Book picks similar to
love belongs to those who do the feeling by Judy Grahn
poetry
queer
lgbt
feminism
Ask, Tell
E.J. Noyes - 2017
Army surgeon deployed to a combat hospital in Afghanistan. She is also one of the thousands of troops who are forced to serve in silence because of the military’s anti-gay policy of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell (DADT).”Usually driven and focused, Sabine finds that battles raging both inside and outside the perimeter walls are making it more and more difficult for her to deal with her emotions. Dealing with loss and mortality, lack of privacy, sleep deprivation, loneliness and the isolation forced on her by “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” are all taking their toll. Plus, her long-term relationship with a civilian back home is quickly becoming another casualty of war.Colonel Rebecca Keane is an enigmatic career officer who runs the surgical unit like clockwork. Well liked and respected by those who work with and under her, she walks a fine line to preserve the military’s chain of command while connecting with those under her care and supervision. Sabine knows the Colonel is way off-limits, but can’t help fantasizing about her. Especially when she starts picking up unspoken cues—a stolen glance, a secret smile, an “accidental” brush of hands. Or is it just wishful thinking? After all, Rebecca’s wedding ring shines almost as brightly as her deep blue eyes…Genre: RomanceEditor: Cath WalkerCover Designer: Judith Fellows
All My Mother's Lovers
Ilana Masad - 2020
But when Maggie’s mom, Iris, dies in a car crash, Maggie returns home only to discover a withdrawn dad, an angry brother, and, along with Iris's will, five sealed envelopes, each addressed to a mysterious man she’s never heard of.In an effort to run from her own grief and discover the truth about Iris—who made no secret of her discomfort with her daughter's sexuality—Maggie embarks on a road trip, determined to hand-deliver the letters and find out what these men meant to her mother. Maggie quickly discovers Iris’s second, hidden life, which shatters everything Maggie thought she knew about her parents’ perfect relationship. What is she supposed to tell her father and brother? And how can she deal with her own relationship when her whole world is in freefall?Told over the course of a funeral and shiva, and written with enormous wit and warmth, All My Mother's Lovers is the exciting debut novel from fiction writer and book critic Ilana Masad. A unique meditation on the universality and particularity of family ties and grief, and a tender and biting portrait of sex, gender, and identity, All My Mother's Lovers challenges us to question the nature of fulfilling relationships.
Searching for Sappho: The Lost Songs and World of the First Woman Poet
Philip Freeman - 2016
Yet those meager remains showed such power and genius that they captured the imagination of readers through the ages. But within the last century, dozens of new pieces of her poetry have been found written on crumbling papyrus or carved on broken pottery buried in the sands of Egypt. As recently as 2014, yet another discovery of a missing poem created a media stir around the world.The poems of Sappho reveal a remarkable woman who lived on the Greek island of Lesbos during the vibrant age of the birth of western science, art, and philosophy. Sappho was the daughter of an aristocratic family, a wife, a devoted mother, a lover of women, and one of the greatest writers of her own or any age. Nonetheless, although most people have heard of Sappho, the story of her lost poems and the lives of the ancient women they celebrate has never been told for a general audience.Searching for Sappho is the exciting tale of the rediscovery of Sappho’s poetry and of the woman and world they reveal.
The Unspoken Name
A.K. Larkwood - 2020
She will climb the mountain, enter the Shrine of the Unspoken, and gain the most honored title: sacrifice. On the day of her foretold death, however, a powerful mage offers her a new fate.Csorwe leaves her home, her destiny, and her god to become the wizard's loyal sword-hand -- stealing, spying, and killing to help him reclaim his seat of power in the homeland from which he was exiled.But Csorwe and the wizard will soon learn – gods remember, and if you live long enough, all debts come due.
Coffee Will Make You Black
April Sinclair - 1995
Stevie is a bookworm, yet she longs to fit in with the cool crowd. Fighting her mother every step of the way, she begins to experiment with talkin' trash, "kicking butt," and boys.With the assassination of Dr. King she gains a new political awareness, which makes her decide to wear her hair in a 'fro instead of straightened, to refuse to use skin bleach, and to confront the prejudice she observes in blacks as well as whites. April Sinclair writes frankly about a young black woman's sexuality, and about the confusion Stevie faces when she realizes she's more attracted to the school nurse—who is white—than her teenage boyfriend. As readers follow Stevie's at times harrowing, at times hilarious story, they will learn what it was like to be black before black was beautiful.
Buffering: Unshared Tales of a Life Fully Loaded
Hannah Hart - 2016
Now on the cusp of turning 30, I'm ready to expose some parts of my life that I haven't shared before. Before, it was all about privacy, process and time. And now the time has come! I’m ready to put myself out there, for you. I'm a little nervous about all these vulnerable words going into the world, these tales about my love life, the wrestling I’ve done with faith, how I feel about sex and my family and myself. I’ve had a lot of trials, a lot of errors, but also a lot of passion. Here’s the thing--I've always found comfort in the stories shared by others, so I hope my stories, now that I feel ready to tell them, will bring you some comfort too.And when you read this book please remember: Buffering is just the time it takes to process.Enjoy!Love,Hannah
Calling Dr. Laura
Nicole J. Georges - 2013
When she was twenty-three, a psychic told her he was alive. Her sister, saddled with guilt, admits that the psychic is right and that the whole family has conspired to keep him a secret. Sent into a tailspin about her identity, Nicole turns to radio talk-show host Dr. Laura Schlessinger for advice.Packed cover-to-cover with heartfelt and disarming black-and-white illustrations, Calling Dr. Laura tells the story of what happens to you when you are raised in a family of secrets, and what happens to your brain (and heart) when you learn the truth from an unlikely source. Part coming-of-age and part coming-out story, Calling Dr. Laura marks the arrival of an exciting and winning new voice in graphic literature.
