Biography/Memoir

“City Boy fully evokes New York’s gritty beauty. It’s a treasure trove of period detail. But White knows the real city is made up of the people in it, and he seems to have known an astounding number of them, from Billy Dee Williams and Mama Cass to Lillian Hellman and Robert Mapplethorpe.” [Reviewed here]

Journalist Marc Spitz’s expansive biography of one of the twentieth century’s greatest music and cultural icons from his start as David Jones, an R & B—loving kid from Bromley, England, to his androgynous alter ego Ziggy Stardust, to his rise to rock ’n’ roll aristocracy as David Bowie.

“The life of Grant Wood has often been eclipsed by his paintings, leaving him a constant enigma in the history American art. Yet, as R. Tripp Evans shows in Grant Wood: A Life, Wood was a reluctant artist for the values of mid-western heterosexual values.” [Reviewed here]

A new biography of Serge Diaghilev, founder and impresario of the Ballets Russes, the person who revolutionized ballet. Based on unprecedented access to Russian archives, Scheijen explores Diaghilev’s open homosexual liaisons, most famously with Nijinsky, and his turbulent friendships with Stravinsky, Coco Chanel, Prokofiev, and Jean Cocteau.

Children’s/Young Adult

From the author of Becoming Chloe, Pay It Forward, this is the story of a young high school loner who falls in love with a transman and her tumultuous relationship with her own mother.

In this coming of age story, an unexpected friend teaches sixteen-year-old Paul Landon how to stand up for himself as he learns to cope with the death of his brother—a closeted Vietnam veteran.

On the first day of school Derek and Scott meet and their lives change in an instant.
As Derek and Scott discover the things they have in common, they enter into one of the closest and most loving relationships either of them has ever experienced. When unexpected circumstances threaten their relationship.

Drama

An anthology of the most important plays, visual essays, and performances that have shaped contemporary queer theatre and performance practice in Ireland in the years following the decriminalization of homosexuality, from 1993 to the present. The foreword is by award-winning Irish playwright and poet, Frank McGuinness.

Fiction

Bob, a gay book for sale in a Greenwich Village bookstore, falls in love with another book, Moishe. But a freak accident separates the young lovers. As Bob wends his way through used book bins, paper bags, knapsacks, and lecture halls, hoping to be reunited with Moishe, he meets a variety of characters, both book and human.

The coal mine culture of Wyoming comes alive in this story of forbidden friendship, set amidst the racial tensions surrounding the Rock Springs Massacre 1885—a riot between miners that resulted in the death of 28 Chinese miners and the destruction of 75 Chinese homes.

If the glowing reviews from John Waters, Alison Bechdel, and John Ashbery don’t convince you, then perhaps you need to read the first two sentences: “My English professor’s ass was so beautiful. It was perfect and full as she stood at the board writing some important word.”

“A dual coming-of-age story set in 1999 upstate New York, focusing on obnoxious 17-year-old Tabitha Scales, and Jeremy Carr, a musician and director of the local Catholic church choir.” — PW

The fifth story collection by the author traverses issues of gender and identity with a wistful, perceptive eye.

“Malinda Lo’s Ash isn’t just a lesbian love story, a faerie tale or even only a retelling of the Cinderella tale; it’s a delicious blend of these genres that combines them in unexpected ways. There is much to praise in the way Lo stitches together these different narrative projects.” [Reviewed here]

“There’s nothing confusing about Cunningham’s propulsive prose; the references are occasional and inessential, the stylistic borrowings limited to occasional parenthetical asides and discursive interior monologues. Still, Cunningham’s New York is as intensely wrought as Joyce’s Dublin; it is a crowded, haunted city that contains both people who are truly exceptional and people whose job is to enable or to judge who is worthy of that description.” [Reviewed here]

First published in French in 1976, Diary of an Innocent recounts the experiences of a young man in an imaginary setting that suggests North Africa. “Duvert’s Diary presents a cascading series of portraits of the narrator’s adolescent sexual partners and their culture, and ends with a fanciful yet rigorous construction of a reverse world in which marginal sexualities have become the norm.”

A comic historical novel set in 1830s America. Dan Connor, has followed his wife Rachel and her lover Bruce Bilson, a University of Chicago physics professor and the inventor of time travel, into the past. In his journey he obtains a mystical sidekick, a Potawatomi transvestite named Listening Rabbit (aka Bunny), and he befriends historical figures such as Albert Gallatin and Samuel J. Tilden.

