Book picks similar to
A Quilt for David by Steven Reigns
poetry
hiv-aids
lgbt
nonfiction
Singled Out: The True Story of Glenn Burke
Andrew Maraniss - 2021
--Booklist (starred review) From New York Times bestselling author Andrew Maraniss comes the remarkable true story of Glenn Burke, a hidden figure in the history of sports: the inventor of the high five and the first openly gay MLB player. Perfect for fans of Steve Sheinkin and Daniel James Brown. On October 2nd, 1977, Glenn Burke, outfielder for the Los Angeles Dodgers, made history without even swinging a bat. When his teammate Dusty Baker hit a historic home run, Glenn enthusiastically congratulated him with the first ever high five.But Glenn also made history in another way--he was the first openly gay MLB player. While he did not come out publicly until after his playing days were over, Glenn's sexuality was known to his teammates, family, and friends. His MLB career would be cut short after only three years, but his legacy and impact on the athletic and LGBTQIA+ community would resonate for years to come.New York Times bestselling author Andrew Maraniss tells the story of Glenn Burke: from his childhood growing up in Oakland, his journey to the MLB and the World Series, the joy in discovering who he really was, to more difficult times: facing injury, addiction, and the AIDS epidemic.Packed with black-and-white photographs and thoroughly researched, never-before-seen details about Glenn's life, Singled Out is the fascinating story of a trailblazer in sports--and the history and culture that shaped the world around him.Praise for Singled Out
A compelling narrative . . . This is a meticulously researched history of the ways queer culture in the '70s intersected with baseball, Blackness, and larger culture wars, with one man at their center. --
Kirkus Reviews
The Killer Book of Infamous Murders: Incredible Stories, Facts, and Trivia from the World’s Most Notorious Murders
Tom Philbin - 2010
The Killer Book of Infamous Murders takes you behind the crime scene tape and into the heart of notorious and remorseless massacres. Uncover fascinating facts about killers’ dark pasts, pent-up rage, and what finally caused them to snap—leading them to commit some of the world’s most shocking crimes, including: Leopold and Loeb’s “perfect crime”: the kidnapping and slaying of fourteen-year-old Bobby Franks The bloody shootings of Alan and Diane Johnson, killed by their sixteen-year-old daughter The cold-blooded murder of the Clutter family The puzzling and controversial murder of Marilyn Sheppard And much more… Bury yourself in these edge-of-your-seat tales, read chilling quotes and courtroom transcripts, and test your crime IQ with trivia. You’ll shudder in horrified delight—and you just might need to sleep with the lights on.
50 Queers Who Changed the World: A Celebration of LGBTQ+ Icons
Dan Jones - 2017
the list goes on. Queer subculture has had an enormous impact on style, music, science, art and literature. From Oscar Wilde, who defended his homosexual relationships in court, to Rupaul acting as an ambassador for drag on network television, queer people have fought to express their identities and make a difference. This book will celebrate the lives, work, and unique perspectives of the icons who changed the world. Featuring beautifully illustrated portraits and profiles, 50 Queers Who Changed the World is a tribute to some of the most inspirational people of all time
Thirty-One Years on the Plains and in the Mountains
William F. Drannan - 1903
You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery.
Louie, Take a Look at This!: My Time with Huell Howser
Luis Fuerte - 2017
He lives with his wife in Rialto, CA. Writer David Duron is a writer and longtime television-news producer who lives in Yucaipa, CA.
Oscar Wilde
Richard Ellmann - 1987
alluring cultural world and someone whose life assumed an unbearably dramatic shape.
