His parents had just divorced and puberty was confusing. Trying to be funny solved everything.HELP is the hilarious and heartbreaking account of Simon’s ongoing compulsion to reveal his entire self on stage. To tell the truth so it can’t hurt him any more. Loneliness, anxiety, depression – this book has it all. And more.From a complicated childhood in Essex to an Ayahuasca-led epiphany in the Amazon rainforest, this story will make you laugh, cry and then feel happier than you’ve ever been.

    Times Two is about two women meeting, falling madly in love, and realizing that they are so crazy about each other that they want to have a family together. The fact that they both get pregnant at the exact same time is where things start to get interesting. Sarah Kate Ellis, a high-powered magazine executive, and Kristen Henderson, a laid-back rock star, decide it’s time to start their family. After determining that Sarah should get pregnant first while Kristen works on her band’s new CD, they head to a fertility doctor to start the process. But after months of drug treatments, miscarriages, and heartbreak, Kristen decides to start trying, too. That’s when the utterly improbable happens: Sarah and Kristen find out that they are both pregnant—and are due three days apart. Overjoyed by the news that they are both expecting, Sarah and Kristen are also overwhelmed by all that lies ahead. Both have successful, demanding careers. Both have large, close-knit families nearby, including two strongly opinionated mothers who immediately want to be involved with everything. And both are completely clueless about the challenges they’re about to face. They soon realize that none of their previous accomplishments has prepared them for the highs and lows of impending motherhood: not Kristen’s stint touring with The Rolling Stones, nor Sarah’s march up the corporate ladder in the world of women’s magazines. They go through everything first-time parents-to-be experience—but twice over. They’re producing double the hormones, double the morning sickness, double the cravings, and have double the ups and downs. From the start, Sarah and Kristen think of their babies as twins, each woman carrying half of a set. But for two women who’ve always finished each other’s sentences, they suddenly find themselves on opposite ends of the mothers-to-be spectrum, with different opinions on almost everything. One wants a drug-free birth, while the other wants an epidural at the first sign of a contraction. One is dying to know the baby’s gender, but the other refuses to find out until she hears the baby’s first cry in the delivery room. The difficulties of having two pregnant women under the same roof are multiplied by the legal and social obstacles of being a gay couple. Told from Kristen and Sarah’s insightful and hilarious she said/she said perspective, this touching, modern family adventure will entertain, enlighten, and resonate with readers of all stripes.

    What most captivated the Beats was his extraordinary ability to relate his life story in pared-down, unaffected prose. It inspired them to create a new type of literature, free of constraint and self-consciousness. Huncke's work is a vital part of Beat literature, but until now it has remained relatively unknown. The Herbert Huncke Reader includes the full texts of Huncke's long-out-of-print classics Huncke's Journal and The Evening Sun Turned Crimson, excerpts from his autobiography, Guilty of Everything, and a wide selection from his unpublished letters and diaries.

    Staceyann's mother did not want her, and her father was not present. No one, except her grandmother, thought Staceyann would survive.It was her grandmother who nurtured and protected and provided for Staceyann and her older brother in the early years. But when the three were separated, Staceyann was thrust, alone, into an unfamiliar and dysfunctional home in Paradise, Jamaica. There, she faced far greater troubles than absent parents. So, armed with a fierce determination and uncommon intelligence, she discovered a way to break out of this harshly unforgiving world.Staceyann Chin, acclaimed and iconic performance artist, now brings her extraordinary talents to the page in a brave, lyrical, and fiercely candid memoir about growing up in Jamaica. She plumbs tender and unsettling memories as she writes about drifting from one home to the next, coming out as a lesbian, and finding the man she believes to be her father and ultimately her voice. Hers is an unforgettable story told with grace, humor, and courage.

    What is at stake in male homo/heterosexual definition? Through readings of Melville, Nietzsche, Wilde, James and Proust, the author argues that the vexed imperatives to specify straight and gay identities have become central to every important form of knowledge of the 20th century.

    Even when they first slept together Hutton had no idea who Mercury was, and when the star told him his name it meant nothing to him. Hutton worked as a barber at the Savoy Hotel and retained his job and his lodgings in Sutton, Surrey, for two years after moving in with Mercury, and then worked as his gardener. He was never fully assimilated into Mercury's jet-setting lifestyle, nor did he want to be, but from 1985 until Mercury's death in 1991 he was closer to him than anyone and knew all Mercury's closest friends: the other members of Queen, Elton John, David Bowie, Phil Collins to name a few. Ever present at the countless Sunday lunch gatherings and opulent parties, Hutton has a wealth of anecdotes about as well as a deep understanding of, Mercury's life. He also nursed Mercury through his terminal illness, often held him throughout the night in his final weeks, and was with him as he died. No one can tell the story of the last few years of Mercury's private life - the ecstasies and the agonies - more accurately or honestly than Jim Hutton.

    Their revealing correspondence leaves no aspect of their lives untouched: daily dramas, bits of gossip, the strains and pleasures of writing, and always the same joy in each other’s company. This volume, which features over 500 letters spanning 19 years, includes the writings of both of these literary icons.DeSalvo and Leaska established the chronological order of the letters and placed them in sequence, and they have also included relevant diary entries and letters Vita and Virginia wrote to other friends where they add context and illumination to the narrative. Annotations throughout the text identify peripheral characters, clarify allusions, and provide background. As the New York Times noted, "the result is a volume that reads like a book, not just a gathering of marvelous scraps."In his introduction Mitchell A. Leaska observes, "Rarely can a collection of correspondence have cast into more dramatic relief two personalities more individual or more complex; and rarely can an enterprise of the heart have been carried out so near the verge of archetypal feeling."

