alternative coming out of the closet and making peace with the fact that he d never have a family at all. Twenty years later, Jerry is living with his long-term boyfriend, Drew, and they re ready to take the plunge into parenthood. But how? Adoption? Foster parenting? Kidnapping? What they want most of all is a great story to tell their future kid about where he or she came from. Their search leads them to gestational surrogacy, a road less traveled where they ll be borrowing a stranger’s ladyparts for nine months. Thus begins Jerry and Drew s hilarious and unexpected journey to daddyhood. From then on, they re in uncharted waters. They’re forced to face down homophobic baby store clerks, a hospital that doesn t know what to do with them, even members of their own family who think what they’re doing is a little nutty. One thing’s for sure. If this all works out, they re going to have an incredible birth story to tell their kid. With honesty, emotion, and laugh-out-loud humor, Jerry Mahoney ponders what it means to become a Mommy Man . . . and discovers that the answer is as varied and beautiful as the concept of family itself."
Twinspiration: Real-Life Advice from Pregnancy Through the First Year
Cheryl Lage - 2005
Incorporating a conversational, humorous tone throughout, Cheryl Lage provides a double dose of user-friendly suggestions, real-life advice, and heartfelt empathy.
Something Like a Love Song
Becca Burton - 2015
Forced to overcome physical and emotional trauma, the young lovers turn to a network of family and friends as they attempt to rebuild their lives. But can their one constant—their love—survive the changes both undergo on the road to recovery?
The Australian
J.O. Mantel - 2020
Twelve men. Twelve million dollars!When Deacon Brady scored his dream job as the lead actor in an award-winning daytime soap opera, he had the entire world at his feet. Racking up an impressive list of awards and voted People Magazine’s sexiest man alive, the world was his oyster, and he was living it to the fullest at the top of the A-list.But then everything changed ...The latest Global Financial Crisis, and the crash of Wall Street, not only leaves Deacon bankrupt, but single, depressed and millions in debt.But when a TV producer approaches him on the street, he arranges a private meeting and makes Deacon a proposition too good to refuse.With Deacon struggling to make ends meet, the producer offers him an opportunity that will not only pay off his debts, but provide a once-in-a-lifetime adventure that his daredevil heart can't ignore.The deal - Appear in the new reality TV show, Tainted Love. Travel to twelve countries, meet twelve sexy, single guys, and be paid twelve million dollars.But the deal of a lifetime doesn’t come without a price.He can't allow himself to fall in love, or he risks losing not only the twelve million dollars, but his heart, in the process.First stop - Sydney, Australia.$1 from every ebook sold will be donated to the Australian Red Cross bushfire appeal.
Personal Effects
E.M. Kokie - 2012
T.J.’s gone, but Matt can’t shake the feeling that if only he could get his hands on his brother’s stuff from Iraq, he’d be able to make sense of his death. But as Matt searches for answers about T.J.’s death, he faces a shocking revelation about T.J.’s life that suggests he may not have known T.J. as well as he thought. What he learns challenges him to stand up to his father, honor his brother’s memory, and take charge of his own life. With compassion, humor, and a compelling narrative voice, E. M. Kokie explores grief, social mores, and self-discovery in a provocative first novel.
Out of Bounds
Michelle Woods - 2016
She’s happy—or is at least she’s willing to tell herself she is.But when a relationship from the past resurfaces, it throws Evelyn’s world into turmoil. Suddenly she finds herself tempted in a way she hasn’t thought about in years.Evelyn wants to do the right thing—but she wants to follow her heart more.As her passion and desires intensify, she’s forced to weigh the cost of stepping out of her old life and into the arms of a new lover—and decide whether she’s willing to lose the things she thought she held dear to reunite with the person she thought she’d lost forever.A riveting page-turner about burning desires and secret passions, Out of Bounds is a smoldering romance that will delight hot-blooded women of all ages.
