Showing titles in Biographies & Memoirs

A poignant, funny, and lively memoir of sexual awakening, music, and discovering one's true self. Pete Crighton came of age in the early/mid 1980s in the shadow of HIV/AIDS. Growing up in Toronto, he was terrified that his friends and schoolmates would find out that he was “different” at a...

On the 200th anniversary of the Battle of Trafalgar, Iestyn Edwards, bass baritone, boarded the HMS Victory to sing at a naval supper in the presence of Her Majesty. Stacks, Royal Marines commando, was there on duty. He was also on duty when Iestyn turned up in the middle of the Iraq war on a Combined Services Entertainment tour, this time in a tutu.... Despite trying to dry his ballet tights on the anti-blast wall, singing from a tank turret and confiscating the president of Estonia’s custard creams, the most unlikely friendship was formed.

Patricia Highsmith, author of classics such as The Talented Mr. Ripley and Strangers on a Train, was a lesbian and a writer who defied simple categorization. Marijane Meaker is the author of more than 40 books. Meaker and Highsmith met in New York City, became lovers, and embarked on a romance amidst the bohemian set of Greenwich Village and the literary crowd of Fire Island. Written with wit and brassy candor, this is a revealing look at a controversial icon of popular American fiction.

In 2019, R.K. Russell broke the mold when he came out as bisexual in an essay for ESPN that ignited the sports world. Now, in his powerful memoir, THE YARDS BETWEEN US, he shares his story and explores his love of football, men and women, walking the devastating tightrope of keeping his sexuality secret, the tension between his private and public lives, and the importance of crashing through barriers.

A trans essayist with a checkered past takes on the big questions of human existence Move over Michel de Montaigne, there's a new girl in town An ABA Indie Next Pick A San Francisco Chronicle Women's History Month Book Pick An Allstora Queer History 101 Book Club Pick Set against a...

Imagine a pied piper singing in a dazzling falsetto, wearing glittering sequins, and leading the young people of the nation to San Francisco and on to liberation where nothing was straight-laced or old-fashioned. And everyone, finally, was welcome—to come as themselves. This is not a fairy tale. This was real, mighty real, and disco sensation Sylvester was the piper. Joshua Gamson—a Yale-trained pop culture expert—uses him, a boy who would be fabulous, to lead us through the story of the '70s when a new era of change liberated us from conformity and boredom.

“Hiraeth” [heer-eyeth] is a Welsh word that evokes a deep, often indescribable yearning for home, or the very essence of what home represents. In this poignant, sharp, and at times heart-wrenching memoir, Dan Morgan, a Welsh American from Pittsburgh, PA, opens up about the throes of addiction, struggling with sexual identity, and searching for a place to fit without abandoning himself. He shares the highs and lows of his life, touching on his conflicts with family and faith, as well as his adventures in stand-up comedy, Roller Derby, and his role as a Sociology professor.

The bestseller optioned for a major film and adapted to the stage, Fourteen is this generation’s Holding the Man – a moving coming-of-age memoir about a young man’s search for identity and acceptance in the most unforgiving and hostile of places: high school. This is a story about my...

Born and raised in New York to a food-phobic mother and food-fanatical father, Elissa was trained early on that fancy is always best. After a childhood spent dining everywhere from Le Pavillion to La Grenouille, she devoted her life to all things gastronomical, from the rare game birds she served at elaborate dinner parties in an apartment so tiny that guests couldn’t turn around to the eight timbale molds she bought while working at Dean & DeLuca, just so she could make tall food.

INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER | INSTANT USA TODAY BESTSELLER | TIME's Most Anticipated Books of 2025 | New York Post's 30 Best Books for Spring | Amazon's Best Books of the Month | BookRiot's Best Books of April | Queerty's Spring 2025 LGBTQ+ Books | Town & Country's Must-Read Books of...

The Tony Award-nominated writer of The Tale of the Allergist's Wife and the long-running hit Off-Broadway play Vampire Lesbians of Sodom, and a Sundance Festival award winner Charles Busch has created a unique place in the entertainment world as a playwright, LGBT icon, drag actor, director, and cabaret performer, with his extraordinary gift for both connecting with and channeling the leading ladies of show business.

“Jess Gutierrez has a one-of-a-kind talent for showing how hilarious and absurd life can be—and, lucky reader, she is ready to share her escapades with the rest of us. I couldn’t put this book down.” —W. Kamau Bell, comedian and author of The Awkward Thoughts of W. Kamau Bell “Like...

CANADA READS 2020 WINNER SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2020 EDNA STAEBLER AWARD FOR CREATIVE NON-FICTION NATIONAL BESTSELLER 2020 LAMBDA LITERARY AWARD WINNER ONE OF BOOK RIOT'S 100 MOST INFLUENTIAL QUEER BOOKS OF ALL TIME How do you find yourself when the world tells you that you don't exist? Samra Habib...

After author Harlyn Aizley gave birth to her daughter, she watched in unanticipated horror as her partner scooped up the baby and said, "I'm your new mommy!" While they both had worked to find the perfect sperm donor, Aizley had spent nine months carrying the baby and hours in labor, so how could her partner claim to be their child's mommy? Many diapers later, Aizley began to appreciate the complexity of her partner's new role as the other mother. Together, they searched for stories about families like their own.

When Katrina, a forty-six-year-old Midwestern mother of four, becomes consumed with feelings for her female Pilates instructor, she begins to understand that she is and always has been gay. Her husband suggests they open up their twenty+ year marriage, which appears to be a reasonable solution...

TMI is the story of how Mario Lavandeira became Perez Hilton, a celebrity blogger with millions of readers around the globe who was sometimes called the Most Hated Man in Hollywood.

This confessional self-help guide explores the complex emotional truth of what it’s like when food, weight, and body image take priority over every other human impulse or action. Activist author Marissa LaRocca’s revelatory tale includes her struggle with her secrets, including sexuality, and how she emerged as an outspoken advocate for gay rights and women’s health issues.

In this extraordinarily compelling trans memoir, Avi, a bearish trans man and Psychology Professor, navigates sex and dating in a phallic-centric universe of men who love men. But something is missing. To become the man he aspires to be, he needs to reconnect with Talia, his hyper-feminine straight female past, and invite her back in. This memoir explores what it means to come home to oneself with brutal honesty, humour, and self-compassion, going well beyond gender.

In a hugely ambitious study that crosses continents, languages, and almost a century, Gregory Woods identifies the ways in which homosexuality has helped shape Western culture. Extending from the trials of Oscar Wilde to the gay liberation era, this book examines a period in which increased visibility made acceptance of homosexuality one of the measures of modernity.

Heer and Sumira share the tale of a friendship thriving despite the diversity of transgender experiences, Adira speaks to the affect of parental disaffection on the blossoming of a first love, Sudipta digs into the past to speak of an unlikely queertopia they’d found and HSW shares a journey of coming to terms with asexuality. To hear about these, and many more, join us as we explore the varying hues and journeys of queerness through this anthology of first-person LBT narratives.