Final Bibliographies

Over The Rainbow Press Release ALAMW 2018

DENVER – The Over the Rainbow committee of ALA’s Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender Round Table (GLBTRT) considered 223 books, with a wide range of diversity among topics and coming from both first-time and established authors.  From these we carefully examined all of the titles; 122 in the catergory of literature and 101 in nonfiction. After much reading and deliberation, we chose 39 titles in the category of literature and 42 in non-fiction to be included in the complete 2018 Over the Rainbow list.  This year, due to the increase in GLBT publishing, we are presenting two top ten lists one for non-fiction, and one for literature.

This year, the titles were more varied in terms of cultural diversity, and genres such as mystery and romance. The stories told were a mix of histories, memoir, academic, and popular books, presenting viewpoints across the gender spectrum – gay, lesbian, bisexual, asexual, and trans lives. Themes were wide and varied, from current issues, such as practice in teaching, coming out, hidden history, civil rights, HIV/AIDS, grief, and research that uncovered and reclaimed history from the nineteenth century until the twenty-first century.

 

The top 12 titles in the category of literature are:

 

The Angel of History. Rabih Alameddine. Atlantic Monthly Press, 2016.

 

Christadora. Tim Murphy. Grove, 2017

 

Everything is Awful and You’re a Terrible Person.  Daniel Zomparelli. Arsenal Pulp Press, 2017.

 

Long Black Veil.  Jennifer Finney Boylan. Crown Publishing (Penguin Random House), 2017.

 

Marriage of a Thousand Lies. Sindu, SJ. Soho, 2017.

 

My Cat Yugoslavia. Statovci, Pajtim, translated by David Hackston.Pantheon, 2017.

 

No One Can Pronounce My Name.  Rakesh Satyal. Picador, 2017.

 

Notes of a Crocodile. Qiu Miaojin. New York Review Books, 2017.

 

Ruin of a Rake. Cat Sebastian. Avon Impulse, 2017.

 

Seven Suspects. Renee James. Oceanview, 2017.

 

This Is How It Always Is. Laurie Frankel. Flatiron Books, 2017.

 

When I Grow Up I Want to Be a List of Further Possibilities.  Chen Chen. BOA Editions Ltd., 2017.

 

The top 11 titles in non-fiction are:

 

The Case of Alan Turing: The Extraordinary and Tragic Story of the Legendary Codebreaker with drawings by Éric Liberge and text by Arnaud Delalande. Arsenal Pulp Press, 2016.  

 

Doll Parts.  Amanda Lepore and Thomas Flannery. Regan Arts, 2017.

 

Gay Gotham: Art and Underground Culture in New York.  Donald Albrecht. Skira Rizzoli, 2016.

 

Insomniac City: New York, Oliver, and Me. Bill Hayes. Bloomsbury USA, 2017.

 

Jane Crow: The Life of Pauli Murray. Rosalind Rosenberg. Oxford University Press, 2017.

 

Logical Family: A Memoir. Armistead Maupin. Harper, 2017.

 

Making My Pitch: A Woman’s Baseball Odyssey. Ila Jane Borders & Jean Hastings Ardell. Univ of Nebraska Press, 2017.

 

The Rules Do Not Apply: A Memoir.  Ariel Levy. Random House, 2017.

 

Surpassing Certainty: What My Twenties Taught Me. Janet Mock. Atria Books, 2017.

 

Tomboy Survival Guide. Ivan E. Coyote. Arsenal Pulp, 2016.

 

When We Rise: My Life in the Movement. Cleve Jones. Hachette Books, 2016.

 

 

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2018 Literature Titles

2018 Over the Rainbow Literature Titles

 

The Angel of History. Rabih Alameddine. Atlantic Monthly Press, 2016.
Jacob is hallucinating in the waiting room of a mental health clinic. He looks back on the events of his life and imagines it reviewed by Death and Satan. We are taken on a journey from the Middle East to San Francisco at the height of the AIDs crisis.  Jacob survives while too many of his loved ones succumb to the disease.

 

Bestiary: Poems. Donika Kelly. Introduction by Nikky Finney. Graywolf Press, 2016.

A bestiary can be either a fighter of beasts in ancient Rome or a medieval book of natural history. Donika Kelly’s fantastical collection fits both definitions. Battles with and descriptions of mythical beasts; minotaurs, griffins, mingle with dogs, hawks, and barrow birds in these intensely personal, tender, and sometimes, violent poems. Kelly’s first collection was the winner of the prestigious Cave Canem Poetry Prize.

 

Bitter Legacy. Dal Maclean. One Block Empire, 2016.

2017 Finalist Lambda Literary Awards: Mystery. Dal Maclean’s debut is an engaging police procedural set in London’s Metropolitan Police. It involves Detective Sergeant James Henderson, an up-and-coming detective on the fast track to become an inspector, in his first murder investigation of barrister Maria Curzon-Whyte. During the course of the investigation, James comes across a group of men who intrigue and tempt him to join their circle. One man, in particular, photographer Ben Morgan dares him to embrace a carefree, promiscuous lifestyle. In spite of his best efforts, the investigation balloons into a spate of cruelty and wickedness. As the body count rises and disturbing secrets are revealed, James finds his personal and professional lives threatened by a bitter legacy from the past.

 

Cakewalk. Rita Mae Brown. Bantam, 2016.

Part of a series of novels set in the fictional town of Runnymede this latest story of nostalgic fun is set at the end of World War I.  Celeste prepares for her pregnant lover’s marriage to her brother while her housekeeper Dora’s teenage daughters Louise and Julia adjust to growing up in a small town while fighting expectations and rivalries. This multigenerational tale is filled with eccentric characters and demonstrates the lengths we will go to protect those we consider family.

 

Christodora. Tim Murphy. Grove, 2017.

An epic tale revolving around residents of the iconic Christodora building in New York’s Lower East Side. Spanning decades, we witness the intertwining stories of these characters as they battle depression, drug abuse, the AIDS crisis, and heartbreak. From ACT UP meetings to the disco to the art scene and all the way to a California halfway home, Murphy’s novel is an instant classic.

 

Club Arcana: Operation Janus. Jon Wilson.  Bold Strokes, 2017.  

Magic is afoot, and no one is who they seem to be, when librarian Angus McAslan secretly writes a book that echoes a twisted reality.  Creatures of dream and nightmare come to life, relatives turn out to be witches and life-stealers, unexpected romance and peril confront him at every turn… in the end, nothing is as he thought it was, as he fights for his life and his love against the treachery of trusted ones and the summoning of an ancient god.

 

Death Goes Overboard. David S. Pederson. Bold Stroke Books, 2017.

Death Goes Overboard is the second in a mystery series set in 1947 Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Detective Heath Barrington is getting prepared to go on a “fishing trip” with his partner, police officer Alan Keyes. Alas, duty calls, and Detective Barrington has to go on a lake cruise to tail gangster Gregor Slavinsky. During the course of the cruise, Slavinsky goes missing, presumed murdered. But was he? Pederson takes a lot of the tropes of mysteries and utilizes them to the fullest, giving the story a knowable form. However, the unique characters and accurate portrayal of the struggles of gay relationships in 1940s America make this an enjoyable, thought-provoking read.

 

Don’t Call Us Dead: Poems.   Danez Smith. Graywolf Press, 2017.

A heartbreaking and beautiful collection of poetry dealing with the intersection of being gay, black, and HIV+.

 

Don’t Feed the Trolls. Erica Kudisch.  Riptide Pub, 2017.  

Daphne has won a gaming novelization contest that should be a highlight of her life… then the trolls attack, filling her inbox with torrents of hateful abuse.  In real life, she’s ‘too masculine’ for the dance parts she auditions for, and in her online life, other players are attacking because she’s ‘a girl.’ Trying to survive the stress, sie comes to realizations about hir own gender identity, the new girl online sie’s falling hard for, and the convulsions of hatred and revolt in hir gaming life.  Hir friends, from hir drag queen roommate to the knight sie would rather didn’t defend hir, lend hir strength and help hir find hirself.  The happily-ever-after is as satisfying as it is unconventional.

Note:

HE/SHE HIM/HER HIS/HER HIS/HERS HIMSELF/HERSELF
sie sie hir hirs hirself

From http://uwm.edu/lgbtrc/support/gender-pronouns/


Drowned: a Mermaid’s Manifesto. Theresa Davis. Sibling Rivalry Press, 2016.

A poetry collection to savor from an openly queer black woman. Her explorations of race and sexuality, feminism and love, are eloquent and leave a lasting impression. She opens by invoking her muses – Frida, Medusa, and Eve – and closes with the death of her father, with a stunning array of experiences in between.

 

The End of Eddy.   Édouard Louis. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2017.

Louis’ novel begins in the late 1990s and is loosely based on his life experience. The story investigates what it is like to grow up in a small working class town in France where Eddy is challenged with conforming to traditional concepts of masculinity and finds hope in an opportunity to attend boarding school.

 

Enigma Variations.  André Aciman. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2017.

The novel follows Paolo’s desires as a youth in Italy to his relationships as an adult who goes by Paul. Aciman explores the fluid sexuality of his main character and develops a rich interior life for him in a way that does not always fall into sync with the other characters.

 

Everything is Awful and You’re a Terrible Person.  Daniel Zomparelli. Arsenal Pulp Press, 2017.

A hilarious and tongue-in-cheek collection of highly original stories about gay men searching for love at any cost. From dating a ghost to breaking up on YouTube, the stories are fused with neuroses and humour while shining a light on the shallow and self-centered.

 

Fever in the Dark. Ellen Hart. Minotaur Books, 2017.

A clever, compelling mystery following a lesbian couple turned media sensations and their friend, Jane Lawless, private investigator and Hart’s serial protagonist. Hart’s writing is rich and heavy on character, lending a delightful humanity to the subjects of her world.Clever, both playful, and riveting, to be enjoyed by fans of Rita Mae Brown and those already immersed in the world of gay mysteries.

 

Forget Me Not. Kris Bryant. Bold Strokes Books, 2016.
Grace inherits a flower shop in Ireland from a Great Aunt she barely knew.  This contemporary romance finds its protagonist eager to return to her life in Dallas but falling in love with both the Emerald Isle and the woman trying to help her sell the shop.

 

Hearts in Ireland. J. C. Long. Dreamspinner, 2017.

Long’s latest novella begins with grief but leads to a satisfactory resolution. Ronan Walker’s beloved Irish mother dies and, deeply grieving and depressed and over his loss and the state of his life, he is persuaded to leave America to visit Ireland and his mother’s family. Once there, Ronan stays with his relatives and eventually meets Fergal Walsh, who works at his aunt’s bookstore. Sparks fly. Will Ronan finally be led by his heart rather than his head?  The loving, supportive interactions between Ronan and his family are inspiring. The humor of the book make for an enjoyable read.

 

Here Comes the Sun.  Nicole Dennis-Benn. Liveright, 2017.

Three strong women in Jamaica deal with life the best way they know how. The mother haggles and bargains her way through, while pinning all hopes and dreams on her youngest daughter, who is obsessed with lightening her skin. The eldest daughter embraces both the sex trade and a lesbian lover, in the hopes of getting out of the Jamaican slums in which they live. A family saga with twists and turns at every corner.

 

Kill Game. Cordelia Kingsbridge.  Riptide Pub, 2017.  

Detective Levi Abrams is on shaky ground, at work and in his love life.  It just gets worse when a serial killer is loose on the streets of Las Vegas.  On top of that, he has to deal with bounty hunter Dominic Russo, who gets under his skin, professionally and personally. The unlikely duo have sizzling chemistry, the plot is twisty and compelling, and the ending is a cliffhanger that sets up strong expectations for the next book.  It’s a police procedural, a thriller, and a romance… a great beginning to what will be a multi-book series.

 

Large Animals.  Jess Arndt. Catapult, 2017.

At turns hallucinatory and thoroughly grounded, Arndt’s debut short story collection crackles with dark humor, body horror and astute observations on identity. Equal parts Maggie Nelson and William Burroughs, Arndt’s work is a must-have for fans of short fiction and transgressive literature.

 

Lay Your Sleeping Head. Michael Nava.  Korima Pr, 2016.  

This is much more than a rewrite of Nava’s The Little Death.  True, the sex is new, but the writing is deeper as well.  Henry Rios is a lawyer burnt by the system, on his way to alcoholism, in love with a white boy with big problems.  When his lover dies of an overdose, Henry finds a new purpose, determined to prove it was murder.  1980s America was a place of racism, homophobia, and the powerful protecting themselves at the cost of everyone else, and Nava brings the reader right into the middle of it. This story is as timely now as when it was originally written decades ago.

 

Long Black Veil.  Jennifer Finney Boylan. Crown Publishing (Penguin Random House), 2017.

An intriguing mystery that evolves from a fateful night when a group of college friends become locked in an abandoned prison. The event results in a murder that becomes a cold case reopened years later. Judith Carrigan is the key to the main suspect’s innocence, but she must be willing to give up some deeply guarded secrets that could destroy her family in order to serve as an alibi.

 

Marriage of a Thousand Lies. Sindu, SJ. Soho, 2017.

Hoping to placate their traditional South Asian immigrant parents, two college friends, Lucky (Lakshmi), a lesbian, and Kris, a gay man, enter into a marriage of convenience. Lucky’s family life becomes complicated when she returns home to care for her grandmother. SJ Sindu’s novel is a study of love lost, understanding, and family that is both sensitive and dryly humorous.

 

My Cat Yugoslavia. Statovci, Pajtim, translated by David Hackston.Pantheon, 2017.

Statovici’s novel is really two stories entwined by family. His protagonist, Bekim, a gay man who immigrated with his family to Helsinki from Kosovo as a child, and the story of Bekim’s mother, Emine, a Muslim woman in an arranged marriage. Bekim inhabits a fantasy world of bigoted talking cats, while his mother’s story of abuse and war is told more conventionally. Both mother and son are outcasts in a difficult family in a changing world.

 

No One Can Pronounce My Name.  Rakesh Satyal. Picador, 2017.

Three Indian immigrants, Harit, a lonely gay man, Ranjana, a receptionist whose dream is to be an author of vampire fiction, and her son, Prashant, who tries to be anything but the Indian college kid who is good at math are the three intersecting characters in this sensitive novel of outsiders looking for a place to belong in their families and in their new country.

 

No Other World. Rahul Mehta. Harper, 2017.

Twelve year old, Kiran Shah, born in suburban Massachusetts to Indian immigrant parents finds himself drawn to the typically white American, and incidentally handsome father of a school friend. As he struggles with these nameless feelings, an older sister is betrayed, his parents cope with their arranged marriage, immigrant life, and family at home in India. The novel is lyrical, the characters beautifully drawn so realistic you will miss them when you’ve finished reading the novel.

 

Notes of a Crocodile. Qiu Miaojin. New York Review Books, 2017.

Beautifully written novel about a lesbian university student, her entertainingly diverse social circle, and her failed loves. Set in the 1990s in Taipei, she imagines herself a crocodile in a human suit as she navigates the relationships that create her story. Recently translated from Chinese.

 

Rainbow Gap. Lee Lynch. Bold Strokes Books, 2016.
Jaudon and Berry have been together since they were childhood best friends in backcountry Florida swamps. This book follows the two women on their journey through the 1960s as teenagers through the 1970s and how the changing world and its conflicts, including the Vietnam War and feminism, impacts their lives. Their love is illegal and dangerous but their bond is strong.


Rank. Richard Compson Sater. Bold Strokes Books, 2016.
A military romance set just after the end of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell. Second Lieutenant Harris Mitchell is out and proud but not everyone is ready to step out of the closet. Though the military’s stance has officially changed, the transition is rocky and there are still barriers to overcome.

 

The Ruin of a Rake. Cat Sebastian. Avon Impulse, 2017.

A new take in the Regency Romance genre, Sebastian’s third in a series offers readers a fun, fast, erudite read. With a reputation ruined by rumors and salacious talk, Lord Courtenay did not take much stock by his label as a libertine. However, when a new publication comes out, reportedly detailing his amorous pursuits of the past, Courtenay is shunned from all society and he is barred from seeing his beloved nephew. On the other hand, Julian Medlock has spent a lifetime cultivating an image of perfect decorum and taste. When Julian’s sister enlists his help to improve Courtenay’s reputation, Julian is beside himself. Julian has mixed emotions about Courtenay. He loathes him, but longs for him. Cat Sebastian plays with perceptions and the opposites-attract trope in this romance.

 

Seven Suspects. Renee James. Oceanview Publishing, 2017.

James’ third novel in her Bobbi Logan series, a hard-boiled thriller with an unapologetic yet empathetic trans protagonist in a genre where trans women’s bodies are still all too often used as evidence or plot device. A solidly compelling suspense novel for fans of the genre and a fun, if brutal, read for those who crave trans-centered narratives beyond “coming out”.

 

Since I Laid My Burden Down. Brontez Purnell. Amethyst Editions, 2017.
Queer zinester Purnell’s hilarious, affectionate punk pseudo-memoir style has been a highlight of rock magazines and basement performances for over a decade. His latest is no different, following unabashedly gay protagonist DeShawn returning to his Alabama hometown for a funeral with both razor wit and poignant reflections on masculinity, blackness and love. This slim little novel is a gem in its own right, and it’s a delight to have his work accessible to a larger audience.

 

Summer Stock. Vanessa North. Riptide, 2017.

A visiting television star and a local handyman hook up for one drunken night. Vanessa North’s Summer Stock begins with that basic romance story trope and goes forth from there. Driven away by tabloid scandals, Ryan Hertzog, tv star, returns to North Carolina’s Outer Banks to do summer stock for his cousin. One tequila-filled night, he hooks up with local handyman Trey Donovan and while extricating himself from the fling, he ends up being photographed stark naked. The development of the relationship between these two is passionate and heartfelt. Equally important, the discussion about abusive relationships and the complex nature of the friendships make for an interesting read.

 

Things to Do When You Are Goth in the Country. Chavisa Woods. Seven Stories Press, 2017.

A collection of 8 stories about queer folks, both in the LGBTQIA sense and in the strange and unusual sense. Rural America is made bizarre and hilarious by Woods, her magical realist style, and the well developed characters she has created. Darkly comedic and plausible, even when the plots veer off into the impossible – glowing green gas alien orbs?

 

This Is How It Always Is. Laurie Frankel. Flatiron Books, 2017.

Detailed exploration of what it means to have a gender non-conforming child sharing a story of a couple deeply in love and with a series of 5 sons, though Claude, their youngest, doesn’t see herself that way. Through loving family relationships and ordinary challenges of growing up, Claude is able to develop into the person they are.

 

This is How it Begins. Joan Dempsey. She Writes Press, 2017.
A timely novel of a family with secrets.  Ludka hid Jews from Nazis in Poland and is still traumatized by her past. Settled in Massachusetts as an art history teacher with her husband Izaak, she is horrified to find her gay son Tommy accused of discriminating against his Christian high school students.

 

When I Grow Up I Want to Be a List of Further Possibilities.  Chen Chen. BOA Editions Ltd., 2017.

Chen’s book of poetry explores his life as a queer Chinese immigrant to the United States. His poems investigate relationships, sexuality, and family using wonderful imagery that invokes various feelings that are sometimes funny, romantic, and sad.

 

Witches for Hire. Sam Argent. DSP Publications, 2017.

This cross genre book of love, power, and desire takes angst-ridden characters, world-building, and magic and sticks in a pot and lets it brew for awhile. A difficult, but enjoyable read with changing narrators throughout and feeling like one is starting in the middle of a series, this book leaves one hungry for more.  Jeremy Ragsdale, recovering drug addict and witch, wants to get on to the next job without any further debacles. Alas, his temp agency assigns him to work with a motley group of misfits.  Jeremy dodges his co-workers as best as he can, until the crew find a conspiracy to kill the magic superstar Desmond the Great.  Jeremy has lots of secrets. Eventually, everything has to come out into the open, but will Jeremy survive the ramifications of his actions?

 

Working it: A Ringside Romance. Christine D’Abo. Riptide, 2017.

A contemporary, M/M office romance set in Toronto, Working it is the first in a new series. Nolan Carmichael is trying to start anew after a terrible car accident scarred him mentally and physically. Zack Anderson, his new boss and the CTO at the company, has an ability to run away all four of his previous assistants.  With office politics and personal shortcomings to overcome, both find that they are mutually attracted to each other. The  story that captures the intensity of a forbidden romance and the sensitivity of having to work through one’s personal issues to find a satisfactory resolution.

 

You’re The Most Beautiful Thing That Happened. Arisa White. Augury Books, 2016.

A gorgeous, intelligent poetry collection from Lambda Literary Award-nominated White. These poems burst with emotion, soaring to ecstatically loving highs and capturing the sorrows of longing and black lesbian life in a vicious world. A beautifully realized and joyful read that deserves a place in poetry collections and the canon of lesbian literature.

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2018 Nonfiction Titles

2018 Over the Rainbow Nonfiction Titles

 

Accepted: How the First Gay Superstar Changed WWE. Pat Patterson. ECW Press, 2016.
A no holds barred memoir about being gay in the world of professional wrestling, as told by veteran superstar wrestler Pat Patterson. He chronicles his humble beginnings working in the wrestling circuits of the 1960s all the way up to becoming a World Wrestling Entertainment Hall of Famer, all while dealing with his sexuality, coming out, and finding love.

 

Balls: It Takes Some To Get Some. Chris Edwards. Greenleaf Book Group Press, 2016.
A witty and refreshing memoir about transitioning, as told by Chris Edwards who corrects his gender from female to male. With a voice that is brave and bold, Edwards details his journey as a trans man living in a time before the term “transgender” even existed. He uses his marketing background to rebrand himself and in doing so, finds support from coworkers, friends, and family alike. This is an encouraging, entertaining, brazen, and moving memoir of someone who chooses to live as his true self.

 

Before Pictures. Douglas Crimp. Dancing Foxes and University of Chicago Press, 2016.
Art Historian and critic, Douglas Crimp has written more than a memoir. It is a chronology of the author’s life lived in a variety of New York addresses, a collection of art and anecdotes from his experiences on the burgeoning Gay Liberation years of New York gay scene, as well as a book of art criticism spanning 1967-1977. These 10 years are his life before Pictures, an influential exhibition he curated in 1977. Crimp seamlessly moves from memoir to criticism. The book is beautifully designed. It is a remarkable work.

 

The Black Penguin. Andrew Evans. University of Wisconsin Press, 2017.
Andrew Evans pitches an idea for an article for National Geographic to travel primarily by bus from Washington, D.C. to Antarctica and live tweet his experience along the way. He meets various characters and has a few nail-biting travel experiences. Evans alternates between telling us about his bus journey and the challenges of accepting himself despite his experiences growing up as a gay Mormon.

 

The Boys in the Band: Flashpoints of Cinema, History, and Queer Politics. Edited by Matt Bell. Wayne State University Press, 2016.
In this collection of academic essays, the groundbreaking 1970 film The Boys in The Band (based on Matt Crowley’s off-Broadway play) is thoroughly examined. Fans of the film and students of queer cinema will rejoice at the multitude of issues explored, including gender, race, film theory, queer theory, alcoholism, politics, New York City, and gay love. It’s a perfect companion piece to the film, initiating debate, inviting sociological perspectives, and providing intellectual discussion.

 

The Case of Alan Turing: The Extraordinary and Tragic Story of the Legendary Codebreaker with drawings by Éric Liberge and text by Arnaud Delalande. Arsenal Pulp Press, 2016.
A moving look into the life of Alan Turing who is famous for creating a machine capable of decrypting German messages during World War II. The graphic novel flashes between Turing’s struggle with his sexuality, workplace challenges, and visualizes his thought processes in a captivating way.

 

The Disappearing L: Erasure of Lesbian Spaces and Cultures. Bonnie J Morris. SUNY University Press, 2017.
Morris chronicles three decades of women-only concerns, festivals, bookstores, and support spaces, as a backstory to the culture lost to mainstreaming and assimilation. This insider story is an important piece of the cultural history of the lesbian-feminist era. As a veteran participant of women’s music festivals, Morris uses her own experience and interviews with older activists to document this history.

 

Doll Parts: A Memoir. Amanda Lepore and Thomas Flannery. Regan Arts, 2017.
This coffee table book is almost as gorgeous as its subject. Amanda Lepore is one of the most famous transgender women in the world, having modelled for famous photographers and becoming a staple of the New York City’s Club Kids scene in the 80s & 90s. Acting, singing, and just being seen, Lepore is instantly recognizable with her numerous plastic surgery procedures to look like a living doll. This book flaunts her fabulousness with beautiful photographs, unbelievable tales, and choice words of wisdom on how to live life to the fullest.

 

The Ethics of Opting Out: Queer Theory’s Defiant Subjects. Mari Ruti. Columbia University Press, 2017.
Ruti uses some queer theorists’ rejection of gay marriage as a building block to explore “opting out” of normative narratives. She uses the influences of Jacques Lacan, a French psychoanalyst, to explore contemporary queer theory and its underpinnings.

 

Everywhere Home: A Life in Essays. Fenton Johnson. Sarabande Books, 2017.
Harper’s Magazine contributor, Fenton Johnson’s collection spans the years 1989-2016. His roots are in the Kentucky mountains, but his home is writing as evident in this eclectic selection with themes ranging from boyhood, his sexuality, loss of his partner to AIDS, and politics to name a few. The writing is erudite and graceful, peppered with literary allusions and history. It will leave the reader searching back issues of Harper’s for more.

 

Gay Gotham: Art and Underground Culture in New York. Donald Albrecht. Skira Rizzoli, 2016.
An accessible look into the history of queer art culture in New York City with beautiful photographs and artwork that ranges from 1910-1992. Albrecht provides a unique look into how New York artists have struggled with oppression, asserted their identities, and employed art to find strength.

 

Gay, Straight, and the Reason Why: The Science of Sexual Orientation, 2nd ed. Simon LeVay. Oxford University Press, 2017.
LeVay is a neuroscientist who breaks down the science of sexuality into layman’s terms. In this edition, LeVay covers various studies on sexuality and includes chapters on traits during childhood, genes, and the body. The book is a solid introduction and collection of research on sexual orientation that acknowledges the limitations of research in this area.

