What is it like? It is the best gift you can ever imagine, like rain falling on a dry place.This memoir is a great reunion journey, from Paris, to California, to Denmark! A coming together of a mother and son, the only two people who can answer all the questions the other one has.

     After experiencing a rail-based epiphany whilst on jury service, Woodward thinks that it might be possible to get as far as Singapore from his home in Edinburgh by train, setting into motion his next big solo rail journey. A Bridge Even Further connects the many bridges and 18000 kilometers of track across the thirteen countries that separate his home from the furthest point in mainland Asia. Matthew Woodward shares the intricate detail of his journey in a way that that will appeal to both armchair explorers as well as those who are thinking of embarking on their very own rail adventure.

    For more than a year and a half she ventured into the world as Ned, with an ever-present five o'clock shadow, a crew cut, wire-rim glasses, and her own size 11 1/2 shoes—a perfect disguise that enabled her to observe the world of men as an insider. The result is a sympathetic, shrewd, and thrilling tour de force of immersion journalism that's destined to challenge preconceptions and attract enormous attention. With her buddies on the bowling league she enjoyed the rough and rewarding embrace of male camaraderie undetectable to an outsider. A stint in a high-octane sales job taught her the gut-wrenching pressures endured by men who would do anything to succeed. She frequented sex clubs, dated women hungry for love but bitter about men, and infiltrated all-male communities as hermetically sealed as a men's therapy group, and even a monastery. Narrated in her utterly captivating prose style and with exquisite insight, humor, empathy, nuance, and at great personal cost, Norah uses her intimate firsthand experience to explore the many remarkable mysteries of gender identity as well as who men are apart from and in relation to women. Far from becoming bitter or outraged, Vincent ended her journey astounded—and exhausted—by the rigid codes and rituals of masculinity. Having gone where no woman (who wasn't an aspiring or actual transsexual) has gone for any significant length of time, let alone eighteen months, Norah Vincent's surprising account is an enthralling reading experience and a revelatory piece of anecdotally based gender analysis that is sure to spark fierce and fascinating conversation.

    Yet despite the progress of the recent past, gay men still find themselves asking, "Are we really better off?" The inevitable byproduct of growing up gay in a straight world continues to be the internalization of shame, a shame gay men may strive to obscure with a façade of beauty, creativity, or material success. Drawing on contemporary psychological research, the author's own journey to be free of anger and of shame, as well as the stories of many of his friends and clients, The Velvet Rage outlines the three distinct stages to emotional well-being for gay men. Offering profoundly beneficial strategies to stop the insidious cycle of avoidance and self-defeating behavior, The Velvet Rage is an empowering book that will influence the public discourse on gay culture, and positively change the lives of gay men who read it.

    policy on gays serving in the military, was repealed in September 2011, soldier Stephen Snyder-Hill (then Captain Hill) was serving in Iraq. Having endured years of this policy, which passively encouraged a culture of fear and secrecy for gay soldiers, Snyder-Hill submitted a video to a Republican primary debate (held two days after the repeal). In the video he asked for the Republicans’ thoughts regarding the repeal and their plans, if any, to extend spousal benefits to legally married gay and lesbian soldiers. His video was booed by the audience on national television. Soldier of Change captures not only the media frenzy that followed that moment, placing Snyder-Hill at the forefront of this modern civil rights movement, but also his twenty-year journey as a gay man in the army: from self-loathing to self-acceptance, to the most important battle of his life–protecting the disenfranchised. Since that time, Snyder-Hill has traveled the country with his husband, giving interviews on major news networks and speaking at universities, community centers, and pride parades, a champion of LGBT equality.

    'Strictly for the record. You don't get sacked from this job unless you did what Thompson did.' 'What did he do then?' 'We never mention it.' In Magnus Mills' short novel he transports us into the world of the bus drivers who take us to work, to the supermarket, to the match & home again

    From the deceptiveness of Penelope Fitzgerald to the directness of Hemingway, from Kipling’s view of France to the French view of Kipling, from the many translations of Madame Bovary to the fabulations of Ford Madox Ford, from the National Treasure status of George Orwell to the despair of Michel Houellebecq, Julian Barnes considers what fiction is, and what it can do. As he writes, “Novels tell us the most truth about life: what it is, how we live it, what it might be for, how we enjoy and value it, and how we lose it.”

    This unexpected journey lit a fire in me that would carry me through the next 23 years of nursing.I’ve witnessed births, deaths and all that lies in between. I’ve been exhausted, heartbroken and sexually assaulted. I’ve anguished over children who aren’t my own and I have battled an illness that forced me to change places from nurse to patient.But I have also had a blast. I’ve met and learned from extraordinary characters who I can never forget. I’d love you to meet them too and share the crazy, sad, shocking, moving and hilarious experiences that made me Blue Girl.

    This book includes revealing stories by forty diverse Americans, some well-known and some not, and insights from straight clergy and parents explaining their support of gay people as whole human beings guaranteed equal rights by our Constitution.

