Book picks similar to
Hey Paesan: Writing by Lesbians and Gay Men of Italian Descent by Denise Nico Leto
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nonfiction
lgbt
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Nature's Domain: Anne Lister and the Landscape of Desire
Jill Liddington - 2003
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 This dramatic story, hitherto unknown and never before unpublished, unfolds to New Year’s Eve 1832.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
Firebird
Mark Doty - 1999
A self-confessed "chubby smart bookish sissy with glasses and a Southern accent," Doty grew up on the move, the family following his father's engineering work across America-from Tennessee to Arizona, Florida to California. A lyrical, heartbreaking comedy of one family's dissolution through the corrosive powers of alcohol, sorrow, and thwarted desire, Firebird is also a wry evocation of childhood's pleasures and terrors, a comic tour of American suburban life, and a testament to the transformative power of art.
Changing Trains: One boy's journey of discovery across 1980s Europe
Mark Johnson - 2018
Changing Trains is a fictionalised memoire that will transport you back to the glorious 1980s - that time just before mobile devices, the internet and social media changed the world - and one working class boy's journey of discovery and sexual self awareness.
Big Woody: Bonus Book: Larry the Internet Guy
Dick Parker - 2020
Woody is a handsome young contractor and he and Jake get along great. After the house is finished Woody hires Jake for the next house. They soon become great friends. Jake is awkward with girls. He's never really had any luck with them and isn't much interested in them. He's never had any sexual contact with a guy either but he's curious and attracted to Woody. He's determined to make Woody see him in a different light.
Woman in the Making
Rory O'Neill - 2014
In a small town in the west of Ireland, a beautiful baby boy is born. He enjoys an idyllic country childhood: privileged, carefree, surrounded by love - and pet sheep.Eleven years later, the Pope visits Ireland, and things will never be the same again. At the Pontiff's mass in Knock, the little boy has an epiphany that will set him on the road to become the biggest, boldest, and most opinionated drag queen Ireland has ever known.This is the story of Rory O'Neill's journey from the fields to becoming Panti Bliss, the voice of a brave new nation embracing diversity, all the colours of the rainbow and, most of all, a glamorous attitude.It's also the story of a misfit who turned his difference into a triumphant art form; of coming to terms with HIV; of political activism; and of 'Pantigate', and the speech that touched a million lives.Welcome to the world of Panti - adored, fun drunk aunt to the world - and her creator Rory, in their own inimitable words.
My Story
Caroline "Tula" Cossey - 1992
She was fighting for the legal right to marry as a woman. The author tells of her childhood in Norfolk, the operations that liberated her sexually and her persecution by the tabloid press.
Behind the Screen: How Gays and Lesbians Shaped Hollywood, 1910-1969
William J. Mann - 2001
Much has been written about how gays have been portrayed in the movies but no book -- until now -- has looked at their influence behind the screen. Whether out of or in the closet, gays and lesbians have from the very beginning played a significant role in shaping Hollywood. Gay actors were among the earliest matinee idols and gay directors have long been among the most popular and commercially successful filmmakers. In fact, gay set and costume designers created the very look of Hollywood.With this landmark book, Mann fills a void in the Hollywood history archives. Written in the tradition of Neal Gabler's An Empire of Their Own: How the Jews Invented Hollywood and based on hundreds of hours of interviews with survivors of this golden age, Behind the Screen is destined to become a classic of film literature.
Looking For Always
Natalie Debrabandere - 2017
When she comes to, she explains that she was on her way to the island, to pray to the Goddess at the temple on the hill. Her name is Ashleigh. She cannot remember anything else. Only one person, local historian and past life regression therapist Andrew Monaghan, understands what this could really mean. He asks his colleague, New Yorker Kathleen Edwards, to fly over to help him with this unusual, and potentially extraordinary case. From the start, it is obvious that the two women share a deep, meaningful, yet troubling connection. But who is Ashleigh, really? And will the dark secrets of her past eventually catch up with her, and cost her the life, and love she has always been searching for?
White Girls
Hilton Als - 2013
The result is an extraordinary, complex portrait of "white girls," as Als dubs them—an expansive but precise category that encompasses figures as diverse as Truman Capote and Louise Brooks, Malcolm X and Flannery O’Connor. In pieces that hairpin between critique and meditation, fiction and nonfiction, high culture and low, the theoretical and the deeply personal, Als presents a stunning portrait of a writer by way of his subjects, and an invaluable guide to the culture of our time.