The Riddle Of Babi Yar: The True Story Told by a Survivor of the Mass Murders in Kiev, 1941-1943
Ziama Trubakov - 2013
When all Jews were ordered to appear at a gathering point, he didn’t go and persuaded others not to go either. Pretending to be a collaborator for the occupation authorities, he kept on saving lives. He rode his bike to nearby villages to barter goods for his family, at the same time trying to get in touch with partisan units. Like a true ‘blade runner’, he always had a narrow escape until a traitor denounced him. Even then, in the concentration camp, forced to exhume and burn the corpses of those massacred in the first months of the occupation, he didn’t think of death – he thought of freedom. And he led others with him - out from the camp, towards life and a happy future – just a day before their scheduled execution. In the night streets of Kiev, hiding from patrols, they made their way home, to reunite with their families. A dreamlike story, but a true one. Some say, Ziama never existed and the story is a fiction. To contradict this statement and to prove the authenticity of the described events, I found transcripts of the KGB interrogations of the witnesses and of those guilty of the crimes committed in Babi Yar, Kiev, in 1941-1943. This is the truth the world needs to know. The further in time we are from the Holocaust, the more denial and more lies we encounter. So that no Jew would ever have to hide under a Gentile name, so that no Jew would ever have his life threatened for the mere fact that he is a Jew – read and spread Ziama’s message to the world. And if the worst happens and History repeats itself – let Ziama’s heroism be an example to all of us how to fight back and not allow anything to destroy us.Here at last, after 70 years, the final truth about Babi Yar.
War Letters 1914-1918, Vol. 1: A British Schoolboy at the Western Front during the First World War
Mark Tanner - 2014
With one year still to complete at school, he decided to join the British army instead. Within four months he was leading 200 men to the front; within eight months he was dead. Published for the first time in their entirety, Wilbert’s letters paint a deeply moving portrait of a remarkable young man. Bright, optimistic and exuberant, his gentle character shines through ever word. Along with an introduction to Wilbert's life, the letters are accompanied by extensive, meticulously researched notes which are just a simple click away. They are there to add detail, context and colour for the reader who wants to understand more about particular aspects of the war. They include not just comments on military matters, but on a wide range other issues that together help paint a richer portrait of Wilbert and the times in which he was were living. In almost all cases, the notes provide direct links to resources that are freely available online. The links don't include Wikipedia (which can be easily accessed using the search facility in the Kindle), but they do include battalion diaries, recordings of old songs, war memoirs, military training manuals, official histories, trench maps, recordings of old war songs and much, much more. They enable every reader to embark on their own journey of historical discovery and exploration.
First Across the Continent: The Story of the Exploring Expedition of Lewis and Clark in 1804-5-6
Noah Brooks - 1901
Butch Heroes
Ria Brodell - 2018
Brodell offers a series of twenty-eight portraits of forgotten but heroic figures, each accompanied by a brief biographical note. They are individuals whose gender presentation was more masculine than feminine, who did not want to enter into heterosexual marriage, and who often faced dire punishment for being themselves.Brodell's detailed and witty paintings are modeled on Catholic holy cards, slyly subverting a religious template. The portraits and the texts offer intriguing hints of lost lives: cats lounge in the background of domestic settings; one of the figures is said to have been employed variously as "a prophet, a soldier, or a textile worker"; another casually holds a lit cigarette. Brodell did extensive research for each portrait, piecing together a life from historical accounts, maps, journals, paintings, drawings, and photographs, finding the heroic in the forgotten.
