Book picks similar to
Dry Bones Breathe: Gay Men Creating Post-AIDS Identities and Cultures by Eric Rofes
queer
hiv-aids
nonfiction
lgbt
The Cross in the Closet
Timothy Kurek - 2012
But it wasn’t long before Timothy’s path and the outside world converged when a friend came out as a lesbian, and revealed she had been excommunicated by her family.Distraught and overcome with questions and doubts about his religious upbringing, Timothy decided the only way to empathize and understand her pain was to walk in the shoes of very people he had been taught to shun. He decided to come out as a gay man to everyone in his life, and to see for himself how the label of gay would impact his life.In the tradition of Black Like Me, The Cross in the Closet is a story about people, a story about faith, and about one man’s “abominable” quest to find Jesus in the margins.
The World Only Spins Forward: The Ascent of Angels in America
Isaac Butler - 2018
Mike Nichols' 2003 HBO adaptation starring Meryl Streep, Mary-Louise Parker, and Al Pacino was itself a tour de force, winning 11 Emmys and introducing the play to an even wider public. This generation-defining classic continues to shock, move, and inspire viewers worldwide.Now, on the 25th anniversary of that Broadway premiere, Isaac Butler and Dan Kois offer the definitive account of Angels in America in the most fitting way possible: through oral history, nearly 200 voices in vibrant conversation and debate. The intimate storytelling of actors (including Streep, Parker, Jeffrey Wright, and Nathan Lane), directors, producers, and Kushner himself reveals the turmoil of the play's birth-a hard-won miracle in the face of artistic roadblocks, technical disasters, and disputes both legal and creative. And historians and critics help to situate the play in the arc of American culture, from the staunch activism of the AIDS crisis through civil-rights triumphs to our current era, whose politics are a dark echo of the Reagan '80s. The World Only Spins Forward is both a rollicking theater saga and an uplifting testament to one of the great works of American art of the past century, from its gritty San Francisco premiere to the starry revival that electrified London in 2017.
Stonewall: The Riots That Sparked the Gay Revolution
David Carter - 1994
Since then the event itself has become the stuff of legend, with relatively little hard information available on the riots themselves. Now, based on hundreds of interviews, an exhaustive search of public and previously sealed files, and over a decade of intensive research into the history and the topic, Stonewall brings this singular event to vivid life in this, the definitive story of one of history's most singular events.
Raised By Unicorns: Stories from People with LGBTQ+ Parents
Frank Lowe - 2018
. . . [I]t relates to all families, tolerance, and love." — Greg Berlanti, writer, producer, director "Raw and unfiltered. . . Lowe breaks new ground, highlighting the dire need for further exploration. 5 Hearts." — Foreword Reviews "[A] powerful eye-opener." — Amanda Hopping-Winn, chief program officer, Family Equality Council "Raw, personal, and uncensored, this must-read book gives us insight as to what it’s like to be raised by same-gender parents and how that can impact one’s life." —Eric Rosswood, author of The Ultimate Guide for Gay Dads and Journey to Same-Sex Parenthood In recent years, the world has been saturated by endless blogs, articles, and books devoted to the subject of LGBTQ+ parenting. On the flip side, finding stories written by the children of LGBTQ+ parents is akin to searching for a needle in a haystack. Now that the world is more accepting than ever of non-traditional families, it's time to create a literary space for this not-so-unique, shared, but completely individual experience. In Raised by Unicorns: Stories from People with LGBTQ+ Parents, Frank Lowe has carefully edited an anthology that reflects on the upbringing of children in many different forms of LGBTQ+ families. From Baby Boomers to Generation Z, it features diverse stories that express the distinctiveness of this shared journey and of each particular family. It's visceral, raw, and not always pretty, but love is always the common thread. Lowe candidly reveals true accounts of this particular niche of humanity, while simultaneously creating a moving snapshot of the world in which we live. Raised by Unicorns guides the reader through an empathetic journey that is nothing short of compelling and poignant. We've all heard the phrase "raised by wolves." Now we have a window into the complex world of being Raised by Unicorns.