 

Gay-Straight Alliances and Associations Among Youth in Schools. Cris Mayo. Palgrave MacMillan, 2017.
In this series of studies, Mayo examines the creation of school-sanctioned and informal Gay-Straight Alliances (GSAs). GSAs provide examples and case studies of intersectionality, opportunity, new ways of approaching political action, new ways of knowing and new subjectivities. Such alliances generally focus on a single facet of identity, neglecting others, but still give young people ways to reach out for connection across sexualities, genders, races, and other differences. The book examines the youths’ experiences as a process of “negotiation across and within differences in a particular institutional context,” showing the fractures in the process and the creative and individual ways they find commonality within division, form connection despite barriers, and express the desire to change what is for what can be.

 

Gender Bending Detective Fiction: A Critical Analysis of Selected Works. Heather Duerre Humann. McFarland & Co Inc Pub, 2017.
Literary criticism of the American mystery genre has become richer with the addition of Humann’s thoughtful, readable, layered analyses. She highlights books from Spillane’s I, the Jury to James’ Transition to Murder and beyond, over seventy years of cultural change and shifting attitudes toward gender and sexuality. By focusing on how gender is shown, concealed, transformed, criminalized, punished or rewarded since World War II, she traces threads of social transgression, personal loss, and struggle via close examination of specific scenes and overall themes. An outstanding contribution to the critical interpretation of the genre.

Insomniac City: New York, Oliver, and Me. Bill Hayes. Bloomsbury USA, 2017.
Grieving the death of his lover, Hayes uproots his life and moves to New York City where he finds healing through street photography and an unexpected romance. Entering into a second act of his life, Hayes falls in love with renowned neurologist and author Oliver Sacks, who ends up battling and losing his fight with cancer. This is an homage to Sacks – a celebration of his life, and the love that he and Hayes shared together.

 

Into the Light: Photographs of the NYC Gay Pride Day from the 70’s till today. Stanley Stellar. Bruno Gmünder, 2017.
Stanley Stellar is one of the seminal photographers who documented the early days of Gay Liberation in New York. This collection of black and white and color photographs of the parades and street scenes captures the mood of each decade: the hedonistic 70s, the AIDS crisis, to the era of marriage equality. His book is a worthy document of GLBTQ history.

 

Jane Crow: The Life of Pauli Murray. Rosalind Rosenberg. Oxford University Press, 2017.
This thorough and deeply researched investigation of African American lawyer and activist Pauli Murray, documents the way in which Murray pursued an intersectional activism. Born in 1910 in the JIm Crow south, Murray fought the interconnection of race, gender and economic inequality throughout her life and ultimately altered the course of civil rights and women’s rights.

 

Listen, We Need to Talk: How to Change Attitudes about LGBT Rights. Brian F. Harrison & Melissa R. Michelson. Oxford University Press, 2017.
This book examines the acceptance of LGBTQIA+ rights by individuals within social groups, and how the attitudes of perceived leaders of the group influence individual attitudes. The authors posit a Theory of Dissonant Identity Priming which they tested in four social groups (sports fans, members of religious groups, persons by self-identified racial groups, and political partisanship. Findings indicate individuals are more apt to support queer rights if leaders of their social group do, particularly if such support is unexpected. The take-away is that “political communication that primes a social identity can change attitudes” in unexpected, substantive, and positive ways.

 

Living a Feminist Life. Sara Ahmed. Duke University Press, 2017.
An accessible primer on feminism that explores what it means on a practical level. Ahmed intersperses her views about what it means to be feminist with anecdotes from her personal and academic life. In addition to having two conclusions, Ahmed’s text features three sections: Becoming Feminist, Diversity Work, Living the Consequences.

 

Logical Family: A Memoir. Armistead Maupin. Harper, 2017.
This is a long overdue memoir by the acclaimed author of the modern-day classic series Tales of the City. Armistead Maupin invites us into his childhood in the American South during the mid-century, then takes us onto a wild ride through his adventures serving in the Vietnam War, and finally lands in 1970s San Francisco, where gay liberation would shape this young man into being one of the biggest influences on gay culture and literature today.

 

Making My Pitch: A Woman’s Baseball Odyssey. Ila Jane Borders and Jean Hastings Ardell. Univ of Nebraska Press, 2017.
This memoir is the story of the first woman to win a men’s college baseball game. A pioneer for women in professional baseball, Jane Borders endured stalkers and death threats in an isolating environment as she also struggled with her sexual orientation while playing with a minor league team. This inspiring account is an important sports and LGBTQ memoir.

 

Notes on a Banana: A Memoir of Food, Love and Manic Depression. David Leite. Dey Street Books, 2017.
An entertaining memoir that details Leite’s life growing up in a Portuguese family and his struggle with mental health, career, and coming to terms with his sexuality. Leite takes an unexpected path as his study of acting eventually gives way to his very successful career as a food writer.

 

One Of These Things First. Steven Gaines. Delphinium, 2016.
Gaines’ memoir of growing up gay and Jewish in midcentury New York is brimming with both wit and compassion even in its grittiest moments. From his family’s girdle store on the streets of Brooklyn to the Manhattan psychiatric hospital where he was hospitalized for a suicide attempt, Gaines’ narration is textural and effusive, capturing both love and pain without veering into seediness.

 

One Man Show: The Life and Art of Bernard Perlin. Michael Schreiber. Bruno Gmünder, 2016.
One Man Show is an oral history as well as a retrospective of the life and work of a 20th century American artist who lived his life as an out gay man in the years before and after WWII. The author transcribes interviews made in the last years of Perlin’s life. Perlin’s career began in 1942 with Office of War Information drawing posters that are famous today. His style used elements of magical realism. Schreiber’s work is compelling and will make more people aware of the work of this talented artist.

 

A Pornographer: A Memoir. Arch Brown. Chelsea Station, 2017.
Arch Brown’s memoir was found in a desk after his death in 2012. In 1967, he was an out gay man in New York with a 16mm camera who discovered men and some women were eager to pose and perform on film. What began as a hobby became a career when Brown began working in the 1970’s hardcore scene. This is a fascinating story of an insightful filmmaker and a history of the pornographic film industry in the 1960s and 70s.

 

Queer Game Studies. Bonnie Ruberg. University of Minnesota Press, 2017.
This anthology centers on “exploring difference in games and exploring games as different”. Essays explore the intersection of gaming and queerness far beyond only representation and inclusion, challenging the stereotype both within and outside game studies and queer theory. Gender play, hybridity, mythology, policing, empathy games, technical and cultural systemic bias, role play, hostility faced by female gamers, the ‘bendiness’ of genre, the queerness in game design, play, and community, and more all covered in this extensive beginning of an expansion in how the queer in gaming, and the game in queerness, may be explored.

 

A Queer Love Story: The Letters of Jane Rule and Rick Bébout. Edited by Marilyn Schuster. University of British Columbia Press, 2017.
This rich compilation of fifteen years of correspondence between the older lesbian public figure, Rule, and the gay male AIDS activist columnist, Bébout, chronicles the pressing queer social and political issues of the time; pornography, bath house raids, censorship, youth sexuality, public sex, and AIDS. Beyond the issues, the letters document a love of writing and a deep friendship.

 

Queering Families. Carla A. Pfeffer. Oxford University Press, 2016.
A nuanced and well-researched study of the common and sometimes controversial phenomenon of relationships and family-building between cisgender women and transgender men. Pfeffer traces the connections between butch and femme, cis and trans, lesbian identification and identity “border wars” with compassion and thorough methodology. A substantial close read on expanding concepts of family and identity. Excellent for academic and queer theory collections.

 

The Rules Do Not Apply: A Memoir. Ariel Levy. Random House, 2017.
Levy’s deeply personal memoir invites us to understand how she charts her own path, found her way into a marriage with an alcoholic wife and struggles to make her relationship work. In addition, Levy gives insight to her miscarriage that causes those around her to question her choices and forces her to find the strength to move forward.

 

Seeing Straight: An Introduction to Gender and Sexual Privilege. Jean Halley, Amy Eshleman. Rowman & Littlefield, 2016.
An accessible and optimistic primer on concepts of sexuality, gender, privilege and power written as an entry point for those who may not be familiar with intra-community language. Without defensiveness and using real life examples, Halley and Eshleman have written a necessary text comparable to “White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack”. Highly recommended for general collections.

 

So Famous and So Gay: the Fabulous Potency of Truman Capote and Gertrude Stein. Jeff Solomon. University of Minnesota Press, 2017.
A dense analysis of the careers of authors Gertrude Stein and Truman Capote, two queer icons in literature. Solomon compares and contrasts their careers as contemporaries, albeit in different countries and entirely opposing styles. The focus is on their works and how they, as authors and public figures, navigated the social mores and prevailing homophobia of their era.

 

Surpassing Certainty: What My Twenties Taught Me. Janet Mock. Atria Books, 2017.
This is the inspiring account of a young trans woman of color who reflects back on the trials and tribulations of her twenties and the lessons learned. Attending school by day and stripping by night, Mock winds up falling for one of her customers and discovering that she is worthy of love and more. Like any new adult, Mock navigates her 20s holding on to her secret, learning whom she can trust, and breaking hearts (including her own) along the way.

 

Teaching Queer: Radical Possibilities for Writing and Knowing. Stacey Waite. University of Pittsburgh Press, 2017.
In this text, Waite, “…explore(s) the terrain where queer theory, writing, and pedagogy overlap, intersect, and move into one another.” In addition to employing queer theory, Waite shares practical experiences teaching a first-year writing course and includes insightful responses from her students.

 

Theft by Finding: Diaries (1977 – 2002). David Sedaris. Little, Brown and Company, 2017.
In Part One of two volumes, this collection of diary entries traces back the musings and observations of funnyman David Sedaris, who uses his entries as fodder for future writings that would eventually establish him as a comedic literary giant. Dating back to his youth, we witness his journey from high school dropout to drug user to the start of his literary career. Not the usual Sedaris book, but not an outright autobiography either. Some entries will depress you, shock you, and even offend you. It’s David Sedaris on display, the good, bad, and the ugly, but entertaining all the way through.

 

Tomboy Survival Guide. Ivan E. Coyote. Arsenal Pulp, 2016.
Prolific writer, storyteller, and performer, Ivan E. Coyote’s memoir of a childhood in the Canadian Yukon is both joyous and bittersweet. They invite the reader into a personal, yet often uncomfortable place by recounting daily stresses of not fitting in their body or community while simultaneously dispensing sage advice for teens coming out. The book is illustrated with drawings of machines and tools and their instructions, as would be included in a conventional survival guide.

 

Tranny: Confessions of Punk Rock’s Most Infamous Anarchist Sellout. Laura Jane Grace with Dan Ozzi. Hachette Books, 2016.
Laura Jane Grace is the lead singer of the punk band, Against Me!, which came together in the mid 1990s. Grace describes her experience struggling to make her band successful and trying to reconcile her gender dysphoria. The memoir takes us through two marriages and band conflicts before Grace finds some peace by transitioning to live as a woman.

 

Transitioning Together: One Couple’s Journey of Gender and Identity Discovery. Wenn B. Lawson and Beatrice M. Lawson. Jessica Kingsley Publishers, 2017.
Autism researcher and writer Wenn Lawson is joined by his wife Beatrice in this conversational, loving memoir about their relationship. The two explore aging, changing sexuality, gender transition and living with autism with both joy and honesty. An illuminating view into the lives of queer people on the autism spectrum from a standpoint of clarity and autonomy.

 

Truth to Power: The New York Native 1980-1997. Charles Ortleb. CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2016.
An engaging read revolving around the small independent gay newspaper The New York Native and its role during the AIDS crisis during the early 80s. Publisher Charles Ortleb helped to sound the alarm about AIDS and its relationship to Chronic Fatigue Syndrome with ruthless research and reporting. While trying to fight the good fight, he also dealt with the medical community trying to shut his paper down in order to quiet him. This is a riveting and important read that adds to the legacy of resistance and survival of the LGBTQ+ community and their history.

 

Understanding and Teaching US Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender History. 2nd ed. Edited by Leila J. Rupp and Susan K Freeman. Univ of Wisconsin Press, 2017.
A volume of superb essays, tying LGBT content to the broader goals of teaching history, social sciences, and LGBT studies. Over twenty-five scholars offer classroom strategies and experiences.This second edition updates essays on the Supreme Court, samesex marriage, the Right, and trans history, with new material and references.

 

What the Mouth Wants: a Memoir of Food, Love, and Belonging. Monica Meneghetti. Caitlin Press, 2017.
Growing up in an Italian-Catholic immigrant family as the baby, Meneghetti explores sensuality in all aspects of her life, diving into meals and romances with equal gusto. This memoir is a series of vignettes strung together to create a whole picture of her experience growing up and coming out, her bisexuality and polyamory. A delightful quick read that will stoke the appetite.

 

When We Rise: My Life in the Movement. Cleve Jones. Hachette Books, 2016.
Mandatory reading for anyone who is LGBTQ+ is what this book should be. It is the personal account of major gay rights pioneer, Cleve Jones. Not only does he describe his fight for the queer movement, but he also shares memories of his time working alongside another community icon, Harvey Milk. San Francisco in the 70s serves as the backdrop for this important history lesson, and Jones finds himself in the middle of it all. When the AIDS crisis arrives in the 80s, the call to action continues to certify Jones as one of the leading gay activists of our time.

 

Women and Gay Men in The Postwar Period. John Portmann. Bloomsbury Publishing, 2016.
This study of the historical affinity between woman and gay men explores an oft-misunderstood phenomenon in public and private spheres with clarity and affection. Portmann makes it clear his work is “suggestive, not inclusive, and allusive, rather than empirical”. Despite his disclaimer, Portmann delivers an illuminating and accessible reflection on intimacies and solidarities throughout the mid-to-late 20th century. Highly recommended.

 

“You’re In The Wrong Bathroom!” And 20 Other Myths and Misconceptions About Transgender and Gender-Nonconforming People. Laura Erickson-Schroth, MD and Laura A. Jacobs, LCSW-R. Beacon Press, 2017.
In a well-researched and annotated compilation, 21 common misunderstandings about transgender or gender non-conforming individuals are explored and debunked. A solid introduction for folks about different aspects of the experience of transgender people.

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2017 Over the Rainbow Top 10 Titles

The Firebrand and the First Lady: Portrait of a Friendship: Pauli Murray, Eleanor Roosevelt and the Struggle for Social Justice by Patricia Bell-Scott. Knopf, 2016. A chronicle of the friendship between First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, and Pauli Murray: granddaughter of a mixed-race slave, lawyer, civil rights activist, minister, and co-founder of the National Organization of Women. The book explores the professional and social cost of Murray’s race and gender, in the context of her correspondence with Roosevelt, mentions issues of her gender fluidity and same-sex relationships, and Roosevelt’s use of Murray’s advocacy for racial equality in her public writings.

Another Brooklyn by Jacqueline Woodson. HarperCollins, 2016. For August, friendship was everything. It was the 1970s in Brooklyn. She and her three best girlfriends lived confident of their talents, dreaming of the future. But their Brooklyn was a dangerous place, where dreams were fleeting, and growing up female was not easy.  Woodson’s latest novel is an epic poem, honoring memories of girlhood, fragile community, and fate.

In the Dark Room by Susan Faludi. Metropolitan Books/Henry Holt and Company, 2016. The Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist tries to find the truth when her father shocks her with the news of her sex-change surgery. Questions of identity, rage, and history haunt her story: Hungarian or American, Magyar or Jew, victim or victimizer, man or woman? In the end, “in the universe, there is only one true divide, one real binary: life or death.” Everything else is open to interpretation, acceptance, or denial.

Juliet Takes a Breath by Gabby Rivera. Riverdale Avenue Books, 2016. The coming-of-age story of a young woman learning what it is to be who she is.  Lesbian, Puerto Rican, New Yorker Juliet is running to something that isn’t what she expected and running from problems that follow along with her. A great story for anyone who has ever felt that love can’t replace understanding, that understanding comes in ways you never expected, and that heroes are what you make of them.

Bettyville: A Memoir by George Hodgeman. Viking, 2015. A richly crafted memoir about a gay son and his aging octogenarian mother. As her health declines, the son returns to the small Missouri town and the house he grew up in, from New York City, to care for her. Despite the passage of time and the decline of both Betty’s and the town’s health, not much has changed in their relationship.

A Body, Undone: Living On After Great Pain by Christina Crosby. NYU Press, 2016. One month after her fiftieth birthday, the author becomes a quadriplegic after breaking her neck in a bicycle accident. In this memoir, she writes about her changing feelings toward her body, her relationship, and her own sense of self.

Stand By Me: The Forgotten History of Gay Liberation by Jim Downs. Basic Books, 2016. Downs has written an essential historical text on gay life during the “forgotten” time between 1969 and the beginnings of the AIDS crisis. Using documents from large metropolitan LGBT centers, he explores communities like the Metropolitan Community Church and those formed in book stores, proving the ‘70s were more than pride marches, sex, and discos.

Ask a Queer Chick: A Guide to Sex, Love, and Life For Girls Who Dig Girls by Lindsay King-Miller, Plume, 2016. A series of essays about lesbian life based on the advice column of the same name. Topics are written to address both queer and straight readers and include dating, sexual relationships, being out at work, and finding allies.

Boy, Erased: A Memoir by Garrard Conley, Riverhead, 2016. Conley, a son of a pastor, tells how his struggle with his sexuality brought him to checking into an ex-gay conversion therapy program during his late teens in 2004. He gives a stark look into how he survives the abusive program, struggles with his faith, and comes to terms with his sexuality.

The Imitation Game: Alan Turing Decoded by Jim Ottaviani, illustrated by Leland Purvis, Abrams ComicArts, 2016. A realistic, imaginative, well-drawn graphic novel exploring the life and death of the great mathematician and pioneer of artificial intelligence and computer science,  Alan Turing. His incredible feats during and after WWII were overshadowed by prosecution for being homosexual. As Ottaviani notes, “I wish I lived in a world that benefited from decades more of Alan Turing alive and well, thinking and discovering.”

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2016 Over the Rainbow List: 68 LGBT Books for Adult Readers

 The 2016 Over the Rainbow Project book list, sponsored by the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender Round Table (GLBTRT) of the American Library Association (ALA), was decided  at ALA’s Midwinter Meeting in Boston.

The bibliography features quality fiction and non-fiction books for adults that are recognized by the Over the Rainbow Project, an ad hoc committee of GLBTRT, for their authentic expression of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender experiences.  Each year, the Over the Rainbow Project releases its annotated bibliography to aid librarians and patrons in selecting quality books released over the past 18 months.

This year’s list includes 68 titles published between July 1, 2014 and Dec. 31, 2015.

The 2016 Over the Rainbow committee includes Rebecca (Butler) Mendelson, Chair; Nicholae Cline, Amy Greschaw, Kate Hampton, Derek Marshall, Andrea Perez, Stephanie Saintful, and Matthew Windsor. The Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Round Table of the American Library Association is committed to serving the information needs of the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender professional library community and the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender information and access needs of individuals at large. GLBTRT is committed to encouraging and supporting the free and necessary access to all information, as reflected by the missions of the American Library Association and democratic institutions.

Our Top Ten Favorites

Mislaid by Nell Zink. HarperCollins, 2015. 242 pp. $19 (978-0-06-236477) A winding, intricate tale of a non-traditional family fighting for survival in the 1960’s. Fiction.

The Argonauts by Maggie Nelson. Graywolf Press, 2015. 143pp. $15 (978-1-55597-707-8) “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”–Dust jacket flap. Biography

Arresting dress: cross-dressing, law, and fascination in nineteenth-century San Francisco by Clare Sears. Duke University Press, 2015. 202 pp. $79.95 (978-0-8223-5754-4) An in depth examination of cross-dressing laws in San Francisco in the 19th Century.  Adopted as part of a broader anti-indecency campaign, the cross-dressing law became a flexible tool for policing multiple gender transgressions, facilitating over one hundred arrests before the century’s end. Includes archival material, pictures, and detailed stories. Non-Fiction.

Dirty river : a queer femme of color dreaming her way home by Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha. Arsenal Pulp Press, 2015. 237 pp. $18.95 (978-1-55152-600-3) A poet’s memoir that reveals how a disabled queer woman of color and abuse survivor navigates her past and her future. Biography.

How to grow up: a memoir by Michelle Tea. Plume, 2015. 287pp. $12.66 (978-0-14-218119-5) A memoir told in multiple essays that tells the story of a woman awkwardly coming to grips with being a “grown up.” Biography.

No house to call my home: love, family, and other transgressions by Ryan Berg. Nation Books, 2015. 294pp. $25.99 (978-1-56858-509-3) A heart wrenching account of disowned and homeless LGBTQ teens and the man who tried to help them. These stories are complex, sad, and moving. Non-Fiction.

Visions and revisions: coming of age in the age of Aids by Dale Peck Soho Press, 2015. 212pp. $19.29 (978-1-61695-441-3) Peck tells his story of life during the AIDS epidemic through personal essays, critical theory, history, eriotica and poetry. Biography.

The Evening Chorus by Helen Humphreys. Mariner Books, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2015. 212pp. $12.28 (978-0-544-34869-1) WWII pilot James Hunter is shot down and sent to a German POW camp on his very first mission. While other prisoners play games and plot escape, James observes and records the development of a nest of restarts near the camp. James wife, Rose, finds freedom she never knew before, left behind in their English cottage. This freedom is threatened when James’ sister Enid comes to stay, having lost both her home and her lover in the Blitz. Fiction,.

The gay revolution: the story of the struggle by Lillian Faderman. Simon & Schuster, 2015. 794pp. $25.73 (978-1-4516-9412-3) The sweeping story of the modern struggle for gay, lesbian, and trans rights—from the 1950s to the present—based on amazing interviews with politicians, military figures, legal activists, and members of the entire LGBT community who face these challenges every day. Non-Fiction.

Girl Sex 101. Allison Moon and Katie Diamond.  Lunaticink, 2015. 388pp. $24.99 (978-0-9838309-5-5) A sex-ed book told with humor and illustrations geared toward women. Graphic Novel.

 

Art/Photography

Bordered lives: transgender portraits from Mexico by Kike Arnal, The New Press, 2014. 183pp. $21.95 (978-1-62097-024-9) “A richly evocative collection of photographs by internationally renowned photographer Kike Arnal, Bordered Lives seeks to push back against the transphobic caricatures that have perpetuated discrimination against the transgender community in Mexico. Despite some important advances in recognizing and protecting the rights of its transgender community, including legislation against hate crimes targeting transgender people, discrimination still persists, and the majority of the often appallingly violent attacks against the LGBT community are against transgender women. In the highly personal profiles that make up Bordered Lives, including the first transgender couple to be married in Mexico and one of the country’s most high-profile transgender entertainers, Arnal looks at seven individuals in and around Mexico City. He shows them going about their day-to-day lives: getting ready in the morning, interacting with family and friends, and devoting their lives to helping others in the transgender community. Moving in its honesty, Bordered Lives challenges society’s preconceived notions of sexuality, gender, and beauty not only in Mexico but across the globe. “– Jacket

Lyudmila and Natasha: Russian lives by Misha Friedman.  The New Press, 2015. 141pp. $19.81 (978-1-62097-023-2) A year in photographs depicting the lives of a gay couple living in Saint Petersburg, Russia.

 

Fiction

After the Parade: A Novel by Lori Ostlund. Scribner, 2015. 340pp $18.40 (978-1-4767-9010-7) After leaving his partner in New Mexico to start a new life in San Francisco, ESL teacher Aaron Englund seeks closure from a rejection-marked childhood and his own questionable choices by exploring his relationships with fellow misfits in his youth.

A useless man: selected stories by Faik Sait, Maureen Freely, and Alexander Dawe. Archipelago Books, 2014. 240pp. $14.37 (978-0-914671-07-7) Sait Faik Abasiyanik was born in Adapazari in 1906 and died of cirrhosis in Istanbul in 1954. He wrote twelve books of short stories, two novels, and a book of poetry. His stories celebrate the natural world and trace the plight of iconic characters in society: ancient coffeehouse proprietors and priests, dream-addled fishermen and poets of the Princes’ Isles, lovers and wandering minstrels of another time.

Breathing lessons: a novel by Andy Sinclair.  Esplanade Books, 2015. 146pp. $18.95 (978-1-55065-397-7) The story of Henry Moss, a homosexual everyman whose life knows none of the limitations or abuses his predecessors experienced.

Foucault, in winter, in the Linnaeus garden: a novel by Michael Joyce. Starcherone Books, 2015. 185pp. $16 (978-1-938603-23-5) A fictional account of Focault’s 1956 stay in Sweden told through imagined letters in multiple languages.

Jam on the Vine by LaShonda Katrice Barnett. Publishers Group West, 2015. 323pp. $20.43 (978-0-8021-2334-3) A historical novel set in the age of Jim Crow and the Great Migration. Ivoe Williams, the daughter of a Muslim cook and a metalsmith struggles for equality and triumphs against all odds. Ivoe falls in love with a woman and they build a life together in Missouri in the wake of social change.

Lost boi by Sassafras Lowrey. Arsenal Pulp Press, 2015. 233pp. $13.43 (978-1-55152-581-5) A queer punk reimagining of the classic Peter Pan story, told from the point of view of Tootles, Pan’s best boi.

Sphinx by Anne F Garreta. Deep Vellum Pub, 2015. 120pp. $12.21 (978-1-941920-08-4) A romance set in Paris that mixes sexes and blurs genders. This is the first English translation of Garreta’s debut novel.

The Green Road by Anne Enright. First W. W. Norton & Company, 2015. 309pp. $18.61 (978-0-393-24821-0) Follows the lives of Arleen Madigan and her children, a family from County Clare, Ireland, beginning in 1980 and continuing to the present day. Over the 30 years, the children spread across three different continents before reuniting at the family home on Christmas day.