An anthology of the winning entries for the Jane Austen Short Story Award, hand-selected by an elite team of judged led by Lambda Award winning author, Sarah Waters.

Mystery & Thriller

Part-time prostitute, Michael Jones, falls in love with rich financier and dreams of becoming an artist. Caught between his past and the luxury of upper class London, Jones’ uncompromising pursuit of fame leads to tragedy, entrapping him in a kaleidoscope of sex and crime.

Paranormal investigator Blake Danzig helps his ex-lover and San Francisco Police Detective, Brian Cox, solve cold case murders by contacting the spirits of the victims. But when he gets too close to a psychotic spirit, Blake risks losing not only his boyfriend, Joe, but his very soul.

Elizabethan London is the backdrop for this historical murder mystery that weaves together several plots involving Christopher Marlowe, William Shakespeare, an actor named Barnaby Winter, and the young protagonist, Hugh Seaton, a married tailor turned sleuth.

Nonfiction & LGBT Studies

An irreverent history of homophobic and sexist obscurantism in the Holy Roman Church and an endoscopic examination of its greatest contemporary advocate, Pope Benedict XVI, Joseph Ratzinger.

A study of gay and lesbian life in Arkansas in the twentieth century, a deft weaving together of Arkansas history, dozens of oral histories, and Brock Thompson’s own story.

The courtroom drama and disfunction of everyday Americans come to life in these true stories—first published in Boston and DoubleTake magazines—from the first openly gay judge in Massachusetts, Boston Municipal Court Judge, Dermot Meagher.

Blackwood analyzes the complex and seemingly contradictory practices of tombois and their partners in the city of Padang, West Sumatra—demonstrating how they make sense of Islamic, transnational, and modern state discourses in ways that seem to align with normative gender and sexual categories, while at the same time subverting them.

In this series of cultural polemics on an unexpected array of contemporary topics—from mistaken first impressions to sustainable yet unaffordable pants to critiques of bourgeois mindsets—Larry-bob Roberts offers insight into the absurdities of modern life and queer culture.

Theology, gender roles, and Focus on the Family crisscross in this probing investigation of conservative Christianity and the movement’s response to same-sex marriage.

Ryan Buell, star of the hit A&E series Paranormal State, takes us behind the scenes of his most intense supernatural encounters. Buell takes this opportunity to come out as bisexual saying, “I’ve decided to share my sexuality and struggle over faith in hopes that others will no longer feel as though they are alone or that they can’t be religious.”

The definitive guide to one of the most beloved cult figures in pop music history.

Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity in America’s Public Schools
by Stuart Biegel
University of Minnesota Press

Stuart Biegel offers what K–12 schools should do—and in many cases have already done—to implement right-to-be-out policies. He examines recent legal and public policy changes that affect LGBT students and educators in the K–12 public school system.

Career, love, and sex advice for straight women from a “must-have”, “sassy, gay best friend” perspective according to Hiding In Hip Hop author Terrance Dean.

Tools for young people with one or more gay, lesbian, bi, or trans parents to help them combat homophobia, take pride in their alternative family structures, and speak out against injustice. This book profiles forty-five diverse young adults, who voice their opinions and provide advice for other youth living in LGBTQ households.

Will Fellows interweaves Branson’s original text with historical perspective provided through his own insightful commentary and excerpts gleaned from letters and essays from period gay publications.

Poetry

Sonnets, prose poems, and sparse free verse from our fellow LambdaLiterary.org contributor.

The 20th collection of poetry from the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize winning poet.

Romance & Erotica

Two women discover that real love has no limitations. Anna and Lily Kaklis have decided on a new adventure: adding to their family. Anna knows is she’s no longer afraid of parenting and little Andy, Lily’s nephew, deserves siblings. But when Lily’s pregnancy faces complications, it’s all new territory for all three of them, testing their understanding of love in brand new ways.

Valentine Darrow and Alexa Newland are separated when Alexa is caught in the middle of a Wereshifter civil war halfway around the world. Meanwhile, a mysterious disease begins to ravage the shifter population of New York City. Unable to reach Alexa to warn her, Val must penetrate the darkest secrets of the Consortium in a race against time to save her lover and friends.

Dessert inspired short stories from the “Undisputed Mistress of Lesbian Romance.”

Jamie Gwynmorgan doesn’t believe in prayer. She doesn’t believe in anything much. Except that people can’t be trusted—certainly not anyone she’s ever met.

Two erotic holiday tales from two bestselling romance authors in time for holiday shopping.

This collection continues in the successful Erotica category with stories of lovers in large numbers.