    When he became leader of the Liberal Party in 1967 at the age of just thirty-seven, he seemed destined for truly great things. But as his star steadily rose so his nemesis drew ever nearer: a time-bomb in the form of Norman Scott, a homosexual wastrel and sometime male model with whom Jeremy had formed an ill-advised relationship in the early 1960s. Scott's incessant boasts about their 'affair' became increasingly embarrassing, and eventually led to a bizarre murder plot to shut him up for good. Jeremy was acquitted of involvement but his career was in ruins.Michael Bloch's magisterial biography is not just a brilliant retelling of this amazing story; ten years in the making, it is also the definitive character study of one of the most fascinating figures in post-war British politics.

    With hair teased to Jesus, mile-long false eyelashes, and a white Cadillac Eldorado with atomic-red leather seats, Fanny is not your typical granny rocking in a chair. Instead, think of a character that looks a lot like Eva Gabor in Green Acres, but darkened with a shadow of Flannery O’Connor. A cross-genre collection that reads like a novel, this book is both a collection of oral history and a lyrical and moving biography that wrestles with the complexities of the South, including poverty, racism, and domestic violence.

    Despite being a high-level entertainment executive, Josh was still a virgin at 31. Uncomfortable in his own skin, haunted by painful childhood memories, he kept laser-focused on building an unparalleled career trajectory at the expense of his personal life.Tormented by schoolmates for being "different," Josh clung to his aberrantly close relationships with a small circle of adult females. But, even with that support, the shame and contempt that grew from his sexuality locked him in a prison of self-hate that robbed him of an emotional and sexual identity for more than three decades. Movie studio jobs, through which he met celebrity idols, led to friendships and relationships with some of the industry's most notable characters. Those intimacies created a false sense of acceptance and approval, requiring that he continue to up the stakes - celebrity lovers, the crazy world of online dating, sexual fetishists and porn stars-for-hire.The gay best friend you always wanted, Josh Sabarra delivers a whip-smart, poignant memoir set against a glittering backdrop that is at once heartbreaking, glamorous, sexy and hilariously honest.ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Josh Sabarra is a veteran marketing executive and television producer who has held positions at The Walt Disney Company, Warner Bros. Studios, Miramax Films, New Line Cinema and Lifetime Networks. He resides in Los Angeles, California, where he is the president and CEO of his own public relations firm, Breaking News PR. This is his first book.

    This book focuses on the lives of Londoners in the East End during the Second World War. Showing the concerns, hopes and fears of these so-called 'ordinary people' Our Street illustrates these times by looking at the every day rituals which marked the patterns of daily life during WWII. It is an important book and also an affectionate record of an often fondly remembered, more communal, way of life that has all but disappeared.

    For some, reality slaps them in the face - refusing to be ignored.On the surface, everything looked perfect. Anthony Venn-Brown was a popular, high-profile preacher in Australia's growing mega-churches, such as Hillsong, and happily married father-of-two. Behind the scenes was a different story. Believing homosexuality made him unacceptable to God and others, a secret battle was being fought. After twenty-two years of struggle and torment, a chance meeting forced Anthony to make the toughest decision of his life. Tired of feeling torn and fragmented, he confessed and came out. Abandoned by his church and Christian friends Anthony began his life of unlearning; a lonely journey that made him who he is today. This honest account highlights not only the costs of being true to yourself but that the rewards of authenticity and integrity are worth it. As Anthony's story is ultimately about being true to one's self - whether you're gay or straight, religious or non believer - you’ll find relevance in this triumphant autobiography.

    Betrayed once again by another woman’s marriage plans, she knew her romantic youth was over. So many of her female friends had married and settled. Anne cast around forlornly for the life-companion she had so long sought. She held melancholy spirits at bay by reading new geology and new gardening books in Shibden’s well-stocked library.
 Then a chance re-acquaintance with neighbouring heiress Ann Walker changed all that. Anne Lister is best known to us as a lesbian diarist. Nature’s Domain tracks her intense courtship of Ann Walker, vividly and candidly recorded in Anne’s daily journals - and partly written in her own secret code. This influential Anne Lister book also documents how she began redesigning the Shibden landscape and playing a powerful new role in the local political tumult after the passing of the great Reform Bill. This dramatic story, hitherto unknown and never before unpublished, unfolds to New Year’s Eve 1832. It records how Anne Lister’s indomitable will enabled her to mould nature to her own powerful desires. “Nature’s Domain gives a compelling overview of a key time in Anne Lister’s remarkable life. Jill Liddington guides us knowledgeably through the diaries of 1832, offering crucial insight into Anne’s private and candour observations about love, sex, money and politics.” Laura Johansen, Cultural Destinations Manager, Halifax. Jill Liddington is co-author of One Hand Tied Behind Us (1978) which became a suffrage classic. She is author of Presenting the Past: Anne Lister of Halifax 1791-1840 (1994) and of Female Fortune: the Anne Lister diaries 1833-36 (1998). She is an Honorary Research Fellow at the University of Leeds, and lives in Mytholmroyd near Halifax. Sally Wainwright’s BBC1 drama series, Gentleman Jack was inspired by Female Fortune and Nature’s Domain