The Listener by Rachel Brasch. Pegasus, 2015. 336pp. $17.76 (978-1-60598-688-3) The story of a student and his professor/psychologist and the way their lives are intertwined through issues of gender and difference. Explores issues of self-definition, trans* identity, and relationships.

Under the Udala trees by Chinelo Okparanta. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2015. 328pp. $25 (978-0-544-00344-6) A young Nigerian girl, displaced during their civil war, begins a powerful love affair with another refugee girl from a different ethnic community until the pair are discovered and must learn the cost of living a lie amidst taboos and prejudices.

When everything feels like the movies by Raziel Reid. Arsenal Pulp Press, 2014. 171pp. $11.41 (978-1-55152-574-7) A gay teen who fantasizes about being a movie teen reimagines his world as a movie set. He tells his own story of the need for acceptance and love.

 

Graphic Narrative

Dash #1 An Engaging Blend of Noir and Queer by Dave Ebersole. Northwest Press, 2015. 24pp. $3.99 Private investigator Dash Malone can’t shake the feeling his lover, Johnny, is hiding something. Strange deaths start occurring throughout the city while a mysterious woman named Zita Makara begs Dash to take her case. When a grisly murder connects all three, a terrifying mystery unfolds

 

Non-Fiction

A view from the bottom: Asian American masculinity and sexual representation by Tan Hoang Nguyen.  Duke University Press, 2014. 287pp. $82 (978-0-8223-5672-1) An in-depth look at  Asian American male sexual representation that uses the concept of bottomhood rather than masculinity to  help portray gay Asian American men.

Fat gay men: girth, mirth, and the politics of stigma by Jason Whitesel. University Press, 2014. 177pp. $22 (978-0-8147-0838-5) “To be fat in a thin-obsessed gay culture can be difficult. Despite affectionate in-group monikers for big gay men-chubs, bears, cubs-the anti-fat stigma that persists in American culture at large still haunts these individuals who often exist at the margins of gay communities. In Fat Gay Men, Jason Whitesel delves into the world of Girth & Mirth, a nationally known social club dedicated to big gay men, illuminating the ways in which these men form identities and community in the face of adversity.”– Jacket

Gaming at the Edge: Sexuality and Gender at the Margins of Gamer Culture by Adrienne Shaw. University of Minnesota Press, 2014. 317pp. $25 (978-0-8166-9315-3) A discussion of gamer culture, specifically sexuality and gender through a feminist, queer, postcolonial lens.

Gay directors, gay films?: Pedro Almodóvar, Terence Davies, Todd Haynes, Gus Van Sant, John Waters. Emanuel Levy. Columbia University Press, 2015. 317pp. $35 (978-0-231-15276-1) An in depth look at five contemporary gay male film directors that sets up a framework for what it means to make a gay film or adopt a gay point of view.

Geisha of a different kind: race and sexuality in gaysian America by C. Winter Han. New York University Press, 2015. 235pp. $89 (978-1-4798-3195-1) Addresses Asian American gay men in the American gay mainstream. The author travels from West Coast Asian drag shows to the internationally sought-after Thai kathoey, or “ladyboy,” to construct a theory of queerness that is inclusive of the race and gender particularities of the gay Asian male experience in the United States.

Massive: gay Japanese manga and the men who make it edited by Anne Ishii, Chip Kidd, and Graham Kolbeins. Fantagraphics Books, 2014. 280pp. $31.64 (978-1-60699-785-7) An introdution to comic artists making work for a gay male audience in Japan. Addresses the hyper-masculine world fo Japanese gay manga.

Not gay: sex between straight white men by Elizabeth Jane Ward. New York University Press, 2015. 74pp. $14.95 (978-1-4798-2517-2) A frank and sometimes difficult discussion of sexual practices of men who identify as straight but have homosexual encounters.  The author argues that sexuality is complex and fluid and presents a new take the complexities of heterosexuality.

Paths to Recovery for Gay and Bisexual Drug Addicts: Healing Weary Heart by Paul Schulte. Rowman and Littlefiled Publishers, 2014. 194pp. $65 (978-1-4422-4998-6) Provides practical advice on the problems that confront counselors, friends, and family members in our efforts to help gay or bisexual men with drug and alcohol addiction.

Queer brown voices: personal narratives of Latina/o LGBT activism edited by Uriel Quesada, Letitia Gomez, and Salvador Vidal-Ortiz. University of Texas Press, 2015. 238pp. $24.95 (978-1-4773-0232-3) Personal narratives that share the experiences of lesbians, gay men, and trans activits from a variety of Latina/o communities.

Seeing sodomy in the Middle Ages by Robert Mills. The University of Chicago Press, 2015. 398 pp. $55 (978-0-226-16912-5) Explores the relationship between sodomy and motifs of vision and visibility in medieval culture, on the one hand, and those categories we today call gender and sexuality, on the other.

Story/Time: the life of an idea by Bill T. Jones. Princeton University Press, 2014. 107 pp. $24.95 (978-0-691-16270-6) Acclaimed African American dancer, choreographer, and director Bill T. Jones reflects on his art and life as he describes the genesis of Story/Time, a recent dance work produced by his company and inspired by the modernist composer and performer John Cage.

The Bible’s yes to same-sex marriage: an evangelical’s change of heart by Mark Achtemeier. Westminster John Knox Press, 2014. 137pp. $13.40 (978-0-664-23990-9) In the early 2000’s, Mark Achtemeier embarked on a personal journey with the Bible that led him from being a conservative, evangelical opponent of gay rights to an outspoken activist for gay marriage and a fully inclusive church. In “The Bible’s Yes to Same-Sex Marriage,” Achtemeier shares what led to his change of heart.

The invisible orientation: an introduction to asexuality by Julie Sondra Decker. Carrel Books, an imprint of Skyhorse Pub, 2014. 216pp. $34.95 (978-1-63144-002-1) Julie Sondra Decker outlines what asexuality is, counters misconceptions, provides resources, and puts asexual people’s experiences in context as they move through a very sexualized world. It includes information for asexual people to help understand their orientation and what it means for their relationships, as well as tips and facts for those who want to underhand their asexual friends and loved ones.”–Jacket

The queerness of Native American literature by Lisa Tatonetti. University of Minnesota Press, 2014. 278pp. $75 (978-0-8166-9278-1) Tatonetti carefully describes the ties between queerness and Native American literature while showing how they critique understandings of indigeneity and sexuality.

This book is gay. James Dawson and Spike Gerrell. Sourebooks Fire, 2015. 264pp. $13.81 (978-1-4926-1782-2) “Lesbian. Bisexual. Queer. Transgender. Striaght. Curious. This book is for everyone, regardless of gender or sexual preference. This book is for anyone who’s ever dared to wonder”–Back cover.

Transgender persons and the law 2nd Edition. Ally Windsor Howell. American Bar Association, Commission on Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity, 2015. 343pp. $129.95 (978-1-63425-036-8) An updated version that takes into account recent changes in the law. Intended to educate and inform practitioners on the various laws and landmark court cases involving transgendered individuals in a number of legal situations, including housing, veterans benefits, family law, health care, employment, criminal justice, and more.

Untangling the knot: queer voices on marriage, relationships & identity edited by Carter Sickels. Ooligan Press, 2015. 227pp. $16.95 (978-1-932010-75-6) Anthology of essays and non-fiction discussing marriage equality and LGBTQ rights.

 

Non-Fiction/Biography/Memoir

Bowie on Bowie: interviews and encounters with David Bowie edited by Sean Egan and David Bowie. Chicago Review Press, 2015. 434pp. $27.95  (978-1-56976-977-5)   Bowie on Bowie presents some of the best interviews Bowie has granted in his near five-decade career. It includes well known news outlets as well as smaller sources and provides a wealth of material about the entertainer.

Course correction: a story of rowing and resilience in the wake of Title IX by Ginny Gilder. Beacon Press, 2015. $252 pp. $20.66 (978-0-8070-7477-0) Gilder recounts the physical and psychological barriers she overcame as she transformed into an elite athlete who reached the highest echelon of her sport. Set against the backdrop of unprecedented cultural change, Gilder’s story personalizes the impact of Title IX, illustrating the life-changing lessons learned in sports but felt far beyond the athletic arena.

Gay Berlin: birthplace of a modern identity by Robert Beachy. Knopf, 2014. 305pp. $23.46 (978-0-307-27210-2) An exploration of the lives of “warm brothers” in Berlin. A detailed historical look at the ways these lives influenced modern understandings of sexual orientation and gay identity.

I’m special: and other lies we tell ourselves by Ryan O’Connell. Simon & Schuster Paperbacks, 2015. 195pp. $15 (978-1-4767-0040-3) A funny, yet poignant view of life and accomplishment through the eyes of the Millennial generation. The author focuses on becoming an adult in the midst of insecurity and doubt.

Irrepressible: the Jazz Age life of Henrietta Bingham by Emily Bingham. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2015. 369pp. $21.75 (978-0-8090-9464-6)The biography of a nearly forgotten member of one of Louisville, Kentucky’s most notable families. Deeply researched and beautifully written by her great niece, the book tells a story that is intriguing and heartbreaking.

Living large: Wilna Hervey and Nan Mason by Joseph P. Eckhardt. WoodstockArts, 2015. 200 pp. $37 (978-0-9679268-8-9) The biography of silent film actress and visual artist Wilna Hervey and her lifelong partner, fellow artist Nan Mason. Includes family photos, stills from several of Hervey’s films and images of the couple’s art work.

Snapshots of a Girl by Beldan Sezen. Arsenal Pulp Press, 2015. 176pp. $17.65 (978-1-55152-598-4)In this autobiographical graphic novel, Beldan Sezen revisits the various instances of her coming of age, and her coming out as lesbian, in both western and Islamic cultures.

Non-Fiction- Essays

I will say this exactly one time : essays by D. Gilsen.  Sibling Rivalry Press, 2015. 140 pp. $18 (978-1-937420-99-4) A set of essays that explores what it means to be a poet and cultural theorist in the world. These essays are deeply personal and address the concept of “queer” as an identification.

What color is your hoodie? by Jarrett Neal.  Chelsea Station Editions, 2015. 176 pp. $18 (978-1-937627-22-5) Essays detailing the status of black gay men in the new millennium, examining classism among black gay men, racism within the gay community, representations of the black male body within gay pornography, and patriarchal threats to the survival of both black men and gay men.

Poetry

The cafe of our departure by Priscilla Atkins. Sibling Rivalry Press, 2015. 77pp. $10.83 (978-1-937420-87-1) This collection of lyric poems is a fugue of friendship: a straight girl and a gay boy coming of age in early 1970s America. Interwoven with a lifetime of intimacies shared, the narrative tracks a second life of grief, when a soul-mate dies.

City of starlings by Daniel Nathan Terry. Sibling Rivalry Press, 2015. 86pp. $14.95 (978-1-937420-86-4) Poetry that delves into the author’s loss and life and challenges readers to find beauty in the ordinary.

 The Devastation by Melissa Buzzeo.  Nightboat, 2015. 88pp. $14.98 (978- 1-937658-25-2) A book length poem that imagines two lovers surviving a shipwreck and lying together at the bottom of the ocean. A complex exploration of language and the power of the sea.

Erebus by Jane Summer. Sibling Rivalry Press, 2015. 185pp $24.95 (978-1-937420-90-1) A poetic expose of a plane crash that took the life of the author’s friend.

Fanny says: poems by Nickole Brown. BOA Editions, 2015. 148pp, $13.52 (978-1-938160-57-8) A biography of a fiesty, bawdy, grandmother told through the poetry of her granddaughter. Funny, powerful, and steeped in truth and love.

Girlie Calendar (The Lillian Trilogy) by Mary Meriam.  Headmistress Press, 2014. 108pp. $10 (0-692-21672-3) A book of poetry in the Lillian Trilogy.

Hook by Peter Laberge. Sibling Rivalry Press, 2015.  36pp. $12 (978- 1-937420-97-3) A book of poetry seeking beauty in nature and in our bodies, despite the threat of violence. Powerful and beautiful.

The new testament by Jericho Brown.  Copper Canyon Press, 2014. 73pp. $14.40 (978-1-55659-457-1) A deep and provocative story told through poetry revealing memories and trauma that continue through generations. Deeply haunting and beautifully written.

Pelvis with distance by Jessica Jacobs. White Pine Press, 2015. 135pp. $13.70 (978-1-935210-66-5) A biography of Georgia O’Keefe written in poetry that reads like a beautiful, subtle novel.

Teaching a man to unstick his tail by Ralph Hamilton. Sibling Rivalry Press, 2015. 114pp. $16.95 (978-1-937420-88-8) A collection of poetry about relationships, emotions and love lost and found.

The following books were awarded honors by the Stonewall Book Awards and are therefore also included in the Over The Rainbow list:

Apocalypse baby by Virginie Despentes and Sian Reynolds.  The Feminist Press at CUNY, 2015. 310pp. $19.63 (978-0-87071-595-2) Lesbian Mari Equi’s move from New Jerseyu to Oregon at the turn of the 20th century begins her activist life that frequently lands her in a number of relationships and often in jail.

Becoming Nicole: the transformation of an American family by Amy  Ellis Nutt. Random House, 2015. 279pp $17.87 (978-0-8129-9541-1) The Maines family is transformed when they discover that one of their adopted identical twins is transgender, and they learn to provide heightened emotional an legal safeguards to fulfill her potential.

For your own good by Luke Horlick. Caitlin Press, 2015. 95pp. $18 (978-1-927575-67-3) A hauntingly powerful collection of poems takes the reader through the excruciating twists and turns of being a queer, sexual assault survivor.

The gay revolution: the story of the struggle by Lillian Faderman. Simon & Schuster, 2015. 794pp. $25.73 (978-1-4516-9412-3) The sweeping story of the modern struggle for gay, lesbian, and trans rights—from the 1950s to the present—based on amazing interviews with politicians, military figures, legal activists, and members of the entire LGBT community who face these challenges every day. Non-Fiction.

The gods of tango by Carolina De Robertis.  Knopf, 2015. 367pp. $20.61 (978-1-101-87449-3) A complete and intricate story of how one inhabits otherness in a structured society begins in 1913 after Leta trabels from Italy to Buenos Ares seeking her husband witth gender identitry, migration, and tango.

Jam on the Vine by LaShonda Katrice Barnett. Publishers Group West, 2015. 323pp. $20.43 (978-0-8021-2334-3) A historical novel set in the age of Jim Crow and the Great Migration. Ivoe Williams, the daughter of a Muslim cook and a metalsmith struggles for equality and triumphs against all odds. Ivoe falls in love with a woman and they build a life together in Missouri in the wake of social change.

Lum, A Novel  by Libby Ware. She Writes Press, 2015. 215pp. $13.93 (978-1-63152-003-7) For intersex Lum, depended on her parasitic family members for three decades, the development of the Blue Ridge Parkway brings new financial and social opportunities in 1930’s Appalachia.

Marie Equi: radical politics and outlaw passions by Michael Helquist. Oregon State University Press, 2015. 310 pp. $19.63 (978-0-87071-595-2) Lesbian Mari Equi’s move from New Jerseyu to Oregon at the turn of the 20th century begins her activist life that frequently lands her in a number of relationships and often in jail.

Speak now: marriage equality on trial: the story of Hollingsworth v. Perry by Kenji Yoshino. Crown Publishers, 2015. 373pp. $23.53 (978-0-385-34880-5) Kenji Yoshino provides a clear and accessible account of the background to the 2010 lawsuit against Proposition 8 in California and then the life-changing Supreme Court case of Hollingsworth v. Perry.

Violence against queer people: race, class, gender, and the persistence of anti-LGBT discrimination. Doug Meyer. Rutgers University Press, 2016. 194pp. $90 (978-0-8135-7316-8) Meyer’s scholarly work shows that atributing homophobia to certain groups (religious, social-economic status, Black and/or Latino communities) further marginalizes GLBTQ members of this group.

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2015 Over the Rainbow List: 78 LGBT Books for Adult Readers

The 2015 Over the Rainbow Project book list, sponsored by the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Round Table (GLBTRT) of the American Library Association (ALA), has been decided at ALA’s Midwinter Meeting in Chicago.

This year’s list includes 78 titles published between July 1, 2013 and December 31, 2014.  The committee’s mission is to create a bibliography of books that exhibit commendable literary quality and significant authentic GLBT content and are recommended for adults over age 18. It is not meant to be all-inclusive but is intended as an annual core list for readers and librarians searching for recommendations for a cross-section of the year’s titles. Although the committee attempts to present titles for a variety of reading tastes and levels, no effort is made to balance this bibliography according to subject, area of interest, age, or genre.

The Over the Rainbow committee includes Kelly McElroy, Chair, Corvallis, OR; Rebecca Butler, Valparaiso, IN; David Combe, Ventura, CA; Annaliese Fidgeon, Northridge, CA.; Jessica Louise Jones, College Station, TX; Derek Marshall, West Point, MS; and Matthew Windsor, Conway AR.

 

Our top ten favorites

Excluded: Making Feminist and Queer Movements More Inclusive. By Julia Serano. Seal Press. 2013. 327p. $17.00. (978-1-58005-504-8). An in-depth look at problematic elements of feminist and queer movements, with suggestions on how to address those issues.

Gender Failure. By Ivan Coyote and Rae Spoon. Arsenal Pulp Press. 2014. 160p. $17.95. (978-1551525365). A collection of personal essays, song lyrics, and drawings recounting Coyote’s and Spoon’s lifelong experiences understanding and challenging gender.

Living Out Islam: Voices of Gay, Lesbian, and Transgender Muslims. By Scott Siraj al-Haqq Kugle. NYU Press. 2013.275p. $27.00. (978-1479894673). A look at 15 ‘activist’ gay, lesbian, and transgender Muslims as they attempt to find ways to live out Islam with dignity and integrity, reconciling their sexuality and gender with their faith, and recreating and reclaiming Islam as their own.

Man Alive: A True Story of Violence, Forgiveness, and Becoming a Man. By Thomas Page McBee. City Lights Publishers. 2014. 172p. $15.95. (978-0872866249). In this thoughtful memoir, McBee recounts and confronts both childhood abuse and a more recent act of violence.

Mr. Loverman. By Bernadine Evaristo. Akashic. 2014. 307p. $24.95. (978-1617752896). 74-year-old Barrington Jedidiah Walker, a member of Britain’s Caribbean community, is still trying to decide how to leave his wife of 50 years and move in with the man he has loved since childhood.

The Paying Guests. By Sarah Waters. Riverhead Hardcover. 2014. 576p. $28.95. (978-1594633119). Waters’s characters (where even the house takes on a quality of character) are vividly portrayed in this novel of post-WWI England. The newly impoverished Francis Wray and her mother take in boarders whose presence leads to unforeseen moral dilemmas.

Prelude to Bruise.  By Saeed Jones.  Coffee House Press. 2014. 124p. $16.00. (978-1566893749).  These poems of Boy, growing up gay and African American in the South, are complicated, horrific, and metaphoric.

The Prince of Los Cocuyos: A Miami Childhood. By Richard Blanco. Ecco. 2014. 272p. $25.99. (978-0062313768). A vivid recollection of growing up as the child of Cuban immigrants in mid-century Miami.

The Queer South: LGBTQ Writers on the American South.  Douglas Ray, Editor. Sibling Rivalry Press. 2014. 304 pages.  $28.00 (978-1-937420-80-2).  A poetry anthology exploring lesbian and gay experiences in the American South.

The Two Hotel Francforts. By David Leavitt. Bloomsbury USA. 2013. 272p. $25.00. (978-1596910423). After the fall of Paris to the Nazis, the expatriate couple Julia and Pete Winters join others in flight to Lisbon to flee Europe.  There they meet the Frelings, writers of mystery novels who are also fleeing Europe for the States.  Amid the chaos of the impeding war, this chance meeting changes their lives.

 

Art / Photography

100 Crushes. By Elisha Lim. Koyama Press. 2014. 100p. $18.00. (978-1927668061). Compilation of the works of queer comics artist Elisha Lim; part memoir and part biographies of friends.

dr.a.g. By Christopher Logan. Bookthefilm. 2014. 180p. $39.99. (978-0-9921529-0-1). A collection of color photographs of drag queens from all over the world. Photography.

The Invisibles: Vintage Portraits of Love and Pride. By Sebastien Lifshitz. Rizzoli. 2014. 144p. $27.50. (978-0847843060). This collection of photographs shows an unexpected glimpse of same-sex couples in the early 20th century.

TransCuba. By Mariette Pathy Allen. Daylight Books. 2014. 142p. $45. (978-0988983137). A collection of photographs and conversations with trans women in contemporary Cuba.

 

Fiction

All I Love and Know. By Judith Frank. William Morrow. 2014. 432p. $26.99. (978-0062302878). When his identical twin brother and sister-in-law are killed in Israel in a horrific terrorist attack, Daniel is left to fulfill their wishes and raise their two children in the States.  Besides grief, Daniel and his lover Matt must handle the Israel’s legal system, the media, the families, their relationship, as well as being thrust into the role of parents.

Bruceville. By Robyn Vinten. Tollington Press. 2013. 234p. $15. (978-1909347007). Three childhood friends reunite in rural New Zealand for a wedding and revisit haunting memories of growing up, after one of the friends has come out as trans.

The Days of Anna Madrigal: A Novel. By Armistead Maupin. Harper. 2014. 288p. $26.99. (978-0062196248). The final work in the Tales of the City series focuses on the life of Anna Madrigal, the legendary transgender landlady, now in her 90s, and brings back all the beloved characters of the series.

The Farm. By Tom Rob Smith. Grand Central Publishing. 2014. 368p. $26.00. (978-0446550734). When Daniel receives a call from his father telling him his mother had been committed to a mental hospital, he must come to terms with the hidden lives of his parents, the toxic effect of familial lies, and his own hidden life in order to solve the mystery these lies have created.

For Today I Am A Boy. By Kim Fu. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. 2014. 242p. $23. (978-0544034723). Told from the perspective of Peter as he grows from a child into a young adult identifying as a girl, despite his Chinese immigrant family’s traditional gender expectations.

Frog Music. By Emma Donoghue. Little, Brown and Company. 2014. 416p. $27.00. (978-0316324687). When Jenny Bonnet, a secretive, pants-wearing woman, bikes down Blanche, a dancer of ill repute in 1870s San Francisco, she disrupts Blanche’s seemingly happy life, making her reevaluate it all.

Hild: A Novel. By Nicola Griffith. Farrar, Straus, and Giroux. 2013. 560p. $27.00. (978-0374280871). A fictional account of the woman who would eventually become St. Hilda of Whitby; this book is full of descriptions of the daily life of women and the spectrum of their relationships with one another in 7th-century England.

Hysterical: Anna Freud’s Story. By Rebecca Coffey. She Writes Press. 2014. 360p. $16.95. (978-1938314421). A fictional memoir by the queer, youngest daughter of Sigmund Freud, who became a renowned psychoanalyst in her own right.

Lovers at the Chameleon Club, Paris 1932: A Novel. By Francine Prose. Harper. 2014. 448p. $26.99. (978-0061713781). Told through a series of letters and novels by her friends, lovers, biographer, and acquaintances, the life of Lou Villars, athlete, cross-dressing lesbian, race car driver, spy and more, comes to life against the backdrop of Paris from 1932 through the end of WWII. The literary construction plays with what is remembered and what is real.

Medici Boy. By John L’Heureux. Astor + Blue Editions, LLC. 2014. 346p. $ 24.95. (978-1938231506). Set against the backdrop of Florence in the 15th Century, Luca, writing from prison, tells the life of his half brother Agnolo, who is Donatello’s muse and lover and model for the famous David sculpture.

Mr. Loverman. By Bernadine Evaristo. Akashic. 2014. 307p. $24.95. (978-1617752896). 74-year-old Barrington Jedidiah Walker, a member of Britain’s Caribbean community, is still trying to decide how to leave his wife of 50 years and move in with the man he has loved since childhood.

Palmerino. By Melissa Pritchard. Bellevue Literary Press. 2014. 192p. $14.95. (978-1934137680). Writer Sylvia Case returns to Villa il Palmerino after her divorce to write a biography of Violet Paget, late 19th century writer, only to channel Violet’s spirit in her former home.

The Paying Guests. By Sarah Waters. Riverhead Hardcover. 2014. 576p. $28.95. (978-1594633119). Waters’s characters (where even the house takes on a quality of character) are vividly portrayed in this novel of post-WWI England. The newly impoverished Francis Wray and her mother take in boarders whose presence leads to unforeseen moral dilemmas.

Prairie Ostrich. By Tamai Kobayashi.  Goose Lane Editions. 2014. 200p. $19.95. (978-0864926807). When the death of her brother turns her family upside down, Egg tries to cope.  Being Japanese-Canadian in a rural community, she is isolated, bullied, and misunderstood, but her older lesbian sister is her strength and support.

The Two Hotel Francforts. By David Leavitt. Bloomsbury USA. 2013. 272p. $25.00. (978-1596910423). After the fall of Paris to the Nazis, the expatriate couple Julia and Pete Winters join others in flight to Lisbon to flee Europe.  There they meet the Frelings, writers of mystery novels who are also fleeing Europe for the States.  Amid the chaos of the impeding war, this chance meeting changes their lives.

Very Recent History: An Entirely Factual Account of a Year (c. AD 2009) in a Large City. By Choire Sicha. Harper. 2013. 256p. $24.99. (978-0061914300). Set in New York during the fallout of the financial crisis, this novel follows a group of gay men in work and life.

 

Fiction / Mystery

The Water Rat of Wanchai: An Ava Lee Novel. By Ian Hamilton. Picador. 2014. 400p. $16.00. (978-1250032270). Lesbian Ava Lee, forensic accountant and martial arts expert, tracks stolen money through Hong Kong, Bangkok, Guyana, and the British Islands, while engaging formidable foes.

 

Fiction / Short Stories

Fairytales for Lost Children. By Diriye Osman. Angelica Entertainment Ltd. 2013. 174p. $14.99. (978-0956971944). Short stories about immigrant queer Somalis written in a lively style.