When We Were Outlaws: A Memoir of Love and Revolution
Jeanne Cordova - 2011
When We Were Outlaws offers a rare view of the life of a radical lesbian during the early cultural struggle for gay rights, Women’s Liberation, and the New Left of the 1970s. Brash and ambitious, activist Jeanne Córdova is living with one woman and falling in love with another, but her passionate beliefs tell her that her first duty is "to the revolution”---to change the world and end discrimination against gays and lesbians. Trying to compartmentalize her sexual life, she becomes an investigative reporter for the famous, underground L.A. Free Press and finds herself involved with covering the Weather Underground and Angela Davis, exposing neo-Nazi bomber Captain Joe Tomassi, and befriending Emily Harris of the Symbionese Liberation Army. At the same time she is creating what will be the center of her revolutionary lesbian world: her own newsmagazine, The Lesbian Tide, destined to become the voice of the national lesbian feminist movement.By turns provocative and daringly honest, Cordova renders emblematic scenes of the era---ranging from strike protests to utopian music festivals, to underground meetings with radical fugitives---with period detail and evocative characters. For those who came of age in the 70s, and for those who weren’t around but still ask, "What was it like?", Outlaws takes you back to re-live it. It also offers insights about ethics, decision making and strategy, still relevant today.With an introduction by renowned lesbian historian Lillian Faderman, When We Were Outlaws paints a vivid portrait of activism and the search for self-identity, set against the turbulent landscape of multiple struggles for social change that swept hundreds of thousands of Americans into the streets.
The Secret Diaries of Miss Anne Lister
Anne Lister - 1992
She kept extensive diaries of her life and loves, written partly in code. Made up of Greek letters mingled with other symbols of her own devising, Anne referred to the code as her "crypthand," and the use of it allowed her the freedom to describe her intimate life in great detail. Her diaries have been edited by Helena Whitbread, who spent years decoding and transcribing them.
Mostly Dead Things
Kristen Arnett - 2019
Shocked and grieving, Jessa steps up to manage the failing business, while the rest of the Morton family crumbles. Her mother starts sneaking into the shop to make aggressively lewd art with the taxidermied animals. Her brother Milo withdraws, struggling to function. And Brynn, Milo’s wife—and the only person Jessa’s ever been in love with—walks out without a word. As Jessa seeks out less-than-legal ways of generating income, her mother’s art escalates—picture a figure of her dead husband and a stuffed buffalo in an uncomfortably sexual pose—and the Mortons reach a tipping point. For the first time, Jessa has no choice but to learn who these people truly are, and ultimately how she fits alongside them.
Fairytales for Lost Children
Diriye Osman - 2013
These characters - young, gay and lesbian Somalis - must navigate the complexities of family, identity and the immigrant experience as they tumble towards freedom. Using a unique idiom rooted in hip-hop, graphic illustrations, Arabic calligraphy and folklore studded with Kiswahili and Somali slang, these stories mark the arrival of a singular new voice in contemporary fiction.
How Beautiful the Ordinary: Twelve Stories of Identity
Michael CartEmma Donoghue - 2008
One boy's love of a soldier leads to the death of a stranger. The present takes a bittersweet journey into the past when a man revisits the summer school where he had "an accidental romance." And a forgotten mother writes a poignant letter to the teenage daughter she hasn't seen for fourteen years.Poised between the past and the future are the stories of now. In nontraditional narratives, short stories, and brief graphics, tales of anticipation and regret, eagerness and confusion present distinctively modern views of love, sexuality, and gender identification. Together, they reflect the vibrant possibilities available for young people learning to love others—and themselves—in today's multifaceted and quickly changing world.
Indecency
Justin Phillip Reed - 2018
In these poems, Justin Phillip Reed experiments with language to explore inequity and injustice and to critique and lament the culture of white supremacy and the dominant social order. Political and personal, tender, daring, and insightful―the author unpacks his intimacies, weaponizing poetry to take on masculinity, sexuality, exploitation, and the prison industrial complex and unmask all the failures of the structures into which society sorts us.
Water Runs Red
Jenna Clare - 2019
“a new poet explodes into the scene with a dark, fantastical, & all-too-relatable voice. you will consider this your new friendship breakup soundtrack.” — Amanda Lovelace, Author of the princess saves herself in this one“Riveting, thought-provoking and elegant, Water Runs Red will tug at your heartstrings and mend your soul in one fell swoop.” — Sasha Alsberg, #1 NYT Bestselling Author of ZENITH: The Androma Saga
The One Hundred Nights of Hero
Isabel Greenberg - 2016
The two women hatch a plan: Hero, a member of the League of Secret Story Tellers, will distract Manfred by regaling him with a mesmerizing tale each night for 100 nights, keeping him at bay. Those tales are beautifully depicted here, touching on themes of love and betrayal and loyalty and madness.As intricate and richly imagined as the works of Chris Ware, and leavened with a dry wit that rivals Kate Beaton's in Hark! A Vagrant, Isabel Greenberg's One Hundred Nights of Hero will capture readers' hearts and minds, taking them through a magical medieval world.