The Bitter Man's Guide to Women
Adam Douglas - 2012
What this book lacks in length, it more than makes up for with ersatz knowledgeability and diagrams. Particularly helpful for guys who have just come out of a long term relationship - but also universally applicable.
Everybody's Talking About Jamie
Tom MacRae - 2017
Time to make your dreams come true.
The False Ascendant: A Progression Fantasy Epic (Book 2 of The Menocht Loop Series)
Lorne Ryburn - 2022
Reunited with an old ally from the loop, he must prepare to take part in an international tournament where the most powerful practitioners in the world fight for dominance.And unbeknownst to all, a calamity looms overhead—a continent-shattering trial that only Ian can stop.The Menocht Loop Series is a best-rated serialized novel on Royal Road with over a thousand ratings and millions of views. Now it's an Amazon best-seller.Buy a copy or read free with Kindle Unlimited today!
A Goomba's Guide to Life
Steven R. Schirripa - 2002
Schirripa, The Sopranos’ own Bobby Bacala, exposes the inner mysteries of this unique Italian-American hybrid in A Goomba’s Guide to Life so that anyone can walk, talk, and live like a guy “from the neighborhood.”Über-goomba Steve Schirripa shows how being a goomba made him what he is today, offering lessons learned on his own journey from Bensonhurst to Vegas, and to his current gig as Bobby Bacala on one of TV’s most popular shows. Along the way, he shares secrets that will help you get in touch with your own inner goomba. You’ll learn what music to enjoy (Sinatra, yes; Snoop Dogg, no), what movies to watch (Raging Bull, yes; Titanic, never), which sports to follow (baseball is good; golf and tennis, fuhgeddaboudit), and even tips on goomba etiquette. Ever wonder how a real goomba gets the best seat in the house? (Hint: It involves tipping, jewelry, and intimidation.) Schirripa even includes goomba do’s and don’ts (never, ever criticize a goomba’s mother or her gravy; always wear more jewelry than you think you need).With knockout photographs of Schirripa and his compares, and insider information on how to think goomba, speak goomba, cook and eat goomba, and even how to behave at goomba weddings and funerals, A Goomba’s Guide to Life will show any wiseguy wannabe how to sing like a Soprano.
The Flaneur: A Stroll through the Paradoxes of Paris
Edmund White - 2001
These beautifully produced, pocket-sized books will provide exactly what is missing in ordinary travel guides: insights and imagination that lead the reader into those parts of a city no other guide can reach.A flaneur is a stroller, a loiterer, someone who ambles through a city without apparent purpose but is secretly attuned to the history of the place and in covert search of adventure, esthetic or erotic. Edmund White, who lived in Paris for sixteen years, wanders through the streets and avenues and along the quays, taking us into parts of Paris virtually unknown to visitors and indeed to many Parisians. Entering the Marais evokes the history of Jews in France, just as a visit to the Haynes Grill recalls the presence-festive, troubled-of black Americans in Paris for a century and a half. Gays, Decadents, even Royalists past and present are all subjected to the flaneur's scrutiny. Edmund White's The Flaneur is opinionated, personal, subjective. As he conducts us through the bookshops and boutiques, past the monuments and palaces, filling us in on the gossip and background of each site, he allows us to see through the blank walls and past the proud edifices and to glimpse the inner, human drama. Along the way he recounts everything from the latest debates among French law-makers to the juicy details of Colette's life in the Palais Royal, even summoning up the hothouse atmosphere of Gustave Moreau's atelier.
Christmas Lights
Amelia Andrews - 2019
New home. New job. New town. She's moved in with her politically-active best friend from university who has promised to find Millie a date before Christmas. When news that the local head of the council, Nightmare Nightingale, has decided that there will be no Christmas tree in the town centre that year, Millie is quick to pick up a placard and join the protests. After all, what is Christmas without a tree? But Millie soon discovers that Professor Kay Nightingale isn't quite the nightmare she is painted to be. What will happen when Millie gets closer to Kay? How will she explain the confusing relationship to her friends? And will there be a Christmas tree in the end?