 

Graphic Narrative

The Fifth Beatle: The Brian Epstein Story. By Vivek J. Tiwary. Illustrated by Andrew C. Robinson. M Press. 2013. 144p. $19.99. (978-1616552565). Graphic telling of Brian Epstein’s life reveals his importance as the gay impresario who managed the Beatles from 1961-1967.

If This Be Sin. By Hazel Newlevant. Prism Comics. 2014. 42p. $10.00. (9781630687069). This brief collection of three short comics tells of queer women who express themselves through their music and dance.

On Loving Women. By Diane Obomsawin. Drawn and Quarterly. 2014. 88p. $16.95. (978-1770461406). Simple comics illustrate the moments when a series of young women realize that they also love women.

Qu33r. Ed. by Rob Kirby. Northwest Press. 2013. 264p. $9.99-39.99  (978-1938720376). A graphic anthology of 33 different contributors telling stories of first dates, rejection, dreams, passions and what “queer” means to them.

 

Non-Fiction

1960s Gay Pulp Fiction: The Misplaced Heritage. Ed. by Drewey Wayne Gunn and Jaime Harker. University of Massachusetts Press. 2013. 344p. $27.95. (978-1625340450). These thirteen well-documented essays outline the history of gay pulp fiction and the role it played in the lives of gay men through the 60’s, providing a look at authors and publishers and analyzing representative pulp fiction works.

Alice + Freda Forever: A Murder in Memphis. By Alexis Coe. Pulp/Zest Books. 2014. 208p. $16.99. (978-1936976607). An engaging account of the shocking 1892 murder of a teenaged girl by her spurned lover, also a teenaged girl.

Excluded: Making Feminist and Queer Movements More Inclusive. By Julia Serano. Seal Press. 2013. 327p. $17.00. (978-1-58005-504-8). An in-depth look at problematic elements of feminist and queer movements, with suggestions on how to address those issues.

The Homoerotics of Orientalism. By Joseph Allen Boone. Columbia University Press. 2014. 520p. $50.00. (978-0231151108). In this academic, yet accessible book, Boone reviews 400 years of Middle Eastern and the Western literature, travel writings, historical works, art, photography, and cinema to illuminate the degree that male homosexuality has been associated with and/or manufactured about Middle Eastern culture.

Law and the Gay Rights Story: The Long Search for Equal Justice in a Divided Democracy. By Walter Frank. Rutgers University Press. 2014. 248p. $29.95. (978-0813568713). In a highly readable and personable style, Frank chronicles the legal fights for gay rights over the last 50 years, highlighting the individuals involved and the social, cultural, and political issues surrounding them.

A Little Gay History: Desire and Diversity Across the World. By R.B. Parkinson. Columbia University Press. 2013. 128 p.  $19.95  (023116663X). Objects ranging from Ancient Egyptian papyri and the erotic scenes on the Roman Warren Cup to images by modern artists provide insight into the range, diversity and complexity of same-sex experiences.

Living Out Islam: Voices of Gay, Lesbian, and Transgender Muslims. By Scott Siraj al-Haqq Kugle. NYU Press. 2013.275p. $27.00. (978-1479894673). A look at 15 ‘activist’ gay, lesbian, and transgender Muslims as they attempt to find ways to live out Islam with dignity and integrity, reconciling their sexuality and gender with their faith, and recreating and reclaiming Islam as their own.

A Queer History of Fashion. Ed. by Valerie Steel. Yale University Press. 2013. 248p. $50.  (978-0300196702). A look at LGB (and some T) history from the perspective of fashion, looking at how fashion contributes to movements and perceptions of groups of people.

The Queer South: LGBTQ Writers on the American South.  Douglas Ray, Editor. Sibling Rivalry Press. 2014. 304 pages.  $28.00 (978-1-937420-80-2).  A poetry anthology exploring lesbian and gay experiences in the American South.

Radical Relations: Lesbian Mothers, Gay Fathers, and Their Children in the United States since World War II. By Daniel W. Rivers. University of North Carolina Press. 2013. 312p. $29.95. (978-1469607184). Based on extensive archival research and 130 interviews conducted nationwide, this book documents the stories of lesbian mothers and gay fathers from the 1950s to the 1990s.

Sexual Discretion: Black Masculinity and the Politics of Passing. By Jeffrey Q. McCune Jr.  University Of Chicago Press. 2014. 224p. $25.00. (978-0226096537). Academic yet accessible, McCune takes to task the media’s contemporary discourse on the “down low” by examining the issue through interviews and surveys of 60 DL men, the media’s fascination and handling of the subject, and a look at the subject in the context of the “passing” literature.

Sexual Diversity in Africa: Politics, Theory, and Citizenship. By S. N. Nyeck and Marc Epprecht. McGill-Queen’s University Press. 2013. 312p. $29.95. (978-0773541887). Well-documented and scholarly, these eleven essays shed light on the complex nature of sexuality, sexual practices and gender performance in Africa and dispute oversimplified tropes including homosexuality versus heterosexuality, modern versus traditional, and Africa versus the West.

There Goes the Gayborhood? By Amin Ghaziani. Princeton University Press. 2014. 360p. $35.00. (978-0691158792). Focusing on Chicago’s gayborhoods of Andersonville and Boystown, Ghaziani looks at the origins of these enclaves and the impact on the future prospects, character, and composition of these neighborhoods in this “post gay” era due to changes in political and societal acceptance of GLBT individuals.

The Tolerance Trap: How God, Genes, and Good Intentions are Sabotaging Gay Equality. By Suzanna Danuta Walters. NYU Press. 2014. 343p. $29.95. (978-0814770573). By examining the marriage equality successes, religious approaches to changes in gay acceptance, scientific research of homosexuality, and other areas of social change, Walters argues for equality, deep integration and civil inclusion rather than just acceptance and tolerance that is contingent upon the heterosexual majority deeming it so.

 

Non-Fiction /  Biography / Memoir

Body Counts: A Memoir of Politics, Sex, AIDS, and Survival. By Sean Strub. Scribner. 2014. 432p. $30.00. (978-1451661958). The founder of POZ magazine and AIDS and LGBT activist, the author looks back on his life and career in the midst of the 1980s AIDS epidemic.

A Cup of Water Under My Bed: A Memoir. By Daisy Hernandez. Beacon Press. 2014. 200p. $24.95. (978-0807014486). The daughter of Cuban and Colombian immigrants, Hernandez recounts growing up bilingual and bisexual.

Double Pregnant: Two Lesbians Make a Family. By Natalie Meissner. Fernwood Publishing. 2014. 181p. $20.95. (978-1552666012). Both Meissner and her wife get pregnant in quick succession in this beautifully written memoir about starting a family.

Eating Fire: My Life as a Lesbian Avenger. By Kelly J. Cogswell. University of Minnesota Press. 2014. 256p. $19.95. (978-0816691166). This behind-the-scenes look at the Lesbian Avengers speak to the activists’ efforts in making a difference and Cogswell’s persistent struggle to raise awareness and effect change outside of this organization.

The End of Eve: A Memoir. By Ariel Gore. Hawthorne Books. 2014. 237p. $16.95. (978-0986000799). Ariel finds it hard to live according to her values as she becomes a caretaker for a very challenging mother who is dying of cancer, moves to New Mexico, ends a relationship, and raises her son and daughter.

Falling into Place. By Catherine Reid.  Beacon Press. 2014. 184p. $24.95.  (978-0807009925). Essays on nature and place, blended with reflections on relationships and politics.

Fire Shut Up in My Bones. By Charles Blow. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. 2014. 240p. $27.00. (978-0544228047). Blow’s coming of age memoir is his personal account of family, homophobia, racism, and poverty growing up in the Deep South.

Gender Failure. By Ivan Coyote and Rae Spoon. Arsenal Pulp Press. 2014. 160p. $17.95. (978-1551525365). A collection of personal essays, song lyrics, and drawings recounting Coyote’s and Spoon’s lifelong experiences understanding and challenging gender.

Ham: Slices of a Life, Essays and Stories. By Sam Harris. Gallery Books. 2014. 304p. $26.00. (978-1476733418). Harris’s essays recount growing up gay in the Bible belt of Oklahoma, his search for fame on the music and Broadway stage, his battle with alcoholism, and his finding love and family are both laugh-out-loud hilarious and poignantly heartfelt.

Hold Tight Gently. By Martin Duberman. The New Press. 2014. 356p. $27.95. (978-1595589453). Using the lives of Michael Callen, gay activist and singer, and Essex Hemphill, Black gay activist and poet, Duberman traces the history of the AIDS crisis illuminating the struggle during this era and the injustices which occurred.

In My Skin: My Life On and Off the Basketball Court. By Brittney Griner. It Books. 2014. 224p. $25.99. (978-0062309334). WNBA player recounts a childhood and college basketball career in a homophobic environment.

Man Alive: A True Story of Violence, Forgiveness, and Becoming a Man. By Thomas Page McBee. City Lights Publishers. 2014. 172p. $15.95. (978-0872866249). In this thoughtful memoir, McBee recounts and confronts both childhood abuse and a more recent act of violence.

Pee-Shy. By Frank Spinelli. Kensington. 2013. 352p. $15.00. (978-0758291325). Abused as a child by his Scoutmaster, Frank, now a successful doctor, partner, and author, is determined to see some resolution to the horrors of his abuse by confronting his abuser.

Soldier of Change: From the Closet to the Forefront of the Gay Rights Movement. By Stephen Snyder-Hill. Potomac Books Inc. 2014. 192p. $22.95. (978-1612346977). Snyder-Hill’s conversational account of his days in the army under DADT, his continued fight for equality in the armed services, and the elimination of DOMA brings home the reality of the “closet” in the military.

Mommy Man. By Jerry Mahoney.  Taylor Trade Publishing.  2014.  296p.  $24.95 (978-1589799226).  Mahoney recounts the process of surrogacy and the obstacles facing gay parents with wit and humor.

The Prince of Los Cocuyos: A Miami Childhood. By Richard Blanco. Ecco. 2014. 272p. $25.99. (978-0062313768). A vivid recollection of growing up as the child of Cuban immigrants in mid-century Miami.

Queerly Beloved: A Love Story Across Genders. By Diane Anderson-Minshall and Jacob Anderson-Minshall. Bold Strokes Books. 2014. 264p. $16.95. (978-1626390621). Told in dual narratives, the journey of committed queers Diane and Suzy as Suzy transitions to Jacob illustrates their difficulties, as well as the rewards of their loving and supportive relationship.

Redefining Realness: My Path to Womanhood, Identity, Love & So Much More. By Janet Mock. Atria Books. 2014. 288p. $24.99. (978-1476709123). Mock’s memoir describes her transition as a young, low-income, trans person of color.

Teaching the Cat to Sit: A Memoir. By Michelle Theall. Gallery Books. 2014. 288p. $24.99. (978-1451697292). Chapters in this memoir alternate between Theall’s memories of growing up queer and Catholic and her decisions about religion as she and her partner raise an adopted child together.

Tennessee Williams: Mad Pilgrimage of the Flesh. By John Lahr. W. W. Norton & Company. 2014. 784p. $18.95. (978-0393351651). A detailed look at the life, family, work, and loves of renowned playwright Tennessee Williams.

 

Poetry

All the Heat We Could Carry. By Charlie Bondhus. Main Street Rag. 2013. 72p. $14.00. (978-1599484365). Written from the point of view of gay soldiers and their partners, these poems reveal the horror of the recent wars and the lasting effects on the men who participate in combat.

Amorcito Maricón. By Lorenzo Herrera y Lozano. Kórima Press. 2014. 104p. $15.00. (978-0988967359). With subject matter that is brimming with desire, love, romance unfulfilled, sex and pleasure, these poems are not romantic or sentimental.  Herrera y Lozano’s poems speak of brown-on-brown joto love in a unique queer Xicano voice.

Artificial Cherry. By Billeh Nickerson. Arsenal Pulp Press. 2014. 96p. $14.95. (978-1551525402). Poems and brief observations on life and places are funny and fresh.

Erotic Postulate.  By Matthew Hittinger.  Sibling Rivalry Press.  2014.  120 pages $13.00. (978-1937420765).  Poetry that explores historical and mathematical themes within a gay context.

Joy Exhaustible. Assaracus Presents the Publishers. Ed. by Bryan Borland and Seth Pennington. Sibling Rivalry Press. 2014. 196p. $19.95. (978-1937420703). Eighteen gay small press publishers and editors show how talented they are in these memoirs, poetry and fiction.

God of Longing. By Brent Calderwood. Sibling Rivalry Press. 2014. 82p. $14.95. (978-1937420819). Calderwood’s poems speak to the longing for the love of one’s life only to discover that it is a minefield filled with faults and fractures.

A History of the Unmarried. By Stephen S. Mills. Sibling rivalry Press. 2014. 86p. $14.95. (978-1937420796). Refreshing, brutally real poetry that is honest in its depiction of contemporary relationships and love.

Las Hociconas: Three Locas with Big Mouths and Even Bigger Brains. By Adelina Anthony. Kórima Press. 2013. 140p. $15.00. (978-0988967342). With great strength of the written and dramatic words, these three theatrical comedies of Xicana artist Adelina Anthony’s live work are outrageous and irreverent, honest and fearless portraits.

Like a Beggar. By Ellen Bass. Copper Canyon Press. 2014. 70p. $16.00. (978-1556594649). Bass makes the ordinary extraordinary with images of love and nature which illuminate what one sees differently.

Nefarious. By Emanuel Xavier. QueerMojo. 2013. 84p. $10.95. (978-1608640942). Using his life as the subject,  Xavier reflects on his past as well as his present state, looking at love, sex, family, writing, and life.

Prelude to Bruise.  By Saeed Jones.  Coffee House Press. 2014. 124p. $16.00. (978-1566893749).  These poems of Boy, growing up gay and African American in the South, are complicated, horrific, and metaphoric.

Prime: Poetry & Conversation. By L. Lamar Wilson, et al. Sibling Rivalry Press. 2014. 104p. $16.95 . (978-1937420734). Poems and conversations among gay, African-American poets reveal much about their work, mentoring, and their theories of poetry.  Prime features poems by and dialogue between poets Darrel Alejandro Holnes, Saeed Jones, Rickey Laurentiis, Phillip B. Williams, and L. Lamar Wilson.

Straight Razor: Poems. By Randall Mann. Persea. 2013. 80p. $15.95. (978-0892554300). Often using a formalized structure, Mann’s poetry delivers creative images of growing up gay in Florida, the San Francisco gay scene, sex, and longing.

This Life Now. By Michael Broder. A Midsummer Night’s Press. 2014. 53p. $13.95. (978-1938334092). Poetry on the relationships between men focus on loss, love, and lust.  The author draws the reader in with pop culture references and the demonstration of the universal desire for companionship in this gritty collection.

This Way to the Sugar. By Hieu Minh Nguyen. Write Bloody Publishing. 2014. 100p. $15.00. (978-1938912443). Nguyen’s poems illuminate growing up gay and Vietnamese in Minnesota, touching on family, sexual abuse, abandonment and death.

When I Was Straight. By Julie Marie Wade. A Midsummer Night’s Press. 2014. 42p. $10.95. (978-1938334085).  Hilarious and heart-breaking, the author shares her story of her life before she came out and the reactions of those around her on learning she is a lesbian.

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2014 Over the Rainbow List: 71 LGBT Books for Adult Readers

The 2014 Over the Rainbow Project book list, sponsored by the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Round Table (GLBTRT) of the American Library Association (ALA), has been decided at ALA’s Midwinter Meeting in Philadelphia.

This year’s list includes 71 titles published between July 1, 2012 and December 31, 2013.  The committee’s mission is to create a bibliography of books that exhibit commendable literary quality and significant authentic GLBT content and are recommended for adults over age 18. It is not meant to be all-inclusive but is intended as an annual core list for readers and librarians searching for recommendations for a cross-section of the year’s titles. Although the committee attempts to present titles for a variety of reading tastes and levels, no effort is made to balance this bibliography according to subject, area of interest, age, or genre.

The Over the Rainbow committee includes Robert Graziano, Chair, Chicago, IL; Kelly McElroy, Chair-Elect, Iowa City, IA; David Combe, Ventura, CA; Annaliese Fidgeon, Northridge, CA.; Jessica Louise Jones, Santa Fe, NM; Louis Munoz, Jr., Brooklyn, NY; Robert Ridinger, DeKalb, IL; Nel Ward, Newport, OR.

Our Top Ten Favorites

Anything That Loves: Comics Beyond “Gay” and “Straight”. Ed. by Charles “Zan” Christensen and Carol Queen. Northwest Press. 2013. 216p. $29.99. (978-1938720321). A collection of comics covers the range and nuances of bisexuality, showcasing the discrimination bisexuals face from both the gay and straight communities.

Art and Queer Culture. Ed. by Catherine Lord and Richard Meyer. Phaidon Press. 2013. 412p. $75.00. (978-0714849355). Chronological and comprehensive in scope, the editors document the wide expanse of queer cultural expressions that oppose normative heterosexuality from 1885 through the present.

Body Geographic. By Barrie Jean Borich. University of Nebraska Press. 2013. 272p. $17.95. (978-0803239852). In this creative, non-linear narrative, Borich traces the real, imagined, future, and past “maps” of families, cities, and lovers which intersect in Borich’s life.

Coconut Milk. By Dan Taulapapa McMullin. University of Arizona Press. 2013. 80p. $15.95. (978-0816530526). The culturally-rich poems from a queer, Samoan American bring the Samoan culture to life and point out the dichotomy of Fa’a Fafine, third-gendered life in two cultures.

Everything Begins & Ends at the Kentucky Club. By Benjamin Alire Saenz. Cinco Puentos. 2012 (Oct.). 222p. $16.95. (978-1935955320). Seven short stories set in the famous watering hole just south of El Paso on Avenida Juarez reflect the connecting place for Saenz’s characters from different sides of physical and emotional borders.

Gay Press, Gay Power: The Growth of LGBT Community Newspapers in America. By Tracy Baim. CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform. 2012. 468p. $25. (978-1480080522). Comprehensive in scope and content, this history of GLBT print media incorporates interviews and essays by leaders in the field to trace the mainstream’s handling of gay content, the role of advertising in this media, and its future.

The Golden Boy. By Abigail Tarttelin. Atria Books. 2013. 346p. $24.99. (978-1476705804). A family’s carefully constructed facade intended to protect their intersex child falls apart when he is the victim of a violent crime.

Mundo Cruel: Stories. By Luis Negron. Trans. by Suzanne Jill Levine. Seven Stories Press. 2013. 96p. $13.95. (978-1609804183). Luis Negron transcribes Telemundo into print through witty, humorous, satirical stories that capture the Puerto Rican’s view of the world.

Red-Inked Retablos. By Rigoberto Gonzalez. University of Arizona Press. 2012. $19.95. 140p. (978-0816521357). In the tradition of framing devotional images, these 13 essays honor those people who influenced the gay author’s lifework and give hope to a future generation of Latino “mariposa” writers.

This Assignment is so Gay: LGBTIQ Poets on the Art of Teaching. Ed. by Megan Volpert. Sibling Rivalry Press. 2013. 226p. $24.95. (978-1937420420). An anthology of poems on the struggles and connections made in the classroom comes from the intersection of personal identity, teaching, and learning.

ART

Art and Queer Culture. Ed. by Catherine Lord and Richard Meyer. Phaidon Press. 2013. 412p. $75.00. (978-0714849355). Chronological and comprehensive in scope, the editors document the wide expanse of queer cultural expressions that oppose normative heterosexuality from 1885 through the present.

Legendary: Inside the House Ballroom Scene. Photographs by Gerard H. Gaskin. Duke University Press. 2013. 120p. $45. (978-0822355823). Color and b/w photographs flaunt gay and transgender men and women, mostly Latino and black, as they express their electric, effervescent selves.

DRAMA

Tom at the Farm. By Michael Marc Bouchard. Trans. by Linda Gaboriau. Talonbooks. 2013. 80p. $16.95. (978-0889227590). Lust mixes with brutality when urban Tom attends the rural funeral of his lover and finds himself caught in the dysfunctional lives and expectations of the lover’s mother and brother.

FICTION

Cha-Ching! By Ali Liegegott. City Lights. 2013. 248p. $15.95. (978-0872865709). A young woman, Theo, tries to get a new start in New York City where a new relationship starts her on the right path, but old vices quickly reappear.

The Golden Boy. By Abigail Tarttelin. Atria Books. 2013. 346p. $24.99. (978-1476705804). A family’s carefully constructed facade intended to protect their intersex child falls apart when he is the victim of a violent crime.

An Honest Ghost. By Rick Whitaker. Jaded Ibis Press. 2013. 210p. $16.99. (978-1937543389). In a cut-and-paste novel, the author tells about his life, his boyfriend, his son, and his son’s mother through single sentences taken from over 500 other works.

Nevada. By Imogen Binnie. Topside Press. 2013. 242p. $17.95. (978-0983242239). Providing a powerful transgender voice throughout the novel, Maria Griffiths, a trans woman in New York who finds her life unraveling, steals a car and seeks escape via a cross-country road trip to Nevada.

These Things Happen. By Richard Kramer. Unbridled Books. 2012. 272p. $24.95. (978-1609530891). After 15-year-old Theo comes out at a school assembly, he asks his straight friend Wesley who is living with his gay father and lover to help him understand this “gay thing” during 24 hours of mayhem and soul-searching in Wesley’s extended family.

FICTION /MYSTERY

The Killer Wore Leather: A Mystery. By Laura Antoniou. Cleis Press. 2013. 402p. $16.95. (978-1-573449304). Chaos reigns amidst a myriad of characters as dyke Detective Rebecca Feldblum, with the help of her straight sidekick, navigates the kinky world of sex to find the murderer of reigning Mr. Global Leather during the current contest at a New York hotel.

FICTION/SHORT STORIES

Everything Begins & Ends at the Kentucky Club. By Benjamin Alire Saenz. Cinco Puentos. 2012.  222p. $16.95. (978-1935955320). Seven short stories set in the famous watering hole just south of El Paso on Avenida Juarez reflect the connecting place for Saenz’s characters from different sides of physical and emotional borders.

Canary: Stories. By Nancy Jo Cullen. Biblioasis. 2013. 189p. Biblioasis. $15.95.(978-1927428146). This often comic collection of short stories focuses on working class Canadian characters whose sexually is often fluid.

Mundo Cruel: Stories. By Luis Negron. Trans. by Suzanne Jill Levine. Seven Stories Press. 2013. 96p. $13.95. (978-1609804183). Luis Negron transcribes Telemundo into print through witty, humorous, satirical stories that capture the Puerto Rican’s view of the world.

GRAPHIC NARRATIVE

7 Miles A Second.  By David Wojnarowicz, Marguerite Van Cook and James Romberger. Fantagraphics. 2013. 68p. $19.99. (978-1606996140). This classic graphic read includes new material and the powerful, never-before-duplicated, realistic coloring of the artist.

Anything That Loves: Comics Beyond “Gay” and “Straight”. Ed. by Charles “Zan” Christensen and Carol Queen. Northwest Press. 2013. 216p. $29.99. (978-1938720321). A collection of comics covers the range and nuances of bisexuality, showcasing the discrimination bisexuals face from both the gay and straight communities.

Blue is the Warmest Color. By Julie Maroh. Trans. by Ivanka Hahnenberger. Arsenal Pulp Press. 2013. 160p. $19.95. (978-1551525143). Clementine, a high school junior, finds an expected love for a young woman, but the relationship is made difficult because of Clem’s homophobic family and new lover’s girlfriend.

Calling Dr. Laura: A Graphic Memoir. By Nicole J. Georges. Houghton Mifflin. 2013. 260p. $16.95. (978-0547615592). Episodic vignettes describe the author’s pain-filled life between the age of two, when her mother told her that her father was dead, to the pursuit of truth when a palm reader tells Georges, 23, that the father is actually alive and Georges’ misery in finding acceptance as a lesbian.

Julio’s Day. By Gilbert Hernandez. Fantagraphics. 2013. 112p. $19.99. (978-1606996065). With minimal text, this graphic novel follows main character Julio from cradle to grave, illustrating how the gay experience has changed drastically over 100 years.

Spit and Passion. By Cristy C. Road. The Feminist Press. 2012. 157p. $15.95. (978-1558618077). The Cuban-American, Catholic-reared author reveals the angst of her youth in her combined text and art memoir that describes failure to fit into her culture, her search for help in punk rock, and her coming to terms with her queer identity.

NON-FICTION

Bi: Notes for a Bisexual Revolution. By Shiri Eisner. Seal Press. 2013. 245p. $16.00. (978-1580054744). This examination of bisexual politics covers issues of biphobia/monosexism, feminism, and transgenderism including the problems of labeling this sexual orientation/gender identity.

Courthouse Democracy and Minority Rights: Same-Sex Marriage in the States. By Robert J. Hume. Oxford University Press. 2013. 217p. $85. (978-0199982172). Although much attention has been paid to marriage equality in the nation’s higher, state courts have been the catalyst that moved same-sex marriage forward, especially because many decisions went against the “tyranny of the majority.”

‘Don’t Be So Gay!’ Queers, Bullying, and Making School Safe. By Donn Short. UBC Press. 2013. 289p. $32.95. (978-0774823272). Conclusions from interviews with queer youth and their allies in the Toronto area show the faults of the Canadian safe-school legislation and recommend effective strategies to change the homophobic culture of schools.

From the Closet to the Altar: Courts, Backlash, and the Struggle for Same-Sex Marriage. By Michael J. Klarman. Oxford University Press. 2012. 276p. $27.95. (978-0199922109). Although LGBT rights suffered reversals during the last half of the 20th century and the first 11 years of this one, the progress has been amazing, particularly in the area of marriage equality.

Gay Press, Gay Power: The Growth of LGBT Community Newspapers in America. By Tracy Baim. CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform. 2012. 468p. $25. (978-1480080522). Comprehensive in scope and content, this history of GLBT print media incorporates interviews and essays by leaders in the field to trace the mainstream’s handling of gay content, the role of advertising in this media, and its future.

