Memoir
The argonauts
Maggie Nelson
BIOGRAPHY /Nelson, Maggie
Memoir, LGBTQ+
A genre-bending memoir, a work of 'autotheory' offering fresh, fierce, and timely thinking about desire, identity, and the limitations and possibilities of love and language. At its center is a romance: the story of the author's relationship with the artist Harry Dodge. This story, which includes the author's account of falling in love with Dodge, who is fluidly gendered, as well as her journey to and through a pregnancy, is an intimate portrayal of the complexities and joys of (queer) family-making.
Logical family : a memoir
Armistead Maupin
BIOGRAPHY /Maupin, Armistead
Memoir, LGBTQ+
The long-awaited memoir from the beloved author of the bestselling Tales of the City series. 'Sooner or later, no matter where in the world we live, we have to venture beyond our biological family to find our logical one, the one that actually makes sense for us. We have to, if we are to live without squandering our lives.'--from Logical Family. Born in the mid-twentieth century and raised in the heart of conservative North Carolina, Armistead Maupin lost his virginity to another man 'on the very spot where the first shots of the Civil War were fired.' Realizing that the South was too small for him, this son of a traditional lawyer packed his earthly belongings into his Opel GT (including a beloved portrait of a Confederate ancestor) and took to the road in search of adventure. It was a journey that would lead him from a homoerotic navy initiation ceremony in the jungles of Vietnam to that strangest of strange lands: San Francisco in the early 1970s. Over the course of the next forty years Maupin would weave his impressions of the city into an epic urban saga: Tales of the City would provide him with a very public coming-out platform and forever transform both his politics and his heart. With humor and unflinching honesty, Maupin brings to life flesh-and-blood characters every bit as endearing and indelible as the vivid men and women who populate his novels. Logical Family offers an unforgettable portrait of the man who chronicled the liberation and evolution of America's queer community over the last four decades with honesty and compassion and inspired millions to claim their own lives.
Added by Melody
Karamo : my story of embracing purpose, healing, and hope
Karamo Brown
BIOGRAPHY /Brown, Karamo
Memoir, LGBTQ+
An insightful, candid, and inspiring memoir from Karamo Brown--Queer Eye's beloved culture expert--as he shares his story for the first time, exploring how the challenges in his own life have allowed him to forever transform the lives of those in need.
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Native country of the heart : a memoir
Cherríe Moraga
BIOGRAPHY /Moraga, Cherríe
Memoir, LGBTQ+
As a young woman, Elvira left California to work as a cigarette girl in glamorous late-1920s Tijuana, where an ambiguous relationship with a wealthy white man taught her life lessons about power, sex, and opportunity. As Moraga charts her mother's journey from impressionable young girl to battle-tested matriarch to, later on, an old woman suffering under the yoke of Alzheimer, she traces her own self-discovery of her gender-queer body and Lesbian identity, as well as her passion for activism and the history of her pueblo. As her mother's memory fails, Moraga is driven to unearth forgotten remnants of a U.S. Mexican diaspora, its indigenous origins, and an American story of cultural loss.
Added by Melody
Trans figured
Brian Belovitch
306.768 /Belovitch
Memoir, LGBTQ+
In Trans Figured, Brian Belovitch shares his true story of life as a gender outlier and his dramatic journey through the jungle of gender identity. Brian has had the rare distinction of coming out three times: first as a queer teenager; then as a glamorous transgender woman named Tish, and later, Natalia Gervais; and finally as an HIV-positive gay man surviving the AIDS crisis in the 1980s. From growing up in a barely-working-class first-generation immigrant family in Fall River, Massachusetts, to spinning across the disco dance floor of Studio 54 in New York City, from falling into military lock-step as the Army wife of a domineering GI in Germany to having a brush with fame as Natalia, high-flying downtown darling of the boozy and druggy pre-Giuliani New York nightclub scene, Brian escaped many near-death experiences. Trans Figured chronicles a life lived on the edge with an unforgettable cast of characters during a dangerous and chaotic era. Rich with drama and excitement, this no-holds-barred memoir tells it all. Most importantly, Brian's candid and poignant story of recovery shines a light on the perseverance of the human spirit.
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Sissy : A Coming-of-Gender Story
Jacob Tobia
From the moment a doctor in Raleigh, North Carolina, put 'male' on his birth certificate, there were expectations about who Jacob was and who Jacob should be, words like 'masculine' and 'aggressive' and 'sports.' Naturally sensitive, playful, creative, and glitter-obsessed, as a child Jacob was given the label 'sissy' which joined forces with 'gay,' 'trans,' 'nonbinary,' and 'too-queer-to-function.' In calling out the stereotypes that each of us have faced, he invites us to rethink what we know about gender, and offers a bold blueprint for a healed world-- one free from gender-based trauma and bursting with trans-inclusive feminism.
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No ashes in the fire : coming of age black & free in America
Darnell L. Moore
BIOGRAPHY /Moore, Darnell L.
Memoir, LGBTQ+
When Darnell L. Moore was fourteen years old, three boys from his neighborhood tried to set him on fire as he was walking home from school. Darnell was tall and awkward and constantly bullied for being gay. That afternoon, one of the boys doused him with gasoline and tried lighting a match. It was too windy, and luckily Darnell's aunt arrived in time to grab Darnell and pull him to safety. It was not the last time he would face death. What happens to the black boys who come of age in neglected, poor, heavily policed, and economically desperate cities that the War on Drugs and mass incarceration have created? How do they learn to live, love, and grow up? Darnell was raised in Camden, NJ, the son of two teenagers on welfare struggling to make ends meet. He explored his sexuality during the height of the AIDS epidemic, when being gay was a death sentence. He was beaten down and ignored by white and black America, by his school, and even his church, the supposed place of sanctuary. He made it out, but as he quickly learned, escaping Camden, escaping poverty, and coming out do not guarantee you freedom. It wasn't until Darnell was pushed into the spotlight at a Newark rally after the murder of a young queer woman that he found his voice and his calling. He became a leading organizer with Black Lives Matter, a movement that recognized him and insisted that his life mattered. In recovering the beauty, joy, and love in his own life, No Ashes in the Fire gives voice to the rich, varied experiences of all those who survive on the edges of the margins. In the process, he offers a path toward liberation.