Dreadful: The Short Life and Gay Times of John Horne Burns
David Margolick - 2013
Burns was born in Massachusetts, graduated from Andover and Harvard, and went on to teach English at the Loomis School, a boarding school for boys in Windsor, Connecticut. During World War II, he was stationed in Africa and Italy, and worked mainly in military intelligence. His first novel, The Gallery (1947), based on his wartime experiences, is a critically acclaimed novel and one of the first to unflinchingly depict gay life in the military. The Gallery sold half a million copies upon publication, but never again would Burns receive that kind of critical or popular attention. Dreadful follows Burns, from his education at the best schools to his final years of drinking and depression in Italy. With intelligence and insight, David Margolick examines Burns’s moral ambivalence toward the behavior of American soldiers stationed with him in Naples, and the scandal surrounding his second novel, Lucifer with a Book, an unflattering portrayal of his experiences at Loomis.
Love That Journey for Me: The Queer Revolution of Schitt's Creek
Emily Garside - 2021
Considering the fusion of existing sitcom traditions, references and tropes, this Inkling analyses the nuance of the show and its surrounding cultural and societal impact as a queer revolution.By discussing how the show reshapes LGBTQ+ narratives from the crafting of the town itself, and celebratory influences including Cabaret, to how writer-creator Dan Levy utilised and subverted expectations throughout his work, Emily Garside will showcase how one TV show became a watershed moment in queer representation and gay relationships on screen.Part analysis of Schitt’s Creek’s importance, part homage to a cultural landmark, this is a show that – in the words of David Rose himself – needs to be celebrated. This book is that celebration.This book is unofficial, and unaffiliated with Schitt’s Creek and its brand.
Toward Amnesia
Sarah Van Arsdale - 1995
Bordering on obsessed and unable to make sense of her solitary life, she heads cross-country without a word, resolved to cultivate a new persona by creating her own kind of amnesia. But as time goes by, she is unable to deny hers truest self. Targeted media.
My Own Country: A Doctor's Story
Abraham Verghese - 1994
Nestled in the Smoky Mountains of eastern Tennessee, the town of Johnson City had always seemed exempt from the anxieties of modern American life. But when the local hospital treated its first AIDS patient, a crisis that had once seemed an urban problem had arrived in the town to stay. Working in Johnson City was Abraham Verghese, a young Indian doctor specializing in infectious diseases. Dr. Verghese became by necessity the local AIDS expert, soon besieged by a shocking number of male and female patients whose stories came to occupy his mind, and even take over his life. Verghese brought a singular perspective to Johnson City: as a doctor unique in his abilities; as an outsider who could talk to people suspicious of local practitioners; above all, as a writer of grace and compassion who saw that what was happening in this conservative community was both a medical and a spiritual emergency."
Go the Way Your Blood Beats: On Truth, Bisexuality and Desire
Michael Amherst - 2018
A challenge to the idea that sexuality can either ever be fully known or neatly categorized, it is a meditation on desire’s unknowability. Interwoven with anonymous addresses to past loves - the sex of whom remain obscure - the book demonstrates the universalism of desire, while at the same time the particularity of each individual act of desiring.
Gender: A Graphic Guide
Meg-John Barker - 2019
We’ll look at how gender has been ‘done’ differently – from patriarchal societies to trans communities – and how it has been viewed differently – from biological arguments for sex difference to cultural arguments about received gender norms. We’ll dive into complex and shifting ideas about masculinity and femininity, look at non-binary, trans and fluid genders, and examine the intersection of experiences of gender with people’s race, sexuality, class, disability and more.Tackling current debates and tensions, which can divide communities and even cost lives, we’ll look to the past and the future to ask how might we approach gender differently, in more socially constructive, caring ways.