Girlfag: A Life Told in Sex and Musicals. By Janet W. Hardy. Beyond Binary Books. 2012. 175p. $13.95. (978-1938123009). A female-bodied person telling of her identification with gay men and exploring other girlfags in the past addresses the question, “Do you want to be that person, or do you want to have sex with them?”

Israel/Palestine and the Queer International. By Sarah Schulman. Duke University Press. 2012. 193p. $22.95. (978-0822353757). Invited to speak at Tel Aviv University, the activist/novelist discovered and joined the Palestinian academic and cultural boycott of Israel as she explored the reasons with queer Palestinians in both the United States and the West Bank in a perspective of Palestine that has both enraged and enlightened.

Land of 10,000 Loves: A History of Queer Minnesota. By Stewart Van Cleve. University of Minnesota Press. 2012. 323p. (978-0816676453). The rich vignettes about events and people of just one state, “queer … since the very beginning,” tie in people from around the world who visited Minnesota and represent the struggles of queer folk everywhere.

Lawfully Wedded Husband: How My Gay Marriage Will Save the American Family. By Joel Derfner. University of Wisconsin. 2013. 235p. (978-0299294908). With humor and poignant clarity, the author blends the rocky path of deciding marriage plans with his psychiatrist partner, Mike Combs, in 2010 with a pointed viewpoint on same-sex marriage partially based on the attitudes of his civil rights activist family.

Men in Eden: William Drummond Stewart and Same-Sex Desire in the Rocky Mountain Fur Trade. By William Benemann. University of Nebraska Press, 2012. 343p. $29.95.(978-0803237780). During the 19th century, Scottish nobleman Stewart traveled from Murthly Castle in Perthshire to a wild life with other hunters and explorers living in freedom on the edge of American society.

New Queer Cinema: The Director’s Cut. By B. Ruby Rich. Duke University Press Books. 2013. 360p. $25.95. (978-0822354284). This compilation of intelligent, thought-provoking essays by film essayist and critic place the new queer cinema movement in its cultural/historical context.

Oye Loca: From the Mariel Boatlift to Gay Cuban Miami. By Susana Pena. University of Minnesota Press. 2013. 280p. $25. (978-0816665549). Pena investigates the changes in the Cuban ethnic and sexual community of Miami since the arrival of the male homosexual “undesirables” of the 1980 Mariel boatlift.

Real Man Adventures. By T Cooper. McSweeney’s. 2012. 272p. $23.00. (978-1938073007). A transsexual man uses a variety of forms–letters, stories, interviews–to address different facets of his life.

Robert Duncan in San Francisco. By Michael Rumaker. City Lights Books. 2013. 143p. $12.95. (978-0872865907). Highly closeted during his friendship with the openly out gay poet, Rumaker reflects on the North Beach literary culture after the publication of Howl but before the more liberating post-Stonewall times.

Same-Sex Marriage in the United States: The Road to the Supreme Court. By Jason Pierceson. Rowman and Littlefield. 2013. 253p. (978-1442212046). The path of the legalization of federal marriage equality has been filled with political, legal, and culture issues.

Same-Sex Legal Kit for Dummies. By Carrie Stone and John G. Culhane. Wiley. 2013. 364p. $34.99. (978-1118395219). This highly accessible book with accompanying CD covers just about every legal facet for LGBT people—valuable for everyone in the community.

Same-Sex Marriage in Latin America: Promise and Resistance. Ed. by Jason Pierceson, Adriana Piatti-Crocker, and Shawn Schulenberg. Lexington Books/Rowman & Littlefield. 2013. 176p. $27.99. (978-0739167038). Nine authors explore the evolving supportive same-sex policies in Latin America through case studies set in Argentina, Colombia, Mexico, Uruguay, and Central America.

Shanghai Lalas: Female Tongzhi Communities and Politics in Urban China. By Lucetta Hip Lo Kam. Hong Kong University Press. 2013. 213p. $25. (978-9882208452). Lesbians in China struggle between their same-sex desire and the need to conform to traditional family life in a country that restricts women’s rights.

We Do! American Leaders Who Believe in Marriage Equality. Ed. by Jennifer Baumgardner & Madeleine M. Kunin. Akashic. 2013. 204p. $15.95. (978-1617751875). A historical look at the growth of marriage equality acceptance through key speeches from Harvey Milk in 1977 to Bill Clinton’s March 2013 speech includes brief bios of the politicians.

NON-FICTION/ BIOGRAPHY/MEMOIR

Allen Ginsberg. By Steve Finbow. Reaktion Books. 2013. 235p. $16.95. (978-1780230177). For over a half century, the author of the epic poem Howl fought conformity and capitalization in the world through his contacts with hundreds of the famous and infamous.

Army of Lovers: A Community History of Will Munro. By Sarah Liss. Coach House Books. 2013. 157p. $13.95. (978-1552452776). Various people in Munro’s life describe their relationships with the man who brought together the queer world of Toronto through his career as DJ, activist, impresario, and artist before he died of brain cancer at the age of 35.

The Beauty of Men Never Dies: An Autobiographical Novel. By David Leddick. Terrace Books/University of Wisconsin Press. 2013. 135p. $24.95. (978-0299292706). As a voice from both the past and the present, a man in his 70s shares his gay experiences and insights.

Becoming a Londoner: A Diary. By David Plante. Bloomsbury. 2013. 532p. $30. (978-1620401880). The author’s love affair with his partner Nikos Stangos for over 40 years provides the foundation of Plante’s revelations during the first 20 years as he relishes the many relationships with members of the artistic world.

Body Geographic. By Barrie Jean Borich. University of Nebraska Press. 2013. 272p. $17.95. (978-0803239852). In this creative, non-linear narrative, Borich traces the real, imagined, future, and past “maps” of families, cities, and lovers which intersect in Borich’s life.

Born This Way: Real Stories of Growing Up Gay. By Paul Vitagliano. Quirk Books. 2012. 128p. $14.95 (978-1594745997). Photographs and text offer insight into the “gay” childhood of individuals across the globe.

Coal to Diamonds. By Beth Ditto with Michelle Tea. Spiegel & Grau.  2013. 153p. $22. (978-0385525916). From rural Arkansas to leader of the band Gossip, this feisty, fat, sexually-confused lesbian-to-be nerd fights her way through a mental breakdown with humor and grace.

Confessions of a Fairy’s Daughter: Growing Up with a Gay Dad. By Alison Wearing. Knopf. 2013. 292p. $24. (978-0345807571). Two perspectives—one from a teenage girl and the other from her coming-out father—make this a rich view into the lives of gays and their families in the early 1980s.

Dreadful: The Short Life and Gay Times of John Horne Burns. By David Margolick. Other Press. 2013. 343p. $24.95. (978-1590515716). This unflatteringly portrayal of gay American author John Horne Burns (1916–1953) from his early prep school experiences through teaching at a boarding school and military intelligence work in Italy during World War II reads like a novel about a deeply flawed character.

The End of San Francisco. By Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore. City Lights Publishing. 2013. 172p. $15.95. (978-0872865723). These memoirs illuminate the generation that came of age in the early 90’s, grew up with AIDS, sought change and created a radical queer community.

Fairyland: A Memoir of My Father. By Alysia Abbott. Norton. 2013. 326p. $25.95. (978-0393082524). After the death of her free-spirited mother, Alysia is brought up by her gay father, poet and activist Steven Abbott.

The Greek House: The Story of a Painter’s Love Affair with the Island of Sifnos. By Christian Brechneff with Tim Lovejoy. FSG. 2013. 284p. $27.00. (978-0374166717). Starting at the age of 21, the author celebrated three decades of summers on an isolated Greek island where he bloomed as an artist and discovered himself as a gay man.

My Almost Certainly Real Imaginary Jesus. By Kelly Barth. Artoi Books. 2012. 228p. $17.95. (978-0980040753). From her childhood in a strict Presbyterian home and her crush on another young girl to her rejection for being a lesbian, Barth searches for Christianity in this sometimes laugh-out-loud memoir.

The Other Man: 21 Writers Speak Candidly about Sex, Love, Infidelity, and Moving On. Ed. by Paul Alan Fahey. JMS Books. 2013. 230p. $14.50. (978-1483970967). As the editor wrote in his introduction, “the other man … comes, he sees, he conquers, and leaves behind something akin to a lingering, twenty-four hour flu or at worst, a really bad case of the Black Death.”

Prairie Silence. By Melanie Hoffert. Beacon Press. 2013. 238p. $24.95. (978-0807044735). Searching for her family roots, the author leaves her city life in Minneapolis during her thirties to return to the family farm in North Dakota where she discovers faith and loyalty among the people and to the land that they serve.

Raising My Rainbow: Adventures in Raising a Fabulous Gender Creative Son. By Lori Duron. Broadway/Crown/Random House. 2013. 261p. $15. (978-0770437725). Blog entries by the author about rearing two sons–the younger gender nonconforming–and maintaining their self-esteem begins with Duron’s discovery that C.J. wants only girl things before the age of three and culminates in her confrontation with school officials to stop the other children bullying the child.

NON-FICTION/ESSAYS

American Savage: Insights, Slights, and Fights on Faith, Sex, Love, and Politics. By Dan Savage. Dutton Adult. 2013. 320p. (987-0525954101). Sex columnist Savage addresses a range of issues including same-sex marriage, monogamy, guns, health care, religion and even death in an often humorous and personal no-hold-barred style.

Among the Bloodpeople: Politics and Flesh. By Thomas Glave. Akashic Books. 2013. 224 p. $15.95. (978-1617751707). Essays on gay love, sex, suicide, writers and writing, the diaspora of Caribbean peoples, and the love of Jamaica (with all of its faults) are pointed and passionate.

Blood, Marriage, Wine and Glitter: Essays. By S. Bear Bergman. Arsenal Pulp. 2013. 232p. $18.95. (978-1551525112). A polyamorous transman married to another transman who delivered their love child writes about the fluidity of gender and relationships.

The Martin Duberman Reader: The Essential Historical, Biographical, and Autobiographical Writings. By Martin Duberman. New Press. 2013. 374p. $21.95. (978-1595586797). A half-century of writings showing the historian’s perspectives on the intersection of gender, sexuality, race, and economics includes part of his 1993 book, Stonewall.

Red-Inked Retablos. By Rigoberto Gonzalez. University of Arizona Press. 2012. $19.95. 140p. (978-0816521357). In the tradition of framing devotional images, these 13 essays honor those people who influenced the gay author’s lifework and give hope to a future generation of Latino “mariposa” writers.

POETRY

After This We Go Dark. By Theresa Davis. Sibling Rivalry Press. 2013. 112p. $14.95. (978-1937420383). Narrative and observational poems use a strong lesbian/feminist voice to dissect love and loss, relationships, race, religion, motherhood, gender, history, and everyday occurrences.

Appetite. By Aaron Smith. University of Pittsburgh Press. 2012. 72p. $15.95. (978-0810129153). Angry, witty, humorous poems use a gay voice to speak of everyday actions.

Autogeography: Poems. By Reginald Harris. Northwestern University Press. 2013. 84p. $16.95. (978-1937402488). Poetry highlights personal and revealing experiences of a gay man of color.

Begging for It. By Alex Dimitrov. Four Way. 2013. 96p. (978-1935536260). Sensual without being erotic, these works are youthful, fresh, and filled with a sense of place.

Coconut Milk. By Dan Taulapapa McMullin. University of Arizona Press. 2013. 80p. $15.95. (978-0816530526). The culturally-rich poems from a queer, Samoan American bring the Samoan culture to life and point out the dichotomy of Fa’a Fafine, third-gendered life in two cultures.

Deleted Names. By Lawrence Schimel. A Midsummer Night’s Press. 2013. 40p. $10.95. (978-1938334030). Young, smart poetry that begs to be spoken rather than read, shines a spotlight on everyday gay insecurities, desires, situations, pets, and sickness.

Fortunate Light. By David Bergman. A Midsummer Night’s Press. 2013. 40p. $10.95. (978-1938334023). A mature voice speaks to memory of the past loves, present feelings, and hopeful desires.

How Poetry Saved My Life: A Hustler’s Memoir. By Amber Dawn. Arsenal Pulp. 2013. 156p. $15.95. (978-1551525006). Feminist, survivor, queer identity, sex-worker—these are the pieces of Dawn’s life that guide her experiences on the streets of Vancouver and provide a lifeline that she describes through autobiographical poetry and prose.

Obscenely Yours. By Angelo Nikolopoulos. Alice James Books. 2013. 75p. $15.95. (978-1882295999). Poems celebrate the heart of gay sex in all its forms.

Render. By Collin Kelley. Sibling Rivalry Press. 2013. 78p. $14.95. (978-1937420345). This collection of poems takes the reader through the author’s experience as a gay child,  adolescent, and adult in the southern United States.

Running for Trap Doors. By Joanna Hoffman. Sibling Rivalry. 2013. 80. $14.95. (978-1937420475). Youth, angst, lesbian bars, emoticons, and lost girlfriends—these are a few of the issues that the poet navigates in this slim volume.

This Assignment is so Gay: LGBTIQ Poets on the Art of Teaching. Ed. by Megan Volpert. Sibling Rivalry Press. 2013. 226p. $24.95. (978-1937420420). An anthology of poems on the struggles and connections made in the classroom comes from the intersection of personal identity, teaching, and learning.

Viral. By Suzanne Parker. Alice James Books. 2013. 80p. $15.95. (978-1938584015). Inspired by and dedicated to Tyler Clementi, this poetry tells of LGBT bullying and suicide.

 

 

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2013 Over the Rainbow List: 84 LGBT Books for Adult Readers

The 2013 Over the Rainbow Project book list, sponsored by the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender Round Table (GLBTRT) of the American Library Association (ALA), has just been decided at ALA’s Midwinter Meeting in Seattle.

This year’s list includes 84 titles published between July 1, 2011 and Dec. 31, 2012.
The committee’s mission is to create a bibliography of books that exhibit commendable literary quality and significant authentic GLBT content and are recommended for adults over age 18. It is not meant to be all inclusive, but is intended as an annual core list for readers and librarians searching for recommendations of a cross-section of the year’s titles. Although the committee attempts to present titles for a variety of reading tastes and levels, no effort will be made to balance this bibliography according to subject, area of interest, age, or genre.

The 2013 Over the Rainbow committee includes Danielle Pollock, Chair, Albuquerque, N.M.; Bob Graziano, Chair-Elect, Chicago, IL; Andy Foskey, Cleveland, TN; Martin Garnar, Denver, CO; Paige Mano, Racine, WI; Kelly McElroy, Iowa City, IA; Caroline Nappo, Champaign, IL; Robert Ridinger, De Kalb, IL; and Nel Ward, Newport, OR.

Our Top Ten Favorites

Avery, Ellis. The Last Nude. Riverhead Books. 2012. 309p. $25.95. (9781594488139) Fiction
In 1927 Paris, a young American woman named Rafaela meets and agrees to pose nude for artist Tamara de Lempicka; this story of love, desire, and betrayal, is a novelization based on de Lempicka’s actual life and work.

Bechdel, Alison. Are You My Mother? A Comic Drama. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. 2012. 304p. $22.00. (9780618982509) Graphic narrative
In this graphic memoir, writer and cartoonist Alison Bechdel recounts her fraught relationship with her mother, as well as other significant female relationships, with musings on psychoanalytic theory, Virginia Woolf, and Donald Winnicott.

Brunt, Carol Rifka. Tell the Wolves I’m Home. Dial Press. 2012. 360p. $26.00. (9780679644194) Fiction
In 1987, June Elbus, 14, overcomes her misery at the loss of her beloved artist uncle, Finn Weiss, by making friends with the uncle’s lover, Toby, not knowing that her parents hated Toby because they believed he had killed Finn by giving him AIDS.

Cain, Shannon. The Necessity of Certain Behaviors. University of Pittsburgh Press. 2011. 160p. $24.95. (9780822944103) Short Stories
Discontent is the theme that ties together these nine short stories–sometimes funny and other times poignant–in which the protagonists explore the issues of sexuality, rituals, and fulfillment.

Jones, Saeed. When the Only Light Is Fire. Sibling Rivalry Press. 2011. 40p. $12.00. (9781937420031) Poetry
Powerful, lyric poetry paints wonderfully brutal, sexual (LGBT), racial, and steamy pictures, mostly set in rural areas and the South.

Love, Christopher Street: Reflections of New York. Ed. by Thomas Keith. Vantage Point. 2012. 406p. $18.95. (9781936467348) Memoirs/Biography
Essays and memoirs from a culturally and racially diverse group of LGBT writers document the role NYC has played in their lives–a true love letter to the city.

Marcus, Jana. Transfigurations. 7 Angels Press. 2011. 129p. $35.00. (9780983343400) Art
Marcus’ photographs depict transformations from one sex/gender to another and the effects of these transitions on the body.

No Straight Lines: Four Decades of Queer Comics. Ed. by Justin Hall. Fantagraphics Books. 2012. 308p. $35.00. (9781606995068) Graphic narrative
Hall brings together an overwhelming variety of queer-themed comics written and drawn by western artists over the past forty years.

Torregrosa, Luisita López. Before the Rain: A Memoir of Love and Revolution. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. 2012. 228p. $25.00. (9780547669205) Memoir/Biography
A memoir of love, passion, isolation, pain, and longing, largely set in the atmospheric backdrop of Manila during the People Power Revolution, examines the crossroads of Torregrosa’s relationship her lesbian partner and the trials of separation, work, self-fulfillment and career.

Winterson, Jeanette. Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal? Grove Press. 2011. 230p. $25.00. (9780802120106) Memoir/Biography
Winterson’s painful childhood presided over by her difficult adoptive mother is followed by her search for and eventual reunion with her birth mother.

ART

The Air We Breathe: Artists and Poets Reflect on Marriage Equality. Ed. by Apsara DiQuinzio. San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. 2011. 144p. $19.95. (9780918471864)
This companion to the exhibition of the same name at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art brings together work from 27 artists and poets on the topic of marriage equality for same-sex couples.

Brickell, Chris.  Manly Affections: The Photographs of Robert Gant, 1885-1915. Genre Books. 2012. 206p. $65.00. (9780473208783)
Brickell combined images of men taken by New Zealand photographer Robert Gant in nineteenth and early twentieth centuries with biographical information and historical commentary on intimacy and friendship between men and same-sex desire in the era.

Marcus, Jana. Transfigurations. 7 Angels Press. 2011. 129p. $35.00. (9780983343400)
Marcus’ photographs depict transformations from one sex/gender to another and the effects of these transitions on the body.

Regnault, Chantal. Voguing and the Ballroom Scene of New York 1989-92. Soul Jazz Records. 2011. 208p. $39.99. (9780955481765)
Following Tim Lawrence’s brief introduction to the culture of voguing, Regnault combines interviews of participants with evocative photos in a visual history of drag balls and houses.

FICTION

Arsand, Daniel. Lovers. Trans. by Howard Curtis. Europa Editions. 2012. 129p. $14.00. (9781609450717)
After teenage Sebastien Faure goes to live with a French aristocrat, despite the objections of his lover’s mother, things do not go well because of the negative attitude of King Louis XV toward homosexuality and the mother’s loss of her position in the court.

Avery, Ellis. The Last Nude. Riverhead Books. 2012. 309p. $25.95. (9781594488139)
In 1927 Paris, a young American woman named Rafaela meets and agrees to pose nude for artist Tamara de Lempicka; this story of love, desire, and betrayal, is a novelization based on de Lempicka’s actual life and work.

Boyne, John.  The Absolutist. Other Press. 2011. 309p. $16.95. (9781590515525)
After surviving in the trenches of France during World War I, Tristan, under the premise of returning letters to the sister of his dead friend, embarks on a journey showing a powerful look at war, commitment, jealousy, gay love, friendship, and the times.

Brunt, Carol Rifka. Tell the Wolves I’m Home. Dial Press. 2012. 360p. $26.00. (9780679644194)
In 1987, June Elbus, 14, overcomes her misery at the loss of her beloved artist uncle, Finn Weiss, by making friends with the uncle’s lover, Toby, not knowing that her parents hated Toby because they believed he had killed Finn by giving him AIDS.

Carey, Mike, Linda Carey, Louise Carey, & Nimit Malavia. The Steel Seraglio. Chizine. 2012. 424p. $15.95. (9781926851532)
Bessan concubines fight to regain their city and establish a democracy of women artists and craftswomen.

Dermont, Amber. The Starboard Sea. St. Martin’s Press. 2012. 308p. $24.99. (9780312642808)
During the 1987 economic recession, wealthy Jason Prosper changes private schools following the suicide of his friend and lover, but the new school brings more disaster as he tries to understand love.

Dhalla, Ghalib Shiraz. The Two Krishnas: a Novel. Magnus Books. 2011. $14.95. (978193683309)
A wife and mother in contemporary Los Angeles is forced to evaluate her beliefs when her Hindu husband falls in love with a single Muslim man.

Harbach, Chad. The Art of Fielding: A Novel. Little, Brown and Co. 2011. 512p.  $14.99. (9780316126670)
Henry is a very talented college baseball shortstop whose openly gay roommate and teammate is having a secret affair with the college president.

Healey, Trebor. A Horse Named Sorrow. Terrace Books. 2012. 275p. $26.95. (9780299289706)
Seamus transports his lover’s ashes across the United States on a road trip that will lead to many eye-opening encounters and may ultimately cost him everything.

Irving, John. In One Person. Simon & Schuster. 2012. 425p. $28.00. (9781451664126)
Bi-sexual William Dean Abbott narrates the stories of eccentric and lovable people covering a wide range of sexual identities who live in First Sister, Vermont.

Kenry, Chris. The Survival Methods and Mating Rituals of Men and Marine Mammals. Kensington Books. 2012. 450p. $15.00. (9780758204387)
Broke and newly diagnosed with HIV, children’s book author Davis Garner takes a job as a technical writer on a research mission to Antarctica, where he accidentally stumbles onto a conspiracy and the possibility of unlikely heroism.

Kohler, Sheila. Bay of Foxes. Penguin Books. 2012. 209p. $15.00. (9780143121015)
When Dawit, a poor but educated, gay, undocumented immigrant from Ethiopia after the fall of the Emperor, finds himself in Paris and befriended by M, a famous writer, he quickly becomes her in many ways and masters the art of deception.

Llosa, Mario Vargas. The Dream of the Celt. Trans. by Edith Grossman. Farrar, Straus and Giroux. 2012. 358p. $27.00. (9780374143466)
Before the Irish nationalist Roger Casement was hanged by the British government for treason, the gay man had a long history of trying to help the world’s oppressed people, especially in the Belgian Congo and the Amazon area; this novelization of his life shows both his activism and the attacks on him during his last days.

Miller, Madeline. The Song of Achilles. HarperCollins, 2012. 378 p. $25.99. (9780062060617)
This novel of the Trojan War relates the story of Patroclus’ love for the great warrior Achilles.

Russell, Paul Elliott. The Unreal Life of Sergey Nabokov. Cleis Press. 2011. 381p. $16.95. (978153447195)
This fictionalized autobiography of the gay brother of Vladimir Nabokov spans the early days in pre-revolutionary Russia through the middle of World War II.

Spoon, Rae. First Spring Grass Fire. Arsenal Pulp Press. 2012. 144p. $14.95. (9781551524801)
A non-linear narrative of transgendered memories about growing up queer in a Pentecostal family with a psychologically disturbed father attests to the strength of surviving a painful childhood.

Taïa, Abdellah. An Arab Melancholia.  Semiotext(e). 2012. 141p. $14.95. (9781584351115)
This fictionalized memoir about gay love lost and coming to terms with that loss within an Arab sensibility moves among settings in Morocco, Paris, and Cairo.

White, Edmund. Jack Holmes and his Friends: A Novel. Bloomsbury. 2012. 392p. $26.00. (9781608197033)
Jack’s love of his straight best friend is never consummated, but the sexual tension is always on the back burner.

FICTION/MYSTERY

Redmann, J.M.  Ill Will. Bold Strokes Books. 2012. 307p. $16.95. (9781602826571)
In post-Katrina New Orleans, private investigator Micky Knight investigates a company selling natural remedies to the desperately ill, with potentially fatal results, while Micky’s female partner copes with a devastating illness of her own.

FICTION/SHORT STORIES

Cain, Shannon. The Necessity of Certain Behaviors. University of Pittsburgh Press. 2011. 160p. $24.95.
(9780822944103)
Discontent is the theme that ties together these nine short stories–sometimes funny and other times poignant–in which the protagonists explore the issues of sexuality, rituals, and fulfillment.

The Collection: Short Fiction from the Transgender Vanguard. Ed. by Tom Léger and Riley Macleod. Topside Press. 2012. 333p. $19.95. (9780983242215)
Twenty-eight original stories provide differing transgender perspectives by U.S. and Canadian authors.

Dunnion, Kristyn. The Dirt Chronicles. Arsenal Pulp Press. 2011. 246p. $17.95. (9781551524269)
Interrelated short stories told in first person by different narrators create a loose plot and feature a number of LGBT characters.

FICTION/SPECULATIVE

Heiresses of Russ 2011: The Year’s Best Lesbian Speculative Fiction. Ed. by JoSelle Vanderhooft and Steve Berman. Lethe Press. 2011. 273p. $25.00 (9781590213957)
Meet the trapped spirit of a sorceress who loved a queen, an editor who discovers her former lover is now the guardian of an ancient Egyptian relic, a hotel maid who encounters a mysterious female spirit, and many other characters.

Jeffers, Alex. You Will Meet a Stranger Far from Home: Wonder Stories. Lethe Press. 2012.179p. $15.00.
(9781590211038)
This collection of ten short stories explores coming of age, sexuality, and encounters with the fantastic, in our world and time and others.

Monahan, Annemarie. Three. Flashpoint Press. 2012. 300p.  $16.95.  (9781604866315)
At seventeen, a girl’s answer to a single question–“Do I dare to eat a peach?”–sends her life down three very different paths as Kitty Trevelyan, Dr. Katherine North, and Antonia of Atlantis.