The Good Nurse: A True Story of Medicine, Madness, and Murder
Charles Graeber - 2013
But Cullen was no mercy killer, nor was he a simple monster. He was a favorite son, husband, beloved father, best friend, and celebrated caregiver. Implicated in the deaths of as many as 300 patients, he was also perhaps the most prolific serial killer in American history.Cullen's murderous career in the world's most trusted profession spanned sixteen years and nine hospitals across New Jersey and Pennsylvania. When, in March of 2006, Charles Cullen was marched from his final sentencing in an Allentown, Pennsylvania, courthouse into a waiting police van, it seemed certain that the chilling secrets of his life, career, and capture would disappear with him. Now, in a riveting piece of investigative journalism nearly ten years in the making, journalist Charles Graeber presents the whole story for the first time. Based on hundreds of pages of previously unseen police records, interviews, wire-tap recordings and videotapes, as well as exclusive jailhouse conversations with Cullen himself and the confidential informant who helped bring him down, THE GOOD NURSE weaves an urgent, terrifying tale of murder, friendship, and betrayal.Graeber's portrait of Cullen depicts a surprisingly intelligent and complicated young man whose promising career was overwhelmed by his compulsion to kill, and whose shy demeanor masked a twisted interior life hidden even to his family and friends. Were it not for the hardboiled, unrelenting work of two former Newark homicide detectives racing to put together the pieces of Cullen's professional past, and a fellow nurse willing to put everything at risk, including her job and the safety of her children, there's no telling how many more lives could have been lost.In the tradition of In Cold Blood, THE GOOD NURSE does more than chronicle Cullen's deadly career and the breathless efforts to stop him; it paints an incredibly vivid portrait of madness and offers a penetrating look inside America's medical system. Harrowing and irresistibly paced, this book will make you look at medicine, hospitals, and the people who work in them, in an entirely different way.
Green River, Running Red
Ann Rule - 2004
This is the extraordinary true story of the most prolific serial killer the nation had ever seen -- a case involving more than forty-nine female victims, two decades of intense investigative work...and one unrelenting killer who not only attended Ann Rule's book signings but lived less than a mile away from her home.
Punch Me Up to the Gods
Brian Broome - 2021
Brian’s recounting of his experiences—in all their cringe-worthy, hilarious, and heartbreaking glory—reveal a perpetual outsider awkwardly squirming to find his way in.Indiscriminate sex and escalating drug use help to soothe his hurt, young psyche, usually to uproarious and devastating effect. A no-nonsense mother and broken father play crucial roles in our misfit’s origin story. But it is Brian’s voice in the retelling that shows the true depth of vulnerability for young Black boys that is often quietly near to bursting at the seams.Cleverly framed around Gwendolyn Brooks’s poem “We Real Cool,” the iconic and loving ode to Black boyhood, Punch Me Up to the Gods is at once playful, poignant, and wholly original. Broome’s writing brims with swagger and sensitivity, bringing an exquisite and fresh voice to ongoing cultural conversations about Blackness in America.
coffee days whiskey nights
Parker Lee - 2020
A lot can happen between the first sip of coffee and the last taste of whiskey, and this book takes a look at the way a single day can change our outlook on everything from relationships with others, to our relationships with ourselves, and everything in between. Ultimately, coffee days, whiskey nights illustrates that no matter how hopeless we may feel at the end of the day, a new one is only a few hours away.
100 Nasty Women of History
Hannah Jewell - 2017
When you learn about women in history, it's hard not to wonder: why do they all seem so prim and proper? The truth is, you're probably not being told the whole story. Also, (mostly male) historians keep leaving out or glossing over some of the most badass women who ever walked the surface of this planet. Fake news! But fret not. Former Buzzfeed senior writer and Washington Post pop culture host Hannah Jewell has got you covered. In 100 Nasty Women of History, Hannah will spill the tea on:-the women with impressive kill counts-the women who wrote dangerous things-the women who fought empires and racists-the women who knew how to have a good-ass time-the women who punched Nazis (metaphorically but also not)And that's just half of the women in this book. That's pretty metal.So, if you think that Nasty Women are a new thing, think again. They've always been around - you just haven't always heard of them. Take these stories and tell them to your friends. Write them on a wall. Sneakily tell them to your niece (who's old enough to hear the bad words, of course). Post them to your local MP (especially if it's a man). Make your friends dress up as Nasty Women for Halloween. These are the 100 Nasty Women of History who gave zero f*cks whatsoever. These are the 100 Nasty Women of History who made a difference. These are the 100 Nasty Women of History whom everyone needs to know about, right now.