Outline of My Lover
Douglas A. Martin - 2000
In the sleepy town of Athens, Georgia, a young man goes off to a college miseducation and is drawn into a world of rich vicarious living. The unspoken relationship between this adolescent and his luminous rock star boyfriend fast becomes the marking tale of world tours and plush continental hotel rooms. However, the relationship falters under celebrity's harsh, shape-shifting light. Real life fills in the outline of the boy's expectations.
Queers in History
Keith Stern - 2006
From Egyptian pharaohs, Catholic popes and Abraham Lincoln to Bishop Gene Robinson, Neil Patrick Harris and Angelina Jolie, Queers in History brings these figures, from their work to their sexuality, to life. The hundreds of people whose stories appear in this book are some of the most intriguing personalities of their times: actors and actresses, writers and musicians, businessmen and politicians, scientists and soldiers. But this irresistibly readable encyclopedia intended for gays and straights alike doesn't just report those details that get left out of the standard biographies; it reveals a fascinating picture of queer society and culture throughout recorded history, from the homosexual shudo tradition practiced by samurai in Japan to the modern struggles for equal rights in America. Sir Ian McKellen offers a foreword.
Seeing Gender: An Illustrated Guide to Identity and Expression
Iris Gottlieb - 2019
Deeply researched and fully illustrated, this book demystifies an intensely personal—yet universal—facet of humanity. Illustrating a different concept on each spread, queer author and artist Iris Gottlieb touches on history, science, sociology, and her own experience. This book is an essential tool for understanding and contributing to a necessary cultural conversation, bringing clarity and reassurance to the sometimes confusing process of navigating ones' identity. Whether LGBTQ+, cisgender, or nonbinary, Seeing Gender is a must-read for intelligent, curious, want-to-be woke people who care about how we see and talk about gender and sexuality in the 21st century.
Delusions of Gender: How Our Minds, Society, and Neurosexism Create Difference
Cordelia Fine - 2005
Even though the glass ceiling is cracked, most women stay comfortably beneath it, and everywhere we hear about vitally important “hardwired” differences between male and female brains. The neuroscience we read about in magazines, newspaper articles, books, and sometimes even scientific journals increasingly tells a tale of two brains, and the result is more often than not a validation of the status quo. Women, it seems, are just too intuitive for math, men too focused for housework.Drawing on the latest research in neuroscience and psychology, Cordelia Fine debunks the myth of hardwired differences between men’s and women’s brains, unraveling the evidence behind such claims as men’s brains aren’t wired for empathy, and women’s brains aren’t made to fix cars. She then goes one step further, offering a very different explanation of the dissimilarities between men’s and women’s behavior. Instead of a “male brain” and a “female brain,” Fine gives us a glimpse of plastic, mutable minds that are continuously influenced by cultural assumptions about gender.Delusions of Gender provides us with a much-needed corrective to the belief that men’s and women’s brains are intrinsically different--a belief that, as Fine shows with insight and humor--all too often works to the detriment of ourselves and our society.
The Motion of Light in Water: Sex and Science Fiction Writing in the East Village
Samuel R. Delany - 1988
Delany married white poet Marilyn Hacker right out of high school. The interracial couple moved into the city's new bohemian quarter, the Lower East Side, in summer 1961. Through the decade's opening years, new art, new sexual practices, new music, and new political awareness burgeoned among the crowded streets and cheap railroad apartments. Beautifully, vividly, insightfully, Delany calls up this era of exploration and adventure as he details his development as a black gay writer in an open marriage, with tertiary walk-ons by Bob Dylan, Stokely Carmichael, W. H. Auden, and James Baldwin, and a panoply of brilliantly drawn secondary characters.Winner of the 1989 Hugo Award for Non-fictionSamuel R. Delany is the author of numerous science fiction books including Dhalgren, other fiction including The Mad Man, as well as the best-selling nonfiction study Times Square Red, Times Square Blue. He lives in New York City and teaches at Temple University. The Lambda Book Report chose Delany as one of the fifty most significant men and women of the past hundred years to change our concept of gayness, and he is a recipient of the William Whitehead Memorial Award for a lifetime's contribution to lesbian and gay literature.