GRAPHIC NARRATIVE

Bechdel, Alison. Are You My Mother? A Comic Drama. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. 2012. 304p. $22.00.
(9780618982509)
In this graphic memoir, writer and cartoonist Alison Bechdel recounts her fraught relationship with her mother, as well as other significant female relationships, with musings on psychoanalytic theory, Virginia Woolf, and Donald Winnicott.

Eden, Martin.  Spandex: Fast and Hard. Titan Books. 2012. 96p. $19.95. (9780857689733) 
In this first volume of their adventures, all-gay superhero team Spandex faces super villains, pink ninjas, a fifty-foot lesbian, relationship issues, and secrets that may ultimately tear apart the team.

No Straight Lines: Four Decades of Queer Comics. Ed. by Justin Hall. Fantagraphics Books. 2012. 308p. $35.00. (9781606995068)
Hall brings together a comprehensive variety of queer-themed comics written and drawn by Western artists over the past forty years.

Williams, J.H. & Blackman, W. Haden. Batwoman: Hydrology. D.C. Comics. 2012. 160p. $22.99. (9781401234652)
Discharged from West Point under “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” Kate Kane fights crime in Gotham City as Batwoman, this time dealing with a new relationship, a new sidekick, and the interests of a shadowy secret agency.

MEMOIR/BIOGRAPHY

Aldrich, Robert. Gay Lives. Thames & Hudson. 2012. 304p. $29.95. (9780500251904)
International in scope, these biographies of over 70 gays and lesbians throughout history from ancient societies to the twenty-first century portray their lives and the times in which they lived.

Allison, Dorothy. Conversations with Dorothy Allison. Ed. by Mae M. Claxton. University Press of Mississippi. 2012. 179p. $40.00. (9781617032868)
Conversations with Allison regarding her writings, her process of writing, her heroes, and her life demonstrate her feminist beliefs and lesbian relationships.

Beye, Charles Rowan. My Husband and My Wives: A Gay Man’s Odyssey. Farrar, Straus, and Giroux. 2012. 256p. $26.00. (9780374298715)
Now 80, the author looks back on his life as “the biggest homosexual in Iowa” when he was sixteen, through two straight marriages, four children, and an untold number of gay sexual escapades to his gay marriage in 2008.

Bornstein, Kate. A Queer and Pleasant Danger: A Memoir. Beacon Press. 2012. 258p. $24.95. (9780807001653)
In a hilarious, heartbreaking memoir, transgender author Bornstein recounts growing up Jewish in New Jersey, joining and breaking with the Church of Scientology as adult, and her journey to become the artist she is today.

Bram, Christopher. Eminent Outlaws: the Gay Writers Who Changed America. Twelve. 2012. 372p. $27.99.
(9780446563130)
Bram links biographies of prominent gay writers–Gore Vidal, Truman Capote, James Baldwin, Christopher Isherwood, Tennessee Williams, and Edmund White–by their relationships, their writing, and their impact on other authors and each other.

Carr, Cynthia. Fire in the Belly: The Life and Times of David Wojnarowicz. Bloomsbury USA. 2012. 625p. $35.00. (9781596915331)
Carr follows the controversial artist’s life through the culture wars of the 1980s and early 1990s.

Córdova, Jeanne. When We Were Outlaws: A Memoir of Love & Revolution. Spinsters Ink. 2011. 436p. $14.95. (9781935226512)
Through her radical activism in gay rights and women’s liberation of the 1970s, Córdova’s personal life comes in conflict with her passion for changing the world through protests, strikes, and her newsmagazine The Lesbian Tide.

Coyote, Ivan E. One in Every Crowd. Arsenal Pulp Press. 2012. 238p. $15.95. (9781551524597)
Short, honest vignettes describe the author’s life growing up in rural Canada and finding a life in Vancouver (BC) beginning with “Kid I Was” and finishing with tales about her gender non-conforming godson.

For Colored Boys Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow Is Still Not Enough: Coming of Age, Coming Out, and Coming Home. Ed. by Keith Boykin. Magnus Books. 2012. 333p. $15.95. (9781936833153)
Stories and poems of coming out, enduring, and overcoming by gay Asian, Latino and African American men speak of racism, sexual abuse, religion, HIV, and homophobia in these communities, which, as one author mentions, do not, and can not, get better with time.

Jiménez, Karleen Pendleton. How to Get a Girl Pregnant. Zurita. 2011. 167p. $17.95. (9781926639406)
A butch lesbian recounts her trials in her effort to get pregnant.

Ladin, Joy. Through the Door of Life: A Jewish Journey between Genders. University of Wisconsin Press. 2012. 255p. $26.95. (9780299287307)
After fathering three children during her 25-year marriage, the author transitions and keeps teaching in an Orthodox Jewish school of higher learning.

Love, Christopher Street: Reflections of New York. Ed. by Thomas Keith. Vantage Point. 2012. 406p. $18.95. (9781936467341)
Memoirs and personal essays from a culturally and racially diverse group of LGBT writers document the role NYC has played in their lives–a true love letter to the city.

Lynch, Jane. Happy Accidents. Voice/Hyperion. 2011. 304p. $25.99. (9781401341763)
Lynch details her life as a lesbian and her experiences in her education, theater, and entertainment career.

Mason, Janet. Tea Leaves. Bella Books. 2012. 202p. $15.95. (9781594932786)
As Mason copes with her mother’s dying, she explores her relationship with her mother, the lives of the females in her family, and the toll her commitment to her mother’s care takes on her lesbian relationship.

Miller, Merle. On Being Different: What It Means to Be a Homosexual. Penguin.  2012. 96p. $13.00.
(9780143106968)
This new edition of the classic work contains Miller’s original New York Times Magazine essay and 1971 afterward, with a new forward, afterward, and appendices.

Mixner, David. At Home with Myself: Stories from the Hills of Turkey Hollow. Magnus Books. 2011. 175p. $18.00. (9781936833108)
In this collection of short essays, human rights activist Mixner writes about his brief retreat from the wider world, living in his country home in the small upstate New York town of Turkey Hollow.

Price, Reynolds.  Midstream: An Unfinished Memoir. Scribner. 2012. 107p. $25.00. (9781439183496)
Often humorous and anecdotal, the memoir, written from Price’s diaries, documents the time from 1961-1965 as the author publishes his first work, pursues gay affairs, and tries Hollywood screenwriting.

Schulman, Sarah. The Gentrification of the Mind: Witness to a Lost Imagination. University of California Press. 2012. 192p. $27.95. (9780520264779)
Schulman weaves together the history of the gentrification of New York City neighborhoods in the years following the AIDS crisis with the current ongoing gentrification of gay politics, art, and culture.

Seefried, Josh. Our Time: Breaking the Silence of ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’. Penguin 2011. 195p. $16.00.
(9781594203312)
Seefried, an Air Force officer and cofounder of OutServe, collects the diverse personal accounts of LGBT men and women who served in the United States military in the two decades prior to the repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.”

Streitmatter, Rodger. Outlaw Marriages: the Hidden Histories of Fifteen Extraordinary Same-Sex Couples. Beacon Press. 2012. 212p. $26.95. (9780807003343)
Concise and well-documented accounts of the committed unions of same-sex couples (seven lesbian and eight gay) show the impact that these unions had on each member’s quality of life.

Schwartz, John. Oddly Normal: One Family’s Struggle to Help their Teenage Son Come to Terms with his Sexuality. Gotham Books. 2012. 286p. $26.00. (9781592407286)
This account of supportive parents in coming to terms with their son’s gayness in elementary and middle school and his eventual coming out includes history of the struggle for gay equality in the United States and sources of support for children and parents.

Sykes, Christopher Simon. David Hockney: The Biography, 1937-1975, A Rake’s Progress. Nan A. Talese/Doubleday.  2012. 363p. $35.00. (9780385531443)
In this first volume of his biography, Sykes covers gay artist Hockney’s early life, years in art school, and his work, relationships, and life in London and California throughout the 1960s and early 1970s.

Torregrosa, Luisita López.  Before the Rain: A Memoir of Love and Revolution. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. 2012. 228p. $25.00. (9780547669205)
A memoir of love, passion, isolation, pain, and longing, largely set in the atmospheric backdrop of Manila during the People Power Revolution, examines the crossroads of Torregrosa’s relationship her lesbian partner and the trials of separation, work, self-fulfillment and career.

Transitions of the Heart: Stories of Love, Struggle and Acceptance by Mothers of Transgender and Gender Variant Children. Ed. by Rachel Pepper. Cleis Press. 2012. 203p. $16.95. (9781573447881)
Thirty-two mothers—diverse in age, ethnic background, class, sexual orientation, and national origin—describe their experiences and feelings when they discovered that their children, varying in age from six to sixty, are transgender.

Trans/Love: Radical Sex, Love and Relationships Beyond the Gender Binary. Ed. by Morty Diamond. Manic D Press. $14.95. 2011. (9781933149561)
These essays explore love, sex, and interpersonal relationships from the perspectives of transgender, genderqueer, and other gender-variant individuals.

Wachsberger, Clyde Phillip. Into the Garden with Charles. Farrar, Straus and Giroux. 2012. 209p. $28.00. (9780374175719)
The author tells in prose and art how his childhood dream of magic in a storybook garden comes true when he buys a home on Long Island, and, in his middle age, also finds his soul mate for the last 28 years of his life.

Wahls, Zach. My Two Moms: Lessons of Love, Strength, and What Makes a Family. Gotham Books. 2012. 233p. $26.00. (9781592407132)
Wahls’ memoir about growing up with his lesbian mothers explains how their value system helped him to mature into a superb pro-LGBT activist.

Wilson, Chana. Riding Fury Home. Seal Press. 2012. 377p. $17.00. (9781580054324)
Wilson’s memoir explores her complex relationship with her mother, first as a child growing up in the shadow of a parent’s mental illness and later coming out and finding common ground with her as an adult.

Windy City Queer: LGBTQ Dispatches from the Third Coast. Ed. by Kathie Bergquist. University of Wisconsin Press. 2012. 246p. $24.95. (978029984046)
A collection of works from thirty-six established and emerging writers in genres as varied as poetry, memoir, and fiction whose voices speak to the experience of living within Chicago’s varied same-sex, bisexual, and transgender communities.

Winterson, Jeanette. Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal? Grove Press. 2011. 230p. $25.00.
(9780802120106)
Winterson’s painful childhood presided over by her difficult adoptive mother is followed by her search for and eventual reunion with her birth mother.

NONFICTION

Atkins, Gary. Imagining Gay Paradise: Bali, Bangkok and Cyber-Singapore. Hong Kong University Press. 2012. 316p. $25.00. (9789888083237)
Biographies of diverse gay men (king, painter, bathhouse owner, and blogger) against the backdrop of the cultural history of Singapore, Bali and Bangkok show how the region tries to define itself by the absorption of Western ideals.

Ball, Carlos A. The Right to Be Parents: LGBT Families and the Transformation of Parenthood. New York University Press. 2012. 239p. $35.00. (9780814739303)
During the past four decades, court cases surrounding the attempts of LGBT parents in the United States to legally keep their children have shifted the country’s regulation of parenthood to a more tolerant level.

Beemyn, Genny and Rankin, Susan. The Lives of Transgender People. Columbia University Press. 2011. 230p. $27.50. (9780231143066)
One of the largest surveys in the U.S. on gender development and identity among transexuals, crossdressers, and genderqueer individuals demonstrates a movement to a more fluid gender identification through the last half century.

Boag, Peter. Re-Dressing America’s Frontier Past. University of California Press. 2011. 257p. $55.00. (9780520270626)
In this look at male-to-female and female-to-male cross-dressing and cross-dressers in the American frontier at the turn of the 20th century, Boag challenges the myths of the Old West and a heteronormative past.

Carpenter, Dale. Flagrant Conduct: The Story of Lawrence v. Texas: How a Bedroom Arrest Decriminalized Gay Americans. W.W. Norton & Company. 2012. 345p. $29.95. (9780393062083)
In highly accessible language, the author traces the events leading up to, throughout, and following the landmark Supreme Court case that struck down U.S. sodomy laws.

Cianciotto, Jason and Cahill, Sean. LGBT Youth in America’s Schools. The University of Michigan Press. 2012. 236p. $25.00. (9780472031405)
This comprehensive and authoritative look at LGBT youth in our schools evaluates the research and analyses laws designed to protect these students.

Currier, Ashley. Out in Africa: LGBT Organizing in Namibia and South Africa (Social Movements, Protests and Contention). The University of Minnesota Press. 2012. 272p. $25.00. (9780816678013)
Four distinct LGBT organizations in Namibia and South Africa develop strategies of visibility or invisibility on various issues due to differing support or opposition within the group to the goals of the organization, the government or leaders hostility to LGBT individuals, and the perception of LGBT individuals as un-African or neocolonial.

de la Croix, St. Sukie. Chicago Whispers: A History of LGBT Chicago Before Stonewall. The University of Wisconsin Press. 2012. 311p. $29.95. (9780299286941)
A highly readable and colorfully detailed account of the presence and visibility of LGBT people in Chicago from before its founding as a trading post (1837) through the 1960s.

DeWitt, Peter. Dignity for All: Safeguarding LGBT Students. Corwin Press. 2012. 117p. $25.95. (9781452205908)
The harassment and discrimination of LGBT students in schools and steps to implement positive change in the school’s culture toward LGBT students, including Gay/Straight Alliances, school board policies and codes of conduct, and bullying policies.

Greenberg, Julie A. Intersexuality and the Law: Why Sex Matters. New York University Press. 2012. 169p. $32.00 (9780814731895)
Issues regarding intersex individuals and transsexuals include medical treatment protocol for intersex infants, legal action in relationship to marriage, the ability to change one’s sex on birth certificates and other state or federal documents, segregated housing and bathroom facilities, and prisoners housing.

Here Come the Brides: Reflections on Lesbian Love and Marriage. Ed. by Audrey Bilger and Michele Kort. Seal Press. 2012. 447p. $17.00. (9781580053921)
An honest and moving anthology of lesbian memoirs, essays, drama, and poetry examines the many political, social, familial, and human aspects of gay marriage.

Loftin, Craig M. Masked Voices: Gay Men and Lesbians in Cold War America. SUNY Press. 2012. 310p. $29.95. (9781438440149)
Using letters from ONE magazine, the first openly gay publication in the United States, Lofton analyzes how gay men and lesbians coped with the discrimination and intolerance experienced in the United States during the 1950s and early 1960s.

Nicholson, Alexander. Fighting To Serve: Behind the Scenes in the War to Repeal ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’. Chicago Review Press. 2012. 280p. $26.95. (9781613743720)
The founder of Servicemember United, the largest organization of gay and lesbian service members, documents the battle to repeal the ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ legislation.

Pitman, Gayle E.  Backdrop: The Politics and Personalities Behind Sexual Orientation Research. Active Voice Press. 2011. 278p. $16.95. (9780615518121)
The stories behind sexual research studies relate its problems, politics, and personalities, the misuse of findings, the assumptions regarding bias of the researchers, and the questions of objectivity.

Robinson, V. Gene. God Believes in Love: Straight Talk about Gay Marriage. Knopf. 2012. 196p. $24.00.
(978307957887)
The first, openly gay Episcopal bishop makes a case for gay marriage as he addresses the arguments that are usually supplied by anti-gay marriage advocates and provides persuasive reasons why these arguments are not valid.

Tang, Denise Tse-Shange. Conditional Spaces: Hong Kong Lesbian Desires and Everyday Life. Hong Kong University Press. 2011. 194p. $25.00. (9789888083022).
Thirty interviews show how lesbian life is defined by the interrelationship of urban density, regulatory issues, political and cultural organizations, social justice issues, and the state’s emphasis on capitalism and prosperity.

Vaid, Urvashi. Irresistible Revolution: Confronting Race, Class and the Assumptions of LGBT Politics. Magnus Books. 2012. 238p. $21.95. (9781936833290)
A collection of the author’s speeches addresses a wide spectrum of issues including racism, women’s health, family issues, economic justice, youth, the prison system, and the peace movement.

Why Are Faggots So Afraid of Faggots?: Flaming Challenges to Masculinity, Objectification, and the Desire to Conform. Ed. by Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore. AK Press. 2012. 212p. $17.95. (9781849350884)
These essays challenge gay mainstream culture, traditional masculine ideals, classism, racism, consumerism, and the desire for assimilation.

POETRY

Divining Divas: 100 Gay Men on Their Muses. Ed. by Michael Montlack. Lethe Press. 2012. 200p. $25.00
(978150213834)
One hundred gay poets pay homage to the women that they admire.

Jones, Saeed. When the Only Light Is Fire. Sibling Rivalry Press. 2011. 40p. $12.00. (9781937420031)
Powerful, lyric poetry paints wonderfully brutal, sexual (LGBT), racial, and steamy pictures, mostly set in rural areas and the South.

Lady Business: A Celebration of Lesbian Poetry.  Ed. by Bryan Borland. Sibling Rivalry Press. 2012. $16.95. (9781937450185)
This collection features twelve poets who detail diverse aspects of lesbian life.

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2012 Over the Rainbow List–74 LGBT Books for Adult Readers!

This year’s jury  identified 263 titles to be considered for the  list.  Eligible, books were published between July 1, 2010 and December 31, 2011.  Jurors compiled a list of 140 books with at least one juror nomination.  Of those books, 103  were from small, independent publishers, self-published or from University Presses.  Seven of the nominated titles were published in Canada, and two were British publications.

 The committee’s mission is to create a bibliography of books that exhibit commendable literary quality and significant authentic lgbt content and are recommended for adults over age 18. It is not meant to be all inclusive,  but is intended as an annual core list for readers and librarians searching for recommendations of a cross-section of the year’s titles. Although the committee attempts to present titles for a variety of reading tastes and levels, no effort will be made to balance this bibliography according to subject, area of interest, age, or genre.

Our Top Ten Favorite  Titles

Alenyikow, Michael.   Ivan and Misha: Stories.  2010 (Oct).  212p. Triquarterly.  $18.96.  (978-0810127180).  Short Stories.
With each story told from a different character’s point of view, in this collection revolving around two brothers and their Russian father living in New York City, Alenyikow poignantly explores the brothers’ attitudes toward their father, each other, and being gay in America.

Bronski, Michael.  A Queer History of the United States.  Beacon. 2011.  312p.  $27.95. (978-0807044391).  Nonfiction.
To “[examine] history though the lens of those groups whose stories have been excluded from the canon” this first book in a series uses primary documents, literature, and culture histories to cover the dynamics of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender history from pre-1492 to the present.

Cruse, Howard.  The Complete Wendel.   Universe Publishing.  2011.  288p.  (978-0789322166 ).  $24.95.  Graphic Narrative.
Includes every episode of Cruse’s groundbreaking comic strip Wendel, which ran in the pages of The Advocate during the 1980s, together for the first time, along with introductions by Cruse and Alison Bechdel and a new “Where Are They Now?” section.

Festing, Issy.  The Bird Keeper. Book Guild Limited.  2010 (Sept).  264p. (978-1846244940). Fiction.
After Satchin Rai refuses to take over his father’s tea successful tea business and chooses instead to become an ornithologist at a bird sanctuary in northwest India, a mysterious British visitor to the sanctuary upsets Satchin’s world by being so free (and western) about his life responsibilities and sexuality. Satchin struggles to decide whether to meet his family’s expectations or enjoy a guilt-free life doing what he loves.

Hollinghurst, Alan.  The Stranger’s Child.  Knopf.  2011.  448p.  $27.95.  (978-0307272768).  Fiction.
In 1913, George Sawle brings his schoolmate and secret lover, the poet Cecil Valence, home to meet his family. The poem Cecil writes in George’s sister Daphne’s autograph book as a result of that visit will have an impact on the family that lasts several generations.

Mehta, Rahul.  Quarantine:  Stories.  Harper Perennial.  2011.  224p.  $14.99.  (978-0062020451).  Short Stories.
Nine stories told from the perspective of second- and third-generation South Asian-American gay men at odds with their families’ culture and expectations, describing their lives filled with humor, disappointment and frustration.

Merey, Ilike.  a + e 4ever. Lethe Press. 2011.  214p. $18.00.  (978-1590213902).  Graphic Narrative.
Asher is the beautifully androgynous new boy in school. Eu is the lonely dyke girl who befriends, and soon finds herself falling for, Ash, in this graphic novel that explores the complexities of love, friendship, sex, gender and sexual identity.

Persistence: All Ways Butch and Femme. Ed. by Ivan Coyote and Zena Sharman. Arsenal Pulp Press. 2011. 256p. $19.95. (978-1551523972). Essays.
Twenty years after the publication of Joan Nestle’s The Persistent Desire: A Femme-Butch Reader, Coyote and Sharman continue the conversation of lesbian butches and femmes through fiction, nonfiction, and poetry from their favorite lesbian/transwomen authors.

Puenzo, Lucia.  The Fish Child (The Americas).   Texas Tech Press.  2010 (Oct).  $26.95.  (978-0896727144).  Fiction.
Told from the point of view of the family dog, this novella about the romance between Argentinian Lala and her maid Guayi takes a strange turn when Guayi disappears without a trace. Lala tries to trace her to her native Paraguay, where she learns some shocking secrets about Guayi’s past and the legend of the fish child that lives in the lake.

Yeros, Dimitris.   Shades of Love: Photographs Inspired by the Poems of C.P. Cavafy.  Poetry by C.P. Cavafy; translated by David Conolly. Insight Editions. 2011. 168p. $75.00 (978-1608870134).   Poetry/Art
In 1999, Yeros began a collection of photographs inspired by the works of Greek poet C.P. Cavafy. This gorgeous coffee table book presents Yeros’ photographs together with the poems that inspired them.

The jurors for this list were:

Arla Jones (Chair), Lawrence, KS;  Danielle Pollock (Chair-Elect), Albuquerque, NM;   Martin Garnar, Denver, CO;  Robert Graziano, Chicago, IL;   Sarah Kanning, Lawrence, KS;   Paige Mano, Racine, WI;  Jesse Nachem, Oakland, CA;    Larry Romans, Nashville, TN;   Michael Santangelo, Brooklyn, NY;   Katy Vance, Greensboro, NC; and   Nel Ward, Newport, OR.

Downloadable 2012 Over the Rainbow Booklist

 

Art

Assume Nothing. Ed. by Rebecca Swan and Judith Halberstam. Soft Skull Press.  2010.  112p.  (978-1593762872).
Photographer Rebecca Swan presents intimate portraits of twenty-five individuals from a variety of cultures who exist outside of traditional gender identities. This collection features Swan’s photographs, as well as excerpts from personal interviews with her subjects.

Gupta, Sunil.  Queer.  Prestel USA.  2011.  140p.  $49.95.  (978-3791350998).
This comprehensive book about this important Indian photographer’s major works to date, including contemporary sexuality, gender, and gay life in India and other locales, documents the experiences of the artist and others living with HIV and homophobia.

Katz, Jonathan D. and Ward, David C.  Hide/Seek:  Difference and Desire in American Portraiture. Smithsonian Books.  2010.  296p. $45.00.  (978-1588342997).
This companion volume to an exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, follows the impact of gay and lesbian artists on American art from the late 19th century to the present through more than 140 full-color illustrations, drawings, and portraits.

Pasfield, Scott.  Gay in America:  Portraits by Scott Pasfield. Welcome Books.  2011.  224p.  $45.00. (978-1599621043).
Magnificent images and riveting narratives document the lives of 140 gay men from diverse environments across the United States in a celebration of men-loving-men lives.

Shiner, Eric C., Simone Fukayuki; photo. Tomoaki Hata.  The Night Is Still Young.   Power House Books.  2010.  104p.  $24.95 (978-1576875520).
Photographer Tomoaki Hata pulls the drag scene of 1990’s Osaka, Japan out of its secretive underground world for the world to see in all of its campy, glittered, seedy glory.  These color photos feature both the wild nature of the performances as well as intimate behind-the-scenes moments.

Yeros, Dimitris.  Shades of Love: Photographs Inspired by the Poems of C.P. Cavafy. Poetry by C.P. Cavafy; translated by David Conolly. Insight Editions.  2011.  168p.  $75.00 (978-1608870134).
In 1999, Yeros began a collection of photographs inspired by the works of Greek poet C.P. Cavafy. This gorgeous coffee table book presents Yeros’ photographs together with the poems that inspired them.

 

Essays

The Fire in Moonlight: Stories from the Radical Faeries 1975-2010.  Ed. by Mark Thomson and Richard Neely. The White Crane Books.  2011.  312p. $25.00 (978-1590213384).
Collecting over fifty first-person accounts, poems, and stories from members of the Radical Faeries, the spiritual movement founded by gay activist Harry Hay in the 1970s, this collection offers a unique view of the past thirty-five years of Faerie history and culture.

It Gets Better:  Coming Out, Overcoming Bullying, and Creating a Life Worth Living.  Ed. by Dan Savage and Terry Miller. Dutton Adult.  352p.  $21.95.  (978-0525952336).
A companion to the popular “It Gets Better” Internet campaign, and featuring a list of resources for teens and adults, this collection of essays and testimonials brings hope to LGBTQ youth facing prejudice, bullying, and other forms of harassment, and serves as a great reminder to all adults of the role we have to plays in creating a world where “It Gets Better” for our youth.

Persistence:  All Ways Butch and Femme.  Ed. by Ivan Coyote and Zena Sharman. Arsenal Pulp Press.  2011.  256p.  $19.95.  (978-1551523972).
Twenty years after the publication of Joan Nestle’s The Persistent Desire: A Femme-Butch Reader, Coyote and Sharman continue the conversation of lesbian butches and femmes through fiction, nonfiction, and poetry from their favorite lesbian/transwomen authors.

 

Fiction

Cox, Daniel Allen.  Krakow Melt. Arsenal Pulp.  2010.  176p.  $15.95.  (978-1551523729).
When Radek, a bisexual artist who creates miniature replicas of infamous urban fires, meets Dorota, a fellow pyromaniac, the two join together to protest homophobia in 2005 Krakow, Poland, with predictably explosive results.