When Brooklyn Was Queer
Hugh Ryan - 2019
No other book, movie, or exhibition has ever told this sweeping story. Not only has Brooklyn always lived in the shadow of queer Manhattan neighborhoods like Greenwich Village and Harlem, but there has also been a systematic erasure of its queer history—a great forgetting.Ryan is here to unearth that history for the first time, and show how the formation of Brooklyn is inextricably linked to the stories of the incredible people who created the Brooklyn we know today. Folks like Ella Wesner and Florence Hines, the most famous drag kings of the late-1800s; E. Trondle, a transgender man whose arrest in Brooklyn captured headlines for weeks in 1913; Hamilton Easter Field, whose art commune in Brooklyn Heights nurtured Hart Crane and John Dos Passos; Mabel Hampton, a black lesbian who worked as a dancer at Coney Island in the 1920s; Gustave Beekman, the Brooklyn brothel owner at the center of a WWII gay Nazi spy scandal; and Josiah Marvel, a curator at the Brooklyn Museum who helped create a first-of-its-kind treatment program for gay men arrested for public sex in the 1950s. Through their stories, WBWQ brings Brooklyn’s queer past to life.
The Martian Child: A Novel About a Single Father Adopting a Son
David Gerrold - 2002
But eight-year-old Dennis turned out to be more than he expected—a lot more. Dennis suffered from fetal alcohol syndrome, the son of a substance abuser and alcoholic who abandoned him in a seedy motel at the age of one-and-a-half. His father died of an overdose. Seized by the state, Dennis was shuffled between eight different foster homes in less than eight years. He was abused and beaten severely in at least tow of his placements. Dennis was diagnosed with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, and put on Ritalin and then Disipramine. He was prone to violent emotional outbursts. His case history identified him as "hard to place" —a euphemism for "unadoptable." But for David Gerrold it was love at first sight…
Far from the Tree: Parents, Children, and the Search for Identity
Andrew Solomon - 2012
He writes about families coping with deafness, dwarfism, Down's syndrome, autism, schizophrenia, or multiple severe disabilities; with children who are prodigies, who are conceived in rape, who become criminals, who are transgender. While each of these characteristics is potentially isolating, the experience of difference within families is universal, and Solomon documents triumphs of love over prejudice in every chapter.All parenting turns on a crucial question: to what extent should parents accept their children for who they are, and to what extent they should help them become their best selves. Drawing on ten years of research and interviews with more than three hundred families, Solomon mines the eloquence of ordinary people facing extreme challenges.Elegantly reported by a spectacularly original and compassionate thinker, Far from the Tree explores how people who love each other must struggle to accept each other—a theme in every family’s life.
Nothing Pink
Mark Hardy - 2008
He was fine with that. The problem was that his faith told him he was a sinner and damned to hell.
Mean Little Deaf Queer: A Memoir
Terry Galloway - 2009
No one yet knew that an experimental antibiotic given to her mother had wreaked havoc on her fetal nervous system, eventually causing her to go deaf. As a self-proclaimed "child freak," she acted out her fury with her boxy hearing aids and Coke-bottle glasses by faking her own drowning at a camp for crippled children. Ever since that first real-life performance, Galloway has used theater, whether onstage or off, to defy and transcend her reality. With disarming candor, she writes about her mental breakdowns, her queer identity, and living in a silent, quirky world populated by unforgettable characters. What could have been a bitter litany of complaint is instead an unexpectedly hilarious and affecting take on life.From the Trade Paperback edition.
Project Fatherhood: A Story of Courage and Healing in One of America's Toughest Communities
Jorja Leap - 2015
These men, black and brown, from late adolescence to middle age, are trying to heal themselves and their community, and above all to build their identities as fathers. Each week, they come together to help one another answer the question “How can I be a good father when I’ve never had one?”Project Fatherhood follows the lives of the men as they struggle with the pain of their own losses, the chronic pressures of poverty and unemployment, and the unquenchable desire to do better and provide more for the next generation. Although the group begins as a forum for them to discuss issues relating to their roles as parents, it slowly grows to mean much more: it becomes a place where they can share jokes and traumatic experiences, joys and sorrows. As the men repair their own lives and gain confidence, the group also becomes a place for them to plan and carry out activities to help the Watts community grow as well as thrive.By immersing herself in the lived experiences of those working to overcome their circumstances, Leap not only dramatically illustrates the realities of fathers trying to do the right thing, but she also paints a larger sociological portrait of how institutional injustices become manifest in the lives of ordinary people. At a time in which racial justice seems more elusive than ever—stymied by the generational cycles of mass incarceration and the cradle-to-prison pipeline—the group’s development over time demonstrates real-life movement toward solutions as the men help one another make their families and their community stronger.