Added by Melody
Long live the tribe of fatherless girls
T Kira Madden
BIOGRAPHY /Madden, T Kira
Memoir, LGBTQ+
The acclaimed literary essayist T Kira Madden's raw and redemptive debut is a memoir about coming of age as a queer, biracial teenager within the fierce contradictions of Boca Raton, Florida, a place where cult-like privilege, shocking social and racial disparities, rampant white-collar crime, and powerfully destructive standards of beauty hide in plain sight. As a child in Florida, T Kira Madden lived a life of extravagance--from her exclusive private school to her equestrian trophies and designer shoes, she had plenty to envy. But beneath the surface, life in "the rat's mouth" of Boca Raton was dangerous. Left to her own devices as both parents battled drug addiction, Kira navigated the perils of coming of age too quickly, and without guidance--oblivious parents and misguided babysitters at home, tormentors at school, sexual predators at the mall, and the confused, often destructive, desperately loving friendship of fatherless girls. With unflinching honesty and moving, lyrical prose, and spanning from 1960's Hawai'i to the nip and tuck rooms of 1990s Florida to the present-day struggle of a young woman in a culture of harassment, Long Live the Tribe of Fatherless Girls is the story of families both lost and found, unmade and rebuilt, crooked and beautiful
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I don't know what you know me from : confessions of a co-star
Judy Greer
eAUDIO
Memoir
The prolific actress best known for her appearances in such productions as the Oscar-winning The Descendants presents a collection of comedic essays on topics ranging from stepmotherhood to midnight shopping trips at the pharmacy.
Judy Greer. If the name isn’t familiar, I’m sure it will be after you Google it. With more than 18 working years in Hollywood, and 90+ film and TV credits to her name, she’s one of those actors who seems to be in everything. She’s a star, yet she isn’t. She’s worked with George Clooney and Paul Rudd and Jennifer Lopez, but can still run to a 24-hour drug store without fear of being recognized. In fact, if/when she is recognized, the people who stop her aren’t sure why they’ve stopped her. Best of both worlds? The work, some fame, but no paparazzi? (If you aren’t going to Google Judy Greer, she played Lucy in 13 Going on 30; Maggie Lang in Ant-Man; Karen Mitchell in Jurassic World; and Kitty Sanchez in Arrested Development.) This is an entertaining memoir. Judy Greer is funny, honest – some might think she’s too honest, but I loved it – and anyone who’s curious about what happens behind-the-scenes in Hollywood will get a little bit of gossip. Not dirt – she’s not stupid; she still has to make a living – but the next time you see a celebrity looking like they wish they were anywhere else on the red carpet or at a press junket, Greer’s book will explain why both aren’t fun. -Meredith
Scrappy little nobody
Anna Kendrick
eAUDIO
Memoir
A collection of humorous autobiographical essays by the Academy Award-nominated actress and star of Up in the Air and Pitch Perfect. Even before she made a name for herself on the silver screen starring in films like Pitch Perfect, Up in the Air, Twilight, and Into the Woods, Anna Kendrick was unusually small, weird, and “10 percent defiant.” At the ripe age of thirteen, she had already resolved to “keep the crazy inside my head where it belonged. Forever. But here’s the thing about crazy: It. Wants. Out.” In Scrappy Little Nobody, she invites readers inside her brain, sharing extraordinary and charmingly ordinary stories with candor and winningly wry observations. With her razor-sharp wit, Anna recounts the absurdities she’s experienced on her way to and from the heart of pop culture as only she can—from her unusual path to the performing arts (Vanilla Ice and baggy neon pants may have played a role) to her double life as a middle-school student who also starred on Broadway to her initial “dating experiments” (including only liking boys who didn’t like her back) to reviewing a binder full of butt doubles to her struggle to live like an adult woman instead of a perpetual “man-child.” Enter Anna’s world and follow her rise from “scrappy little nobody” to somebody who dazzles on the stage, the screen, and now the page—with an electric, singular voice, at once familiar and surprising, sharp and sweet, funny and serious (well, not that serious).
Hands down one of my favorite celebrity memoirs! Anna Kendrick's memoir doesn't break the mold. It follows the same pattern as most celebrity memoirs of a moment that sparks the book's idea, a look back on childhood, first acting gig (or gigs), etc., but she writes in such a way that you don't care. It's entertaining. She's funny. She swears just as much as you do in ordinary conversations and she doesn't apologize for it, dammit! Kendrick covers a variety of topics, from sex and dating to walking the red carpet and stylists. Again, there are no new revelations if you've read celebrity memoirs, but it was interesting to learn about how she was still struggling to make ends meet when the industry was celebrating her breakout performance and Oscar nomination for Up in the Air. (She stole toilet paper from one of the hotels she slept in during the press tour. How's that for glamour?) I've loved Kendrick's performances in Pitch Perfect and Up in the Air, and I love whenever she appears on James Corden's show. She's funny, doesn't take herself too seriously, works hard but at the same time understands the craziness that is Hollywood, and plans amazing fake parties. -Meredith
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