Currier, Jameson.  The Third Buddha.  Chelsea Station.  2011.  288p.  $20.00.  (978-0984470723).
Lives diverge and intersect as the novel follows young Ted Bridges, a law school dropout struggling with his sexual identity and sense of self as he searches for his older brother in the aftermath of 9/11, and journalists Ari and Jim, discontented lovers traveling in Afghanistan to find the Third Buddha, who are violently separated when a roadside bomb erases Ari’s memory and Jim’s hearing.

Festing, Issy.  The Bird Keeper. Book Guild Limited.  2010 (Sept).  264p. (978-1846244940).
After Satchin Rai refuses to take over his father’s tea successful tea business and chooses instead to become an ornithologist at a bird sanctuary in northwest India, a mysterious British visitor to the sanctuary upsets Satchin’s world by being so free (and western) about his life responsibilities and sexuality. Satchin struggles to decide whether to meet his family’s expectations or enjoy a guilt-free life doing what he loves.

Gallaway, Matthew.  The Metropolis Case.  Crown.  2010 (Dec).  384p.  $25.00.  (978-0307463425).
Interwoven with the story of Richard Wagner’s opera, Tristan and Isolde, this sweeping novel connects four seemingly unrelated characters over centuries and continents through a shared desire for human connection in this magical twist on a tale of love, music, death, drama, destiny, loyalty and betrayal.

Hoffman, Wayne.  Sweet like Sugar.  Kensington. 2011.  352p. $15.00.  (978-0758265623).
When Benji Steiner, a twenty-seven-year-old Jewish gay man, forms an unlikely friendship with elderly Orthodox Rabbi Jacob Zuckerman, the connection results in surprising new revelations and explorations of faith for both.

Hollinghurst, Alan.  The Stranger’s Child.  Knopf.  2011.  448p.  $27.95.  (978-0307272768).
In 1913, George Sawle brings his schoolmate and secret lover, the poet Cecil Valence, home to meet his family. The poem Cecil writes in George’s sister Daphne’s autograph book as a result of that visit will have an impact on the family that lasts several generations.

Jansson, Tove. Fair Play (New York Review Books Classics).  Translated by Thomas Teal.  2011.  120p.  $14.00. (978-1590173787).
A series of vignettes featuring Mari, a writer, and Jonna, an artist, two women who live at opposite ends of a big apartment building, likely inspired by Jansson’s real-life relationship with the graphic artist Tuulikki Pietilä.

Maupin, Armistead.  Mary Ann in Autumn:  A Tale of the City  Novel.  Doubleday Books.  2010.  304p.  (978-0385619318).
Twenty years after Mary Ann Singleton left her husband and child in San Francisco to pursue her dream of a television career in New York, she is forced by a pair of personal calamities to return to the safety of her oldest friend, Michael “Mouse” Tolliver, a gardener happily ensconced with his much-younger husband.

Mournian, Tomas.  hidden.  Kensington.  2011.  304p.  $15.00.  (978-0758251312).
When Ahmed escapes his parents and an abusive anti-gay treatment center for teens, he finds temporary sanctuary in a so-called safe house in San Francisco, where, even if he and his new roommates can hide from the bounty hunters, fanatics, parents, and pimps looking for them, they cannot escape their pasts and each other.

Newton, Heather.   Under the Mercy Trees.  Harper. 2011.  352p.  $13.99.  (0062001345).
Leaving an unsuccessful writing career and his friends sickened by AIDS in New York, middle-aged Martin Owenby returns home to a small town in the mountains of North Carolina and back into the closet when his brother Leon mysteriously disappears.

O’Neill, Tony.  Sick City.  Harper Perennial.  2010 (July).  384p.  $13.99.  (978-0061789748).
Jeffrey is an aging rent boy with a serious drug habit; Randal is the meth-using son of the founder of a major movie studio. When the two meet in rehab, it starts a wild caper centering on an extremely valuable secret sex film starring the late actress Sharon Tate.

Packard, Georgeann.  Fall Asleep Forgetting.   Permanent Press.  2010 (July).  264p. $28.00. (978-1579622022).
An amazing myriad of characters trying to help each other are linked through proximity: Suffering from terminal pancreatic cancer, restaurant-owner Paul prepares for his suicide because of his terminal pancreatic cancer; his wife, Sloan, who starts an affair with a female park ranger; a transgender trailer-park owner, Cherry, whose partner starts an affair with another woman; and a nine-year-old girl who hates going to school.

Puenzo, Lucia.  The Fish Child (The Americas).  Translated by David William Foster. Texas Tech Press.  2010.  $26.95.  (978-0896727144).
Told from the point of view of the family dog, this novella about the romance between Argentinian Lala and her maid Guayi takes a strange turn when Guayi disappears without a trace. Lala tries to trace her to her native Paraguay, where she learns some shocking secrets about Guayi’s past and the legend of the fish child that lives in the lake.

Sassone, Ralph.  The Intimates.  Picador.  2011.  256p.   $15.00.  (978-0765324702).
In this debut novel, Maize and Robbie form a deep and powerful bond in high school and are inseparable friends as adults. Their complicated relationship must be examined if either of them are to move past the hurts of the past.

Smith, Bob.  Remembrance of Things I Forgot: A Novel.  University of Wisconsin. 2011.  272p.  $26.95. (978-0299283407).
Bob Smith’s comic imagination takes on the 1980s, in this clever science fiction novel that explores what happens when your physicist boyfriend invents a time machine that could stop Dick Cheney, prevent a suicide and deal with dysfunctional family issues before they become tragic.

Stoddard, Christopher.   White, Christian  Triton Books. 2010.  208p.  $18.00. (978-0982807415).
Twenty-year-old Christian White moves to San Francisco, then New York, where he indulges in drugs and sex to try to escape a dysfunctional family and tragic past. But his tragic past finally catches up with him in a stunning and brutal way.

Toibin, Colm.  The Empty Family.  Scribner. 2011.  288p.  $24.00.  (143913832X).
A woman confesses her darkest secret to novelist Henry James, a gay man attends to his dying aunt, two Pakistani workers find love and violence in Barcelona, and more in these stories of love, loss, and family.

Tremain, Rose.  Trespass:  A Novel.  W. W. Norton & Company. 2010.  253p.  $24.95.  (978-0393079562).
Two siblings trespass against each other emotionally and physically in a disagreement over their family’s property in the south of France.  Anthony Verey, an unsuspecting London art dealer, is caught in the middle when he approaches them about buying the Cévennes property to escape his disappointing life in London and to move closer to his sister Veronica and her lover Kitty.

Van der Merwe, Andre Carl.  Moffie.  Europa Books.  2011.  336p.  $15.00 (978-1609450502).
Growing up within a very conservative Dutch Reform Church family in South Africa, Nicholas learns to survive in a world where he faces scorn for being a moffie (sissy in Afrikaans), before he is conscripted into the South African Defense Force and deals with gay oppression within the force and the horrors of the South West African Bush War.

Weaver, Vicki.  Billie Girl.  Leapfrog.  2010.  240p.  $14.95.  (978-1935248125).
In this gender-blending Southern-gothic tale, an infant adopted by two “sisters” (actually brothers) grows up and leads a fascinating life, encountering such fascinating people as a lesbian preacher’s wife and a platonic second husband who loved her adoptive father.

Winter, Kathleen.  Annabel.  Grove Press, Black Cat.  2011.  480p.  $14.95. (978-0802170828).
In 1968, when a baby both male and female is born to a rural Canadian couple, the child’s father makes a decision to raise the baby as a boy named Wayne, and keep the child’s dual gender secret. Wayne enters adolescence to confront an identity known as Annabel, and a difficult decision.

 

Graphic Narrative

Cruse, Howard. The Complete Wendel. Universe Publishing. 2011. 288p. $24.95. (978-0789322166).
Includes every episode of Cruse’s groundbreaking comic strip Wendel, which ran in the pages of The Advocate during the 1980s, together for the first time, along with introductions by Cruse and Alison Bechdel and a new “Where Are They Now?” section.

Hernandez, Jaime. Esperanza: A Love and Rockets Book. Fantagraphics. 2011. 248p. $18.99. (978-1606994498).
This volume of the popular Love and Rockets series contains the continuing adventures of Maggie and Hopey as they revisit the past and explore the future together.

Merey, Ilike. a + e 4ever. Lethe Press. 2011. 214p. $18.00. (978-1590213902).
Asher is the beautifully androgynous new boy in school. Eu is the lonely dyke girl who befriends, and soon finds herself falling for, Ash, in this graphic novel that explores the complexities of love, friendship, sex, gender and sexual identity.

 

Memoir/Biography

Baim, Tracy and Owen Keehnen. Leatherman: The Legend of Chuck Renslow. Prairie Avenue Productions. 2011. 414 p. $24.95. (978-1461096023).
This biography of Chicago bar owner, leatherman, entrepreneur, and gay rights activist Renslow features over 300 full-color photographs and interviews with family, colleagues, and friends.

Bond, Justin. Tango: My Childhood, Backwards and in High Heels. Feminist Press. 2011. 144p. $16.95 (978-1558617476).
The celebrated cabaret artist and performer recounts a childhood filled with blurring gender boundaries, sexual exploration, and the harsh reality of bullying.

Bright, Susie. Big Sex Little Death. Seal Press. 2011. 328p. $24.95. (1580052649).
Sex-positive educator, activist, and icon Susie Bright takes the reader on a journey through her childhood, teen years shaped by a difficult early involvement with the socialist movement, and an adulthood that included the co-founding of On Our Backs, the first lesbian erotica magazine run by women.

Creech, Jimmy. Adam’s Gift: A Memoir of a Pastor’s Calling to Defy the Church’s Persecution of Lesbians and Gays. Duke University Press. 2011. 376p. $29.95. (978-0822348856).
A former United Methodist minister and human rights activist, Jimmy Creech’s memoir begins when a longtime and respected parishioner comes out to the pastor in 1984, and Creech is forced to re-evaluate his belief that homosexuality is a sin. This life-changing conversation was the catalyst for Creech’s tireless work to end religious bigotry and violence against lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people.

GLBT Oral History Project. Queer Twin Cities. University of Minnesota Press. 2010. 376p. $25.00. (978-0816653218).
This comprehensive collection of essays, drawn from oral histories dating back to the turn of the century, covers a wide variety of aspects of this large LGBT community.

Harvey, Ken. The Passionate Engagement. Aequitas Books. 2010. 208p. $18.00. (978-1929355686).
Harvey tells the story of the battle for same-sex marriage in Massachusetts through the lens of his own relationship, chronicling his transformation from quiet bystander to proud activist.

It Gets Better: Coming Out, Overcoming Bullying, and Creating a Life Worth Living. Ed. by Dan Savage and Terry Miller. Dutton Adult. 352p. $21.95. (978-0525952336).
A companion to the popular “It Gets Better” Internet campaign, and featuring a list of resources for teens and adults, this collection of essays and testimonials brings hope to LGBTQ youth facing prejudice, bullying, and other forms of harassment, and serves as a great reminder to all adults of the role we have to plays in creating a world where “It Gets Better” for our youth.

Jacobs, Fay. For Frying Out Loud – Rehoboth Beach Diaries. A and M Books. 2010. 248p. $17.00. (978-0615342917).
In her third Rehoboth Beach collection, humorist Fay Jacobs joins Twitter, survives the Snowpocalypse, and sort of witnesses the Obama inauguration, among other hilarious adventures.

McHugh, Erin and Jennifer May. The L Life: Extraordinary Lesbians Making a Difference. Stewart, Tabori, & Chang. 2011. 160p. $32.50. (978-1584798330).
This inspiring coffee-table-style collection of photos and essays covers both beloved lesbian icons and the not-so-famous.

Michaud, Michael Grett. Sal Mineo. Crown Archetype. 2010. 432p. $25.99. (978-0307718686).
Michaud combines extensive research, interviews, and rarely-seen photographs to provide a detailed account of Mineo’s life, from his rise to teen-idol stardom, through his tumultuous relationship with his family, his coming out and struggle to maintain his acting career as an adult, and the aftermath of his untimely death at age 37.

Myers, Andrea. The Choosing: A Rabbi’s Journey from Silent Nights to High Holy Days. Rutgers University Press. 2011. 208p. $19.95. (978-0813549576).
Now a lesbian rabbi, Myers, who grew up Lutheran on Long Island with a Sicilian grandmother, tells about her journey to Judaism and her definition of home, family, and religion.

Rouse, Wade. It’s All Relative Two Families, Three Dogs, 34 Holidays, and 50 Boxes of Wine (A Memoir). Random House. 2011. 304p. $23.99 (978-0307718716).
Whether it’s celebrating Easter with an engineer father with some very unconventional ideas about hiding eggs, or throwing a birthday party for Barbie, Rouse’s memoir takes us through a calendar year of holiday memories, both traditional and otherwise, celebrated with a wildly funny collection of friends and relatives.

Schiavi, Michael. Celluloid Activist: The Life and Times of Vito Russo. University of Wisconsin. 2011. 320p. $29.95 (978-0299282301).
This well-researched biography of Vito Russo solidly establishes him as a pioneering journalist and gay activist during the era of gay activism of the 60’s, 70’s and 80’s.

Van Meter, Ryan. If You Knew Then What I Know Now. Sarabande Books. 2011. 176p. $15.95 (978-1932511949).
In this bittersweet, often darkly humorous collection of essays, Van Meter recalls growing up gay in suburban Missouri, the formation and break-up of his first long-term relationship, and the life of the world’s longest-lived goldfish.

Mystery

Currimbhoy, Nayana. Miss Timmins’ School for Girls. Harper. 2011. 496p. $20.00. (9780061997747).
When twenty-year-old Charulata Apte accepts a teaching position at the British-run Miss Timmins’ School for Girls in Panchgani, she doesn’t anticipate falling in love with fellow teacher Moira Prince. Or that by the end of the term, she will find herself implicated in murder.

Hart, Ellen. Lost Women of Lost Lake. Minotaur Books. 2011. 336. $25.95. (978-0312614775 ).
Still undecided about going full-time as a private investigator, Jane Lawless takes some time off at her family’s lakeside lodge where she and her friend Cordelia get caught up in a mystery that reveals the truth about Cordelia’s activism during the 1960s.

Ryan, Garry. Malabarista (Detective Lane Mysteries). NeWest Press. 2011. 203p. $18.95. (978-1897126899).
In the fifth installment of this series, Detective Lane returns to solve the murder of an Eastern European war criminal while also fighting for his career. Piecing together the case becomes even tougher when he is faced with a persistent–and accurate–bomber, and is forced to confront his own personal demons, including the fear of losing his partner.

Sherman, Scott. Second You Sin (Kevin Connor Mysteries). Kensington. 2011. 288p. $15.00 (978-0758266514).
In this sequel to First You Fall, Kevin Connors turns his sleuthing skills to a string of murders among his fellow male prostitutes. The secrets uncovered involve a beloved TV talk show host, an evangelical presidential candidate, and Kevin’s own “semi-boyfriend” Tony.

Thomas, Lee. The German. Lethe Press. 2011. 290p. $18.00 (978-1590213094).
Three people—Sheriff Tom Rabbit, boy Tim Randall, and ex-Nazi Ernst Lang—tell about the events that took place in Barnard, Texas, during World War II when snuff boxes containing messages written in German were stuffed in the mouths of mysteriously murdered boys.

 

Nonfiction

Baim, Tracy. Obama and the Gays: A Political Marriage. 2010. CreateSpace. 576p. $24.99. (978-1453801710).
Following Barack Obama from his early career as a young Chicago politician through his first two years as President of the United States, this book provides a comprehensive look at Obama’s policies, opinions, and track record on issues of importance to the GLBT community.

Bronski, Michael. A Queer History of the United States. Beacon. 2011. 312p. $27.95. (978-0807044391).
To “[examine] history though the lens of those groups whose stories have been excluded from the canon” this first book in a series uses primary documents, literature, and culture histories to cover the dynamics of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender history from pre-1492 to the present.

Corber, Robert J. Cold War Femme: Lesbianism, National Identity, and Hollywood Cinema. Duke University Press. 2011. 240p. $23.95. (978-0822349471).
During the Cold War, Americans’ ideas about lesbianism changed, and rather than the masculine butch, the “invisible” femme, who could more easily pass as heterosexual, was seen as a greater threat to the nation and traditional family. Corber backs up this argument by analyzing images of lesbianism and butch and femme characters in the Cold War era films of Joan Crawford, Bette Davis, Doris Day, and others.

Ehrensaft, Diane. Gender Born, Gender Made: Raising Healthy Gender-Nonconforming Children. The Experiment. 2011. 304p. $16.95. (978-1615190607).
A developmental and clinical psychologist, Ehrensaft draws upon her years of working with gender-nonconforming children to offer an alternate approach to the current pathologicalization of gender identity dysphoria in this guide for parents and others interested in how to nurture and support children who don’t fit into “normal” categories of gender.

Krieger, Irwin. Helping Your Transgender Teen: A Guide for Parents. Genderwise Press. 2011. 86p. $12.95. (978-0692012291).
Written by a clinical social worker, this accessible and compassionate guide provides concrete and detailed information for parents on how they can understand and support their gender non-conforming children, paying special attention to the tensions that often arise between teens and parents. Includes a glossary of terms and an extensive resource list.

Mogul, Joey L., Andrea J. Ritchie and Kay Whitlock. Queer (In)justice: The Criminalization of LGBT People in the United States. Beacon Press. 2011. 216p. $27.95. (978-0807051160).
This historical overview makes the case that, despite some legal gains in recent years, LGBTQ people continue to face alarming discrimination and violence when interacting with the criminal justice system.

Queers in American Popular Culture [3 volumes] (Praeger Perspectives). Ed. by Jim Elledge. Praeger. 2010. 945p. $184.95. (978-0313354571).
This three-volume collection of essays analyzes the unique impact that LGBT people have had on popular culture, dating from 1800s up to the present day. Volumes include Film and TV; Literature, Pop Art and Performance; and Sports, Leisure and Lifestyle.

Poetry

Botto, António, Songs of António Botto. Ed. by Josiah Blackmore; translated by Fernando Pessoa. University of Minnesota Press. 2010. 168p. $17.95 (978-0816671014).
The Portuguese poet António Botto, one of that country’s first openly gay writers, first published his collection Canções in 1920. This edition features Botto’s poems as they appeared in the 1948 English edition, along with a never-before-published introduction by translator Fernando Pessoa, and new introductory material.

Simmonds, Kevin, ed. Collective Brightness: LGBTIQ Poets on Faith, Religion and Spirituality. Sibling Rivalry Press. 2011. 250p. $24.95 (978-0983293194).
A broad range of voices, experiences and spiritual paths and traditions are represented in this collection of poems from both established and new poets.

Vuong, Ocean. Burnings. Sibling Rivalry Press. 2010. 42p. $12.00. (978-0578070599).
In this slim but powerful volume of poetry, Ocean Vuong lays bare the wounds of the refugee experience and its effect on today’s generation alongside the modern experience of a gay man living and loving in a world which is not always accepting. Never shying away from the grim realities of both of these identities, Vuong extracts beauty and light from the most painful of moments.

Yeros, Dimitris. Shades of Love: Photographs Inspired by the Poems of C.P. Cavafy. Poetry by C.P. Cavafy; translated by David Conolly. Insight Editions. 2011. 168p. $75.00 (978-1608870134).
In 1999, Yeros began a collection of photographs inspired by the works of Greek poet C.P. Cavafy. This gorgeous coffee table book presents Yeros’ photographs together with the poems that inspired them.

Short Stories

Alenyikow, Michael. Ivan and Misha: Stories. 2010. 212p. Triquarterly. $18.96. (978-0810127180).
With each story told from a different character’s point of view, in this collection revolving around two brothers and their Russian father living in New York City, Alenyikow poignantly explores the brothers’ attitudes toward their father, each other, and being gay in America.

Ambientes: New Queer Latino Writing. Ed. by Lázaro Lima and Felice Picano. University of Wisconsin Press. 2011. 220p. $22.95. (978-0299282240).
Highlights both established and emerging Latino authors of short fiction with gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender characters from all parts of the United States.

Hellebore & Rue: Tales of Queer Women and Magic. Ed. by JoSelle Vanderhooft and Catherine Lundoff. Lethe Press. 2011. 238p. $15.00 (978-1590213773).
Meet a greenmage reuniting with her former partner for one last mission, a school nurse with a dark secret heritage, a witch with an unconventional familiar, and other intriguing women in this collection of fantasy short stories.

Jeffers, Alex. The Abode of Bliss: Ten Stories for Adam. Lethe Press. 2011. 282p. $18.00. (978-1590212462).
In these ten stories, Ziya, a Turkish gay man, explains his life history, including a childhood growing up in Istanbul and college years in America, to Adam, the man he now loves.

Mehta, Rahul. Quarantine: Stories. Harper Perennial. 2011. 224p. $14.99. (978-0062020451).
Nine stories told from the perspective of second- and third-generation South Asian-American gay men at odds with their families’ culture and expectations, describing their lives filled with humor, disappointment and frustration.

Ryman, Geoff. Paradise Tales. Small Beer Press. 2011. 320p. $16.00. (978-1931520645).
A gay man in the near future has a series of life-changing birthdays, a cell phone salesman meets Pol Pot’s daughter, a film writer discovers that the works of Edgar Rice Burroughs may not be entirely fiction, and more, in these sixteen stories that explore and blur the boundaries of sexuality and speculative fiction.

Steam-Powered: Lesbian Steampunk Stories. Ed. by JoSelle Vanderhooft. Torquere Press. 2011. 378p. $13.95. (978-1610401500).
Fifteen Victorian retro-science fiction featuring lesbian heroines as scientists, thieves, privateer airship captains, and more.

Wilde Stories 2011 – The Year’s Best Gay Speculative Fiction. Ed. by Steve Berman. 2011. Lethe Press. 300p. $18.00. (978-1590213032).
In this collection, Berman highlights the very best of the year in science fiction, fantasy, and horror stories focusing on gay men.

Speculative Fiction

Fletcher, Jane. Wolfsbane Winter. Bold Strokes Books. 2010. 164p. $16.95. (978-1602821583).
In a post-apocalyptic world ruled by demon magic, Deryn, a member of the Iron Wolf mercenary group, and Alana, a healer and empath forced into exile by the power of her gift, fall in love following their unlikely meeting in a small, rural town. But soon, powerful ancient magic from the Time of Chaos threatens not only their growing relationship, but everyone’s survival.

Frey, J.M. Triptych. Dragon Moon Press. 2011. 286p. $19.95. (978-1897492130).
In the near future, when the last of a dying alien race seeks refuge on Earth, Specialists Gwen Pierson and Basil Grey make Kalp, their alien partner, a member of their household. But in Kalp’s culture, romantic relationships take place in threes. What happens next is a story of love, culture shock, betrayal, loss, and time travel.

Hellebore & Rue: Tales of Queer Women and Magic. Ed. by JoSelle Vanderhooft and Catherine Lundoff. Lethe Press. 2011. 238p. $15.00 (978-1590213773).
Meet a greenmage reuniting with her former partner for one last mission, a school nurse with a dark secret heritage, a witch with an unconventional familiar, and other intriguing women in this collection of fantasy short stories.

Lee, Tanith. Disturbed by Her Song. Lethe Press. 2010. 204p. $18.00. (978-1590213117).
Writing with and as Esther Garber, a fictional French Jewish writer, and her brother Judas Garbah, a French-Egyptian writer, both siblings gay and born in the early 20th century, Lee creates a collection of short stories focusing on youth and age, mystery and obsession.

Monette, Sarah and Elizabeth Bear. The Tempering of Men. Tor Books. 2011. 304p. $25.99. (978-0765324702).
This high fantasy novel, sequel to Companion of Wolves, further explores an iron-age world in which northern warriors link minds with their companion wolves to battle trolls. In this follow-up, the northerners must forge alliances with neighbors who distrust their love of their wolves and one another, in order to fend off invaders from the south.

Pitts, J.A. Honeyed Words. Tor Books. 2011. 416p. $14.99. (978-0765329073).
In this sequel to contemporary fantasy novel Black Blade Blues, Sarah Beauxhall, blacksmith, wielder of the reforged magical sword Gram, and dragon-slayer returns with her girlfriend to discover fairies, demons, and other supernatural beings–some of whom mean them deadly harm.

Ryman, Geoff. Paradise Tales. Small Beer Press. 2011. 320p. $16.00. (978-1931520645).
A gay man in the near future has a series of life-changing birthdays, a cell phone salesman meets Pol Pot’s daughter, a film writer discovers that the works of Edgar Rice Burroughs may not be entirely fiction, and more, in these sixteen stories that explore and blur the boundaries of sexuality and speculative fiction.

Steam-Powered: Lesbian Steampunk Stories. Ed. by JoSelle Vanderhooft. Torquere Press. 2011. 378p. $13.95. (978-1610401500).
Fifteen Victorian retro-science fiction featuring lesbian heroines as scientists, thieves, privateer airship captains, and more.

Wilde Stories 2011 – The Year’s Best Gay Speculative Fiction. Ed. by Steve Berman. Lethe Press. 2011. 300p. $18.00. (978-1590213032).
In this collection, Berman highlights the very best of the year in science fiction, fantasy, and horror stories focusing on gay men.

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2011 Over the Rainbow Books

The Over the Rainbow readers  are VERY PROUD to announce their  inaugural list of 108  books.  We would also like to mention our top ten favorites, which turned into  eleven  titles because there were just  so many really excellent books published this year.

Download the 2011-Annotated-Bibliography here.

