Showing titles in Biographies & Memoirs

The story of Christopher Isherwood's life is one of pilgrimage: away from the constraints of inheritance and empire and toward authenticity and spiritual illumination. Isherwood—the author of Goodbye to Berlin, which inspired Cabaret, and A Single Man—was born the heir to a crumbling English estate. He died an icon of gay liberation in California while his partner, Don Bachardy, painted his death portrait.

Brought to you by Penguin. My friends will respect me, I hope, just as much under my jacket as under my dress... So take me for a man or a woman as you wish. By the age of thirty, the novelist who had been born Aurore Dupin in 1804 had become the internationally renowned George Sand. In English...

Rita Gigante grew up in a world swirling with secrets, lies, and multiple sins. Her father, notorious Mafia boss Vincent "The Chin" Gigante, was the leader of the Genovese crime clan and the head of all five New York crime families for decades. But until Rita was sixteen, she was kept in the dark about his underworld activities. She unknowingly hung out at mob headquarters and witnessed her dad's whispered meetings around the dinner table, but only knew what she was told by her mother and siblings about his odd behavior: Dad's sick. Keep your mouth shut. Don't talk about the family.

Embark on an emotional journey with Joanna Johnson as she navigates life's twists and turns, encountering remarkable individuals and absorbing life-changing insights along the way. Prepare to dive into your own memories, finding solace and inspiration in the enduring forces of love, strength, and human bonds that resonate throughout this captivating story!

In a crawlspace at the offices of Switchboard, a queer helpline in operation since 1974, lie dozens of log books kept by volunteers describing the phone calls they had taken: a teenager kicked out of home for dressing as the wrong gender; a lesbian terrified of having her baby taken away from her; a man arrested for chatting up another man; a young person wanting to know how to come out. These logs documented traces of tens of thousands of queer lives, captured by people who lent an ear to those in need.

Après Mon combat pour devenir père , où Mathieu Ceschin se confiait sur son parcours et libérait la parole autour de la GPA, il se livre à présent sur sa première année auprès d'Ezio, son fils tant désiré. Papa solo et quinqua, Mathieu aborde avec sincérité son quotidien à cent à l'heure, jonglant entre sa carrière et l'éducation de son fils. Il évoque aussi l'importance de déconstruire les préjugés et de s'entourer de ses proches pour fonder une famille choisie. Un témoignage singulier et universel à la fois, qui trouvera un écho en chacun de nous.

Nell'autunno del 1975 la sedicenne Jeanette Winterson deve prendere una decisione: rimanere al 200 di Water Street assieme ai genitori adottivi o continuare a vedere la ragazza di cui è innamorata e vivere in una Mini presa in prestito. Sceglie la seconda strada, perché tutto quello che vuole è essere felice. Tenta di spiegarlo alla madre, che però le chiede: "Perché essere felice quando puoi essere normale?". Da questa frase inizia il racconto intimo e personale di un'infanzia trascorsa fra un padre indifferente e una madre che passa le notti sveglia ad ascoltare il Vangelo alla radio, impastando torte e lavorando a maglia.

While we can all recall Martin Luther King Jr. giving his "I Have a Dream" speech in front of a massive crowd at Lincoln Memorial, few of us remember the man who organized this watershed nonviolent protest in eight short weeks: Bayard Rustin. This was far from Rustin's first foray into the fight for civil rights. As a world-traveling pacifist, he brought Gandhi's protest techniques to the forefront of US civil rights demonstrations, helped build the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, led the fight for economic justice, and played a deeply influential role in the life of Dr. King.

When a mass shooter killed five people in an LGBTQ nightclub in Colorado Springs, grieving people graffitied James Dobson's Focus on the Family headquarters with the words "Their blood is on your hands." Such an accusation comes as no surprise to Amber Cantorna-Wylde, whose father is a Focus on the Family executive and cast Amber out of her family when she came out in 2012.

Britney Daniels is a Black, masculine-presenting, tattooed lesbian from a working-class background. For the last five years, she has been working as an emergency-room nurse. She began Journal of a Black Queer Nurse as a personal diary, a tool to heal from the day-to-day traumas of seeing too much and caring too much. Hilarious, gut-wrenching, and infuriating by turns, these stories are told from the perspective of a deeply empathetic, no-nonsense young nurse, who highlights the way race, inequality, and a profit-driven healthcare system make the hospital a place where systemic racism is lived.

When Maeve DuVally came out as a transgender woman while working as a corporate communications manager at Goldman Sachs, she knew she couldn't do it quietly. DuVally intimately documents her struggle to be herself in this environment, initially keeping her identity a secret with wardrobe changes in the lobby bathroom after work. Eventually she declares herself and, to her surprise, Goldman Sachs embraces the effort. Surgery follows. When DuVally finally takes those first steps on heels through the corridors of this institution on the way to her first meeting as a woman, the listener cheers.

Un testimonio valiente y decidido de lo nunca contado. El relato del descubrimiento de la orientación sexual propia. «Este es el texto que hubiera querido leer antes de juzgarme sin conocerme.» Con estas palabras describe su autora este testimonio valiente, fruto del compromiso y la...

Nearing the age of forty, with an entire life already lived as a woman, Miles Borrero comes face to face with his father’s impending death. Suddenly realizing he has been stalling his transition for fear of losing his family’s love, this moment catalyzes Miles’s determination to be known as his father’s son. In Beautiful Monster, Miles chronicles his unusual childhood, by turns riveting and hilarious, in ’80s and ’90s Colombia during the Pablo Escobar years, as well as his move to Salt Lake City to pursue acting and the winding trajectory that eventually lands him in New York City.

¿Cómo se manifiesta la diversidad en la cotidianidad de la Ciudad de México? ¿Cómo se producen las transformaciones que hacen de ella un espacio de respeto y convivencia? ¿Acaso todos los colores del arcoíris brillan y se expresan por igual? En esta serie, conoceremos a seis referentes que desde su historia personal y profesional contribuyen a cambiar paradigmas arcaicos hacia nuevos caminos de posibilidad, donde el orgullo se vuelva no solo bandera sino horizonte.

Have you ever been around people, yet still felt alone? Dr. bird has too. Within the first variant of their envirusmental series, they revealed thirty years of their late-in-life realized secrets. In this second volume, they, literally and figuratively, Zoom in on the last four "unprecedented" ones. This includes them cutting-the-s--t about how, half-way through their PhD, COVID-19 hit. And how, a couple years later, they added "Dr." to the front of their nickname.

Un récit autobiographique aussi acide que lucide d’une étoile montante du stand-up. Un récit événement, qui fait le buzz dans les médias. Un récit de coming-out, et de toutes les hontes qui ont pu entraver l’acceptation de soi.

Born on the island of Trinidad in the Caribbean, Wil Roach grew up as a gay black boy in frosty London, learning by degrees about cultural and sexual diversity.

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.

When Jan Morris passed away in 2020, she was considered one of Britain's best-loved writers. The author of Venice, Pax Britannica, Conundrum, and more than fifty other books, her work was known for its observational genius, lyricism, and humor, and had earned her a passionate readership around the world.

From the wild imagination of Tyler Gaca, also known as TikTok's Ghosthoney, comes a beautiful compendium of poems, personal stories, and vignettes that explore magic, queerness, Tyler’s unique story, and the enchantment and comfort to be found in the weird, the dark, and the different. In this...