Showing titles in Biographies & Memoirs

Edith Hamilton didn’t publish her first book until she was 62. But over the next three decades this former headmistress would become the twentieth century’s most famous interpreter of the classical world. Today, Hamilton’s Mythology (1942) remains the standard version of ancient tales. During the Cold War, her influence even extended to politics, as she argued that postwar America could learn from the fate of Athens after its victory in the Persian Wars. Victoria Houseman tells the fascinating life story of a remarkable classicist whose ideas were shaped by—and aspired to shape—her times.

Lifting the Fire Hydrant Lid follows idealistic young recruit Kate Fullen as she negotiates training school and settles into life on the watch. With incidents and routine tasks woven into the fabric of the story, it describes the consuming pressure, emotional turmoil and unpredictable nature of the job. Utilising the rare perspective of a northern, queer, working-class female firefighter, Lifting the Fire Hydrant Lid examines the more intricate difficulties experienced by minority groups and gives a voice to a profession that is seldom heard and rarely seen.

Growing up, rejected by her father and losing members of her family, Courtney believed she had a purpose for her life. That purpose would not come without a price. From her earliest years, she knew she was different sexually. Confused, depressed, and afraid of a world that did not welcome her, Courtney lived through depression, disappointment, racism, and sexuality.

In the aftermath of a devastating, decade-long toxic relationship, 40-year-old gay filmmaker Steve Balderson embarks on a captivating journey—the Year of the Whore. This provocative memoir unveils the rollercoaster of his sexual reawakening as he navigates a labyrinth of intense love affairs, riveting career milestones, and soul-stirring transformations.

A groundbreaking look at the history of transgender representation in TV and film, by an of-the-moment and in-demand culture reporter. Narrated by Tre'vell Anderson, WE SEE EACH OTHER is a personal history of trans visibility since the beginning of moving images. A literary reckoning, it unearths a transcestry that's long existed in plain sight and in the shadows of history's annals, and further contextualizes our present moment of increased representation.

Charles Finger’s book efficiently covers Oscar Wilde’s background, his early years and education, and his beginnings as an author, poet, and critic for several magazines. The author then turns to the activities of Wilde that drew the attention of others, culminating in the Marquess of Queensbury calling Wilde out as a homosexual. Wilde sued for slander, but the Marquess was acquitted and materials brought forth during the trial resulted in Wilde being arrested and tried for homosexuality. He was convicted and sentenced to two years of hard labor, from which he never really recovered.

INSTANT NATIONAL BESTSELLER A marvelous and compulsively readable collection of stories from the life of Salah Bachir — philanthropist, art collector, movie industry insider — who, through his sheer joy of life, art, giving back, and human interaction, has endeared him to some of the most...

During Mardi Gras 1973, Stewart Butler (1930–2020) fell in love with Alfred Doolittle—a wealthy socialite and schizophrenic from San Francisco. Their relationship was an improbable love story that changed the course of LGBTQ+ history. With Doolittle's money, Butler was able to retire and devote his life to political activism in the cause of queer liberation.

Was ist Männlichkeit? Gibt es mehr als eine? Wer entscheidet darüber? Und wo findet ein trans Mann bei alledem seinen Platz? "Männer & Zerbrechlichkeiten" erzählt die Geschichte von Paul Ninus Naujoks, wie er als trans Mann seinen Weg in die Männlichkeit fand, welche Hürden und Überforderungen ihm dabei begegneten und auch, wie wir als Gesellschaft transfreundlicher sein können.

A sequel to First Gear: A Motorcycle Memoir, Horses in the Sand is a collection of stories that document a queer Métis woman’s journey from her sparse beginnings as a child to becoming a tradeswoman, teacher, and artist. With courage, humour, and frank honesty, the stories describe what it was like to grow up as a girl who was starkly different from "normal" and how "coming out" became a lifelong process of self-acceptance and changing identities.

Growing up as a fat kid is hard. Growing up as a fat and gay kid in a religious community is extra hard. William J. Ufton recalls his early childhood navigating trauma, mental health issues, and issues surrounding food.

My plan was simple. Serve a full-time mission. Go to college. Get married. Stick it out 'til death. That’s not what happened. I began my studies at BYU, hoping to strengthen my faith while I searched for love. That's when I met both Claire and Easton.

A queer minister, politician and staunch activist for LGBTQ rights, Cheri DiNovo went from living on the streets as a teenager to performing the first legalized same-sex marriage registered in Canada in 2001. From rights for queer parents to banning conversion therapy, her story will inspire people (queer or ally) to not only resist the system—but change it.

J.R. Jamison spends his days in a world of trigger warnings and safe spaces, while his trigger-happy dad, Dave, spends his questioning why Americans have become so sensitive. Yet at the height of the 2016 election, the two decide to put political differences aside and travel together to rural Missouri for Dave’s fifty-five year class reunion. But with theco nstant backdrop of the Trump vs. Clinton battle at every turn, they are forced to explore one formidable question: Will the trip push them further apart or bring them closer together?

In this brave and thoughtful book, Max Robinson goes beyond the ‘before' and ‘after' of the transition she underwent and takes us through the processes that led her, first, to transition in an attempt to get relief from her distress, and then to detransition as she discovered feminist thought and community.

In this unusual, engaging, and intimate collection of personal essays, Lambda Literary Award finalist Tania De Rozario recalls growing up as a queer, brown, fat girl in Singapore, blending memoir with elements of history, pop culture, horror films, and current events to explore the nature of...

As a multiracial household in Chicago’s North Side community of Rogers Park, race is at the core of Francesca T. Royster and her family's world, influencing everyday acts of parenting and the conception of what family truly means. Like Maggie Nelson’s The Argonauts, this lyrical and affecting memoir focuses on a unit of three: the author; her wife Annie, who's white; and Cecilia, the Black daughter they adopt as a couple in their forties and fifties.

Emerson Whitney writes, "Really, I can't explain myself without making a mess." What follows is that mess—electrifying, gorgeous, defiant. At Heaven's center, Whitney seeks to understand their relationship to their mother and grandmother, those first windows into womanhood and all its consequences. Whitney retraces a roving youth in deeply observant, psychedelic prose—all the while folding in the work of thinkers like Judith Butler, Donna Haraway, and C. Riley Snorton—to engage transness and the breathing, morphing nature of selfhood.

Having spent over 20 years in the adult entertainment industry, I have grown tired of the typical ill adjusted, drug addicted stripper story. Contrary to the reigning stereotype, I offer a candid look at my own adventures in the industry and how it has affected my life. I present my memoirs as a rebuttal to the talk show depiction of exotic dancers as chemically challenged, poorly disguised prostitutes with severe daddy and body image issues.

Father Shannon Kearns is familiar with liminal spaces. He’s lived in them his whole life. And while his experience as a transgender man has often made it difficult for him to fit in—especially in the context of Christianity—it has also shaped his perspective in important ways on complicated, gender-transgressing aspects of theology and Scripture.