    This collection of short lyric poems evoke certain themes: interaction of and struggle between the human and natural world; violence, particularly against women and children; alienation and betrayal; the mysteries of the universe, God and death; and poetry itself.

     Anthony had a special feeling about Jonathan Larson's rock musical from his first audition, so he was thrilled when he landed a starring role as the filmmaker Mark Cohen. With his mom's cancer in remission and a reason to quit his newly acquired job at Starbucks, his life was looking up. When Rent opened to thunderous acclaim off Broadway, Rapp and his fellow cast members knew that something truly extraordinary had taken shape. But even as friends and family were celebrating the show's success, they were also mourning Jonathan Larson's sudden death from an aortic aneurysm. By the time Rent made its triumphant jump to Broadway, Larson had posthumously won the 1996 Pulitzer Prize. When Anthony's mom began to lose her battle with cancer, he struggled to balance the demands of life in the theatre with his responsibility to his family. Here, Anthony recounts the show's magnificent success and his overwhelming loss. He also shares his first experiences discovering his sexuality, the tension it created with his mother, and his struggle into adulthood to gain her acceptance. Variously marked by fledgling love and devastating loss, piercing frustration and powerful enlightenment, Without You charts the course of Rapp's exhilarating journey with the cast and crew of Rent as well as the intimacies of his personal life behind the curtain.

    Beginning with the turn-of-the-century writings of Angelina Welde Grimke and Alice Dunbar Nelson, it charts the evolution of black lesbian and gay fiction into the Harlem Renaissance of Langston Hughes and Countee Cullen and the later postwar era, in which works by Audre Lorde and James Baldwin signal the emerging sexual liberation movements. The 40 authors featured also include Alice Walker, E. Lynn Harris, Audre Lorde, April Sinclair, Jewelle Gomez, Thomas Glave, and Jacqueline Woodson.

    With gimleteyed wit and illuminated prose, Augusten shows how the holidays bring out the worst in us and sometimes, just sometimes, the very, very best.You better not cry --And two eyes made out of coal --Claus and effect --Ask again later --Why do you reward me thus --The best and only everything --Silent night

    As a young child his life was shaped by his parent’s extreme beliefs. Little did he know that the recurring nightmares of his early life would lead to one of the most horrific cases in British criminal history. Other than his obsession with cleanliness, John George Haigh was described by his acquaintances as someone who was as normal as any young man during the 1940s in England. In fact, most people said he was a true gentleman with exceptional manners and a profound love for classical music. However, in the back of John’s crisp mind was a much darker side; a craving for wealth combined with a lust for blood… After spending many years in prison for fraud and theft, John Haigh concluded that the only reason he always got caught was because people talked. What if I can make them disappear? he thought one evening. What if I can stop them from talking to the police? Using his scientific knowledge (and a tiny bit of the legal system he had read about while in prison) he derived a new sinister plan to get rich. That was the disturbing turning point in his life. That was the point when John The Gentleman became John The Serial Killer. This is the true story of the notorious Acid Bath Murderer, a cold-blooded murderer who imagined he was above the law. A man who believed he could literally get away with murder… Caution: The material in this publication has a strong adult theme and is intended for an adult audience. Reader discretion is advised.

    disappeared without leaving a trace. This book shed lights on some of the most intriguing missing person cases.There are countless stories all over the globe of average, everyday people suddenly vanishing under the strangest and most inopportune of circumstances. These cases have baffled the experts and remained unsolved for decades. The missing person cases presented in this book have diverse backgrounds, but they are all equally mysterious. Here we will dive headfirst into some of the most unusual disappearing acts on record. Rational explanations have been put forward for some, but many lack any plausible theories whatsoever.This book relates the true yet astonishing tales of prime ministers lost at sea, esteemed physicists vanishing without a trace, great explorers lost in the wilderness. From the World War II veteran who seemed to literally disappear into thin air on a bus ride home, to the ill-fated singer-songwriter Connie Converse who right around her 50th birthday decided to pull a 'Bilbo Baggins' (Connie’s own words) on the ones she loved by slipping on her very own ring of invisibility and vanishing out of sight, this book takes us through some of the saddest, the most intriguing, and the most downright bizarre accounts of lost souls that you will ever find.

    Whitney streaks this through with queer and gender theory, standing audaciously in the face of uncertainty, to ask: "if the 'feminine' thus far has only existed as a defective version of a masculine idea, then maybe there's something living, like between the gap in the sidewalk, that is actual femininity, accessible to all." Whitney stands in the gap, writes in the gap.Heaven functions much like a hand-dipped candle, lowered patiently into theory and memory--a caught manta rays hanging aloft a dock, a mother checking her teeth in the mirror above the stove--that, taken together, thicken into an astounding, expansive examination of what makes us up. For fans of Eileen Myles or Maggie Nelson's The Argonauts, Whitney's Heaven introduces an important new public intellectual.

    On the surface, Kate Carroll de Gutes’ debut collection of essays considers her sexuality, gender presentation, and the end of her marriage. But, as editor Judith Kitchen says, “peel it back, begin to take it apart, semantically and linguistically and personally, and it all comes clear.” Kate Carroll de Gutes invites readers to become collaborators in essays about issues we all face: growing up, identity, love, loss, and sometimes, the quest for the perfect fashion accessory. With wit matched by self-compassion and empathy, the essays offer a lesson on the inevitable journey back to the places we all began."On every page, de Gutes reminds us that we all traverse life’s roads with one eye fixed on the receding and mirrored past.” – Stephanie Kallos, best-selling author of Broken for You.