We hope you enjoy reading these books as much as we did–

2011’s Top Eleven:

Clark, Naomi. Silver Kiss: An Urban Wolf Novel. 2010. 218p. Queered Fiction, $14.99. (978-1-920441-12-8). Lesbian shapeshifter, Ayla Hammond, returns home to mend fences with her parents and solve a missing persons case while she debates whether she wants to rejoin the werewolf pack. [Speculative fiction]

Coyote, Ivan E. Missed Her: Stories. 2010. 142p. Arsenal Pulp Press, $16.95. (978-1-55152-371-2). From a master storyteller and performer come these funny, wistful tales about growing up in the Canadian north as a lesbian butch, examining others’ confusion in the face of her gender identity. [Essay]

Cunningham, Michael. By Nightfall: A Novel. 2010. 238p. FSG, $25.00. (978-0-374-29908-8). Peter’s “ideal” life with his wife, Rebecca, in Manhattan’s SoHo is turned upside down when Rebecca’s beautiful 23-year-old brother comes for a visit. [Fiction]

Donoghue, Emma. Inseparable: Desire between Women in Literature. 2010. 271p. Knopf, $27.95. (978-0-307-27094-8). Donoghue traces the history of lesbian literary passion from ancient times to the present, discussing “texts in which the attraction between women is undeniably there [and has] consequences for the story.” [Nonfiction]

Hodel, Page. Monday Hearts for Madalene. 2010. 112p. Stewart, Tabori & Chang, $16.95. (978-1-58479-778-4). In preparing this collection of 100 photographs, Page Hodel, a San Francisco DJ used a diversity of objects, organic and otherwise, to create one heart each week for her partner, Madalene Rodriguez, who died of ovarian cancer less than a year after they met.  [Art]

Kicked Out. Ed. by Sassafras Lowrey; foreword by Judy Shepard. 2010. 222p. Homofactus Press, $19.95. (978-0-97859736-8). Voices of current homeless lgbtq youth (currently 40% of the homeless youth in the U.S.) blend with older people who also share their stories of survival and abuse after disclosing their gender identity with parents. [Nonfiction]

Luczak, Raymond. Mute. 2010. 62p. Midsummer Night’s Press, $11.95. (978-0-9794208-6-3). A deaf man uses these poems to tell about the frustrations of his silent world when trying to communicate with other men. [Poetry]

Plante, David. The Pure Lover. 2009. 114p. Beacon Press, $23. (978-0-8070-729-1). After the death of Nikos Stangos from cancer in 2004, the author, his partner for almost 40 years, created an intimate, insightful memoir of Nikos’s life from his childhood in a war-torn Greece to his commitment to Plante in their quiet, cultivated life among the London literarti. Simple, yet passionate, the narrative flows throughout the 68 years of Stangos’ life and the closeness of his relationship with Plante. [Memoir/Biography]

Rucka, Greg. Batwoman: Elegy. Art by J.H. Williams III; color by Dave Stewart; letters by Todd Klein. 2010.192p. DC Comics, $24.99. (978-1-4012-2692-3). After the “don’t ask don’t tell” policy forces Kate Kane out of West Point, she joins Batman and battles a crazed cult called the Religion of Crime led by an Alice-in-Wonderland-like pale porcelain Goth who may be Kate’s twin, long thought dead. [Graphic novel]

Schulman, Sarah. Ties That Bind: Familial Homophobia and Its Consequences. 2009 (Oct.).  171p. New Press, $23.95. (978-1-59558-480-9). Instead of a personal problem, “familial homophobia,” whether lgtbq people are in a straight or gay family/community, is a cultural crisis; the solution is for everyone to take the responsibility to intervene in this abusive treatment of homosexuals. [Nonfiction]

Wunnicke, Christine. Missouri. Trans. by David Miller. 2010. 134p. Arsenal Pulp Press, $12.95.  (978-1-55152-344-6). By turns comic and tragic, this gay love story follows two men, one a successful English poet fleeing a scandal and the other a feral outlaw who kidnapped the poet, in the nineteenth century Midwest as the poet’s brother tries to rescue a man who doesn’t want to be rescued. [Western]

2011 Over the Rainbow Annotated List:

Art

Hodel, Page. Monday Hearts for Madalene. 2010. 112p. Stewart, Tabori & Chang, $16.95. (978-1-58479-778-4). San Francisco DJ Page Hodel used a diversity of objects, organic and otherwise, to create one heart each week for her partner, Madalene Rodriguez, who died of ovarian cancer less than a year after they met. This collection of 100 photographs of the hearts created both before and after Madalene’s death commemorates their relationship. [A]

Shraya, Vivek. God Loves Hair: Stories. Il. by Juliana Newfeld. 2010. unp. Vivek Shraya (godloveshair.com), $20.00. (978-0-9865512-0-8). In these short stories accompanied by poignant, sometimes abstract, illustrations, a young boy chronicles his confusion about sexuality, gender, race, religion, and belonging as he struggles with growing up brown, pretty, and soft. [A]

Memoir/Biography

Byrne, Paula. Mad World: Evelyn Waugh and the Secrets of Brideshead. 2010. 368p. Harper, $25.99. (978-0-06-088130-6). Rather than the snobbish misanthrope people believed Waugh to be, Byrne describes him as loving and complex, a nature that shaped his famous novel Brideshead Revisited. [MB]

Dobkin, Alix. My Red Blood: A Memoir of Growing up Communist, Coming onto the Greenwich Village Folk Scene, and Coming Out in the Feminist Movement. 2009 (Oct.). 300p. Alyson, $16.95. (978-1593501075). Singer-song writer and producer of the groundbreaking 1973 Lavender Jane Loves Women, Dobkin chronicles her life living as a child and an adult under FBI surveillance, hobnobbing with the folk music famous in Greenwich Village, and coming out as a lesbian in the second-wave feminist movement. [MB]

Evans, R. Tripp. Grant Wood: A Life. 2010. 402p. Knopf, $37.50. (978-0-307-26629-3). Known as a plain and simple Regionalist painter, most famously of the pitchfork-wielding farmer and his dour companion in American Gothic, Grant Wood is anything but, as shown by the secrets in his personal life, including the question of whether he was gay. [MB]

Griffin, Mark. A Hundred or More Hidden Things: The Life and Films of Vincente Minnelli. 2010.  346p. Da Capo Press, $15.95. (978-0-7867-2099-6). Was he gay or not?  No one told, not even his four wives, but he wore eye makeup, had “close” relationships with other men, and directed many films on alternative sexualities, including Tea and Sympathy. [MB]

Hastings, Selma. The Secret Lives of Somerset Maugham: A Biography. 2010. 626p. Random House, $35.00. (978-1-4000-6141-9). During Somerset Maugham’s life, a blend of public accomplishment and privately whispered secrets, he produced literary masterpieces and wealth but ended in tragedy. [MB]

Kilmer-Purcell, Josh. The Bucolic Plague: How Two Manhattanites Became Gentlemen Farmers. 2010. 304p. Harper, $24.99. (978-0-06-133698-0). After a stint as a nightclub drag queen, the author, with his successful advertising career, and his partner Brent Ridge, an ex-medical doctor turned Martha Stewart media vice-president, fell in love—with a 200-year-old mansion near Sharon Springs, NY. [MB]

Lord, James. My Queer War. 2010. 344p. FSG, $27.00. (978-0-374-21748-8). At the age of 20, Lord served in the U.S. Army during World War II, witnessing combat and atrocities in France and Germany and learning to accept his gender identity. [MB]

Meade, Marion. Lonelyhearts: The Screwball World of Nathanael West and Eileen McKenney. 2010. 392p. Houghton Mifflin, $28.00. (978-0151011490). The lives of author Nathanael West and Eileen McKenney, best known as  the subject of Ruth McKenney’s My Sister Eileen, were short, but separately and together they moved among the rich and famous until their deaths in a 1940 car crash. [MB]

Miller, Amie Klempnauer. She Looks Just Like You: A Memoir of (Nonbiological Lesbian) Motherhood. 2010. 236p. Beacon Press, $24.95. (978-0-8070-0469-2). This memoir of nontraditional parenting covers a lesbian’s  journey through artificial insemination, pregnancy, delivery, and the beginning of a new family, with all of its ups and downs. [MB]

Moffat, Wendy. A Great Unrecorded History: A New Life of E.M. Forster. 2010. 404p. Farrar, $32.50. (978-0-374-16678-6). Frustration and secrecy marked the life of famous author E.M. Forster whose gay sexual orientation was not widely known until the 1970 posthumous publication of Maurice, a novel about a gay relationship with a happy ending. [MB]

Plante, David. The Pure Lover. 2009. 114p. Beacon Press, $23. (978-0-8070-729-1). After the death of Nikos Stangos from cancer in 2004, his partner of almost 40 years wrote this intimate, insightful memoir of Nikos’s life from his childhood in a war-torn Greece to his commitment to Plante and their quiet, cultivated life among the London literarti. [MB]

Raymond, Dwayne. Mornings with Mailer: A Recollection of Friendship. 2010. 342p. Harper Perennial, $13.99. (978-0-06-173359-8). For the last four years of Norman Mailer’s life in Provincetown, Raymond, a gay man, was his personal assistant, a job that covered researching, cooking, organizing papers, and much more. [MB]

Reyes, Guillermo. Madre and I: A Memoir of Our Immigrant Lives. 2010. 278p. University of Wisconsin Press, $18.95. (978-0-29923-624-3). This award-winning playwright tells the moving and funny story of his life as the secretly illegitimate son of a Chilean immigrant and his struggles as a young man with sexual repression, body image, and gay identity. [MB]

Sarfaty, Eddie. Mental: Funny in the Head. 2009. 256p. Kensington, $15.00. (978-0-7582-2255-8). Career lows, an adopted cat from hell, drag queens, a mother with wiseacre chutzpah, and coming out to Grandma are only a few of the autobiographical essays from a stand-up performer who weaves the ups and downs of his love life throughout his comic memoir. [MB]

Schenkar, Joan. The Talented Miss Highsmith: The Secret Life and Serious Art of Patricia Highsmith. 2009. 684p. St. Martins, $40. (978-1-312-30375-4). Best known for her novel The Talented Mr. Ripley, Patricia Highsmith published 32 other books and wrote over 8000 pages of autobiography during her tormented life shared with a myriad of women lovers, much of it as an expatriate in Europe. [MB]

Shepard, Judy, with Jon Barrett. The Meaning of Matthew: My Son’s Murder in Laramie and a World Transformed. 2009 (Sept.). 273p. Hudson/Penguin, $25.95. (978-1-59463-057-6). The day that Matthew Shepard, a young student at the University of Wyoming, was violently attacked and left for dead was a turning point for LGBT rights. Matthew’s mother provides a context for her son’s life and a compassionate account of the events surrounding Matthew’s murder. [MB]

Spring, Justin. Secret Historian: The Life and Times of Samuel Steward, Professor, Tattoo Artist, and Sexual Renegade. 2010. 478p. FSG, $32.50. (978-0-374-28134-2). Steward—author of both literature and gay erotic books, confidante of Gertrude Stein and Thornton Wilder, gay witness for Alfred Kinsey, shy sadomasochist and adventurer, tattooist, and much more—kept extensive diaries and sexual records of his experiences until his death in 1993 at the age of 84. [MB]

White, Edmund. City Boy: My Life in New York during the 1960s and ‘70s  2009. 296p.  Bloomsbury, $26.00. (978-1-5991-402-5). The center of queer life over two tumultuous decades, White gossips about the rich and famous, artists, writers, and poets. [MB]

Essays

Bram, Christopher. Mapping the Territory: Selected Nonfiction. 2009. 258p. Alyson, $23.95.  (9781593501433). The author of nine novels, including Gods and Monsters, has selected 17 essays written over the past 30 years that he says “form an accidental autobiography.”  [E]

Breedlove, Lynnee. Lynnee Breedlove’s One Freak Show. 2009 (Sept.). 126p. Manic D, $14.95.  (978-1-933149-32-5). Gender-bending comedy pieces debate who owns a body—self, family, or community—and struggle with the age-old issue of gender categorization. [E]

Burroughs, Augusten. You Better Not Cry: Stories for Christmas. 2009. 206p. St. Martins, $21.99. (978-0-312-34191-6). From the author’s self-involved childhood ruled by wealthy self-centered parents through his relationship with an atheist dying of AIDS, Burroughs uses his wry wit to describe his attempts to make sense of the world around him, beginning with the relationship of Jesus and Santa Claus. [E]

Castle, Terry. The Professor and Other Writings. 2010. 340p. Harper, $25.99. (978-0061670909). Seven essays written between 2002 and 2009 move from a search for the grave of Castle’s great-uncle, who died in World War I, to a lengthy autobiographical account of her early female lovers. [E]

Coyote, Ivan E. Missed Her: Stories. 2010. 142p. Arsenal Pulp Press, $16.95. (978-1-55152-371-2). From a master storyteller and performer come these funny, wistful tales about growing up in the Canadian north as a butch, examining others’ confusion in the face of gender identity. [E]

Damski, Jon-Henri. Nothing Personal: Chronicles of Chicago’s LGBTQ Community 1977-1979. 2009 (Aug). 476p. Firetrap Press, $22.95. (978-1-891343-03-2). The lives of Chicago gays from street kids to the high-powered movers and shakers form the background to this collection of writings that addresses the place of Chicago’s LGBTQ community in American culture during two momentous decades in the movement from rejection to partial acceptance. [E]

Gender Outlaws: The Next Generation. Ed. by Kate Bornstein and S. Bear Bergman. 2010. 302p. Seal Press, $16.95. (978-0-1-58005-308-2). A mélange of essays, commentary, comic art, and conversation reflects the diverse group of trans-spectrum transpeople, genderqueers, and other sex/gender radicals who follow barrier-breaking lives. [E]

Grahn, Judy and Lisa Maria Hogeland. The Judy Grahn Reader. 2009 (July). 317p. Aunt Lute Books, $19.95. (978-1-879960-80-0). Complexities of lesbian love, sex, and spirituality are highlighted in Grahn’s fiction, drama, poetry, and nonfiction in this assemblage that spans the past 45 years. [E]

Out Loud: The Best of Rainbow Radio. Ed. by Ed Madden and Candace Hodge. 2010. 159p. Hub City Press, $14.95. (978-189188576-1). A radio program that began as a six-week experiment in Columbia (SC) is now a weekly half hour that has run continuously since October 9, 2005. Organized into three sections—listening, learning, and resisting—these broadcasts about being gay in the South make the reader laugh, cry, and want to fight back against the bigotry. [E]

Something to Declare: Good Lesbian Travel Writing. Ed. by Gillian Kendall. 2009 (Sept.). 230p.  Terrace/University of Wisconsin Press, $15.00. (978-0299233549). Twenty journeys, both fictional and actual, span the globe of the heart as often as through geography. [E]

Waters, John. Role Models. 2010. 304p. Farrar, $25.00. (978-0-374-25147-5). A gay icon best known for his cult films such as Pink Flamingos, Waters delivers a series of portraits of the people who are role models in his life, from Johnny Mathis to a lesbian stripper called Lady Zorro. [E]

Fiction

Argo, Rhiannon. The Creamsickle. 2009 (August). 260p. Spinsters Ink, $14.95. (978-1-935226-07-9). Three skater bois live in The Creamsickle, a notorious run-down Victorian in the San Francisco’s Mission District, hopping from bed to bed in pursuit of love and thrills, family and identity. [F]

Barron, Stephanie. The White Garden: A Novel of Virginia Woolf. 2009. 326p. Bantam Books/Random House, $15. (9780553385779). In England on business, master gardener Jo Bellamy investigates her beloved grandfather’s recent suicide, discovering links to the Bloomsbury group, a World War II spy ring, and a new perspective on Virginia Woolf’s death. [F]

Beale, Elaine. Another Life Altogether. 402p. 2010. Spiegal & Grau, $26.00. (978-0-385-53004-0). After her mentally unstable mother attempts suicide, 13-year-old Jesse’s ineffectual father moves the family to a rural village in the North of England where she hides her love for a friend’s older sister. [F]

Bellatin, Mario. Beauty Salon. Trans. by Kurt Hollander. 2009 (August). 63p. City Lights Publisher, $10.95. (978-0-87286-473-3). Shunned by family and friends after succumbing to a mysterious plague, the afflicted spend their last days in a former beauty salon, tended by an aging transvestite, where exotic fish die in the aquariums lining the walls, providing an allegory of the events of the world at large. [F]

Bergman, S. Bear. The Nearest Exit May Be Behind You: Essays. 2009. 205p. Arsenal Pulp Press, $18.95. (978-1-55152-264-7). Gender identity and Jewish identity intersect in these poignant, humorous essays reflecting the transmutations of the author from butch and husband of a woman to a transmasculine person (Bergman’s word) and husband of a transman. [E]

Brite, Poppy Z. Second Line: Two Short Novels of Love & Cooking in New Orleans. 2009 (Oct.).  259p. Small Beer Press, $16.00. (978-193152060-7). In New Orleans, lovers Ricky and G-man overcome their families’ attempts to separate them, learn to cook, and find that the problems of running a restaurant together threaten to destroy their relationship. [F]

Conroy, Pat. South of Broad. 2009. 514p. Nan A. Talese, $29.95. (978-0-385-41305-3). Gossip columnist Leo Bloom, named by his mother after the character in Ulysses, straddles the divide in his friendships between aristocratic Charleston and the “other side” with its Appalachian orphans and African-Americans as he alternates his story between the high school years of 1969 and the 1989 disasters of AIDS and Hurricane Hugo, when all their lives disintegrate in personal storms. [F]

Cunningham, Michael. By Nightfall: A Novel. 2010. 238p. FSG, $25.00. (978-0-374-29908-8). Peter’s seemingly ideal life with his wife, Rebecca, in Manhattan’s SoHo is turned upside down when Rebecca’s beautiful 23-year-old brother comes for a visit. [F]

Dawson, Jill. The Great Lover: A Novel. 2009. 310p. Harper Perennial, $13.99. (978-0-06-192436-1). Before World War I, poet Rupert Brooke woos a variety of women, including housemaid Nell Golightly, and loses his virginity to a male friend. Distressed by his many affairs, reeling from the death of his brother, and insecure about his poetry, Brooke sets off for Tahiti, where he becomes increasingly mentally unstable. [F]

Ford, Michael Thomas. The Road Home. 2010. 248p. Kensington, $24.00. (978-0-758-1853-7). Recuperating at his father’s small-town Vermont home after a car accident, photographer Burke Crenshaw finds himself drawn into a mystery of a Civil War infantryman and his fiancé as well as his attraction to the 20-year-old son of his old high school crush. [F]

Gadol, Peter. Silver Lake. 2009. 290p. Tyrus Books, $24.95. (978-0-9825209-1-8). The 20-year relationship between Robbie and Carlo falls apart when a strange young man mysteriously comes into their lives and then dies. [F]

Hall, Catherine. Days of Grace. 2010. 294p. Viking, $25.95. (978-0-670-02176-5). At the end of her life, Nora Lynch has decided that she will die alone until she takes a young woman and her just-born daughter into her home, an act that causes her to relive her adolescent days as an World War II evacuee outside London when she suffered from a passion for another girl. [F]

Haslett, Adam. Union Atlantic: A Novel. 2010. 304p. Nan A. Talese/Doubleday, $26.00. (978-0-385-52447-6). Ambitious young banker Doug Fanning fights Charlotte Graves, a retired history teacher, for the right to build an ostentatious mansion on land that Graves’ grandfather had donated to the town. Nate Fuller, a troubled high-school senior, is drawn into the legal conflict.  [F]

Houck, Lee. Yield: A Novel. 2010. 278p. Kensington, $15.00. (978-0-7582-4265-5). Twenty-something part-time hustler, Simon, tells about his friends in contemporary Manhattan: boyfriend model Louis who becomes agoraphobic after a gay bashing, gorgeous Aiden who begins an affair with Simon, self-mutilating Jaron who finds his cutting becoming more frequent and severe, and level-headed Farmer who tries to keep the rest of them from their unhealthy impulses. [F]

Johnson, Barb. More of This World or Maybe Another. 2009 (Oct.). 185p. Harper Perennial, $13.99. (978-0-06-173227-0). Characters in these jewel-like short stories set in an impoverished section of New Orleans come together over a 20-year period as a teenager gives up her fiance after falling in love with a woman, a misguided young man’s actions to keep his wife turn into disaster, and a lesbian couple fighting to maintain their relationship provide the center of their community. [F]

Magruder, James. Sugarless. 2009 (Oct.). 274p. University of Wisconsin Press, $24.95. (978-0299233808). Shy Rick Lahrem, a high school sophomore just coming out, develops a sexual relationship with a speech coach from a rival high school, only to have his secret discovered. [F]

Malone, Jill. A Field Guide to Deception: A Novel. 2009. 266p. Bywater Books, $14.95. (978-1-932859-70-6). After Liv saves Claire’s son from drowning, the two women fall in love, but their relationship turns tumultuous as Claire grieves the death of her aunt and Liv struggles with commitment. [F]

Masson, Cynthea. The Elijah Tree. 2009 (July). 203p. Queer Mojo/Rebel Satori, $16.95. (978-1-60864-001-0). The child Elijah brings together his family who have been estranged by a series of disasters. [F]

McCauley, Stephen. Insignificant Others: A Novel. 2010. 243p. Simon & Schuster, $25.00. (978-0-7432-2475-8). Richard Rossi’s discovery of a text message revealing his partner Conrad’s affair leads Rossi into a world of confusion and pain despite his own affair with a closeted bisexual married father. [F]

Mendicino, Tom. Probation. 2010. 340p. Kensington, $15.00. (978-0-7582-3878-8). Middle-aged Andy Nocera didn’t expect to come out as a gay man during an anonymous tryst at an Interstate rest area, but his arrest led to divorce, a new job as a traveling salesman, and a home at his mother’s house. Court-ordered therapy with a Jesuit priest lets Andy track his life, both before his “indiscretion” and during the process of becoming openly gay and coping with his mother’s dying. [F]

Mochizuki, Aska. Spinning Tropics. Trans. by Wayne P. Lammers. 2009. 231p. Vintage/Random House, $15. (9780307473881). In Vietnam,  a twenty-something Japanese woman and teacher named Hiro falls in love with her student, Yun, in their first woman-to-woman love affair, but Yun becomes jealous when Hiro begins an affair with a Japanese man. [F]

Neofotis, Peter. Concord, Virginia: A Southern Town in Eleven Stories. 2009. 178p. St. Martins, $19.99. (978-0-312-53737-1). The Southern Gothic—and sometimes violent—plots of these gems trace the people of a fictional Shenandoah Valley town for 30 years beginning in the mid-twentieth century as they experience love, bigotry, and mental instability in tales that include Native American folklore, gay history, Thomas Jefferson, tragedy, and black humor. [F]

Nolan, Monica. Bobby Blanchard, Lesbian Gym Teacher. 2010. 290p. Kensington, $15.00. (978-0-7582-3206-9). In this tongue-in-cheek novel of the 1950s, Roberta Blanchard, forced to leave the glamorous field of professional hockey, finds a job at a private high school where she struggles with her ignorance about literature and art and with her sexual desire for many of the women, including one of the students. [F]

Ostlund, Lori. The Bigness of the World: Stories. 2009. 214p. University of Georgia Press, $24.95. (978-0820334097). The author weaves her experiences of teaching English and living overseas into these eleven short stories, which subtly explore the complexity of romantic and familial relationships. [F]

Ruff, Shawn Stewart. Toss and Whirl and Pass. 2010. 194p. Quote Editions, $19.90. (978-0981942001). Ivy-educated, HIV-positive African-American poet Yale Battle tells about his New York life from the innocent 80s through the World Trade Center’s destruction as he is faced with AIDS killing his partner, a famed dancer and choreographer. [F]

Sims, Ruth. Counterpoint:  Dylan’s Story. 2010. 314p. Dreamspinner Press, $17.99. (978-1-161581533-3). Dylan Rutledge, 18, believes that he will be the greatest composer in the rapidly approaching twentieth century, but his love “that dare not speak its name” for Laurence Northcliff, a young history master, alienates him from his family as he looks for his future in England and Paris. [F]

Sledge, Michael. The More I Owe You. 2010. 328p. Counterpoint, $15.95. (978-1-58243-576-3). In this fictional account, American poet Elizabeth Bishop and her Brazilian lover, architect Lota de Macedo Soares, lead a tumultuous life against the uncertain political background of the 1950s and 1960s in Brazil, New York City, and Seattle. [F]

Smith, Kyle Thomas. 85A. 2010. 234p. Bascom Hill Publishing, $14.95. (978-1935098263). For Seamus O’Grady, only his friendship with Tressa and his dream of escaping to London to live like punk-rocker Johnny Rotten, keep his life from spiraling out of control in the face of his Irish Catholic parents’ abuse, his brother’s violence, and the daily bullying at his hated South Side Chicago Jesuit high school. [F]

Stuart, Sebastian. The Hour Between. 2009 (Sept.). 248p. Alyson, $14.95. (978-0-598350-126-6). After being expelled from a pretentious prep school, wealthy New York teen Arthur MacDougal finds himself attending a down-at-heels private school in the wilds of Connecticut. In his first day, Arthur is informed by quirky Katrina Felt that he is gay. During the following school year Arthur deals with the drugs, the war, sexual freedom, and the anti-establishment rebellion of the late 1960s as well as his attraction to the muscular townie, Lennie. [F]

Townsend, Johnny. Mormon Underwear. 2009. 278p. BookLocker, $15.95. (978-1-60910-044-5). Thirteen tales of Mormon men struggling with their gay desires range from a young LDS man stripping to his Mormon underwear in public to a virginal 70-year-old rationalizing giving in to temptation. [F]

Truong, Monique.  Bitter in the Mouth:  A Novel.  2010.  282p.  Random House, $25.00.  (978-1-4000-6908-8). Linda’s life in Boiling Springs (NC) and her relationship with her family and friends is affected by her synesthesia, a condition in which she experiences words as tastes. [F]

Graphic Narrative

Hernandez, Jaimie. Locas II: Maggie, Hopey and Ray (Love and Rocket). 2009 (Sept). 418p.  Fantagraphics, $39.99. (978-1-60699-156-5). Divorced Maggie pursues Vivian while both Hopey and Ray pursue Maggie. The focus of these graphic vignettes is a variety of colorful characters including Maggie’s Latino family and Vivian’s thug friends. [GN]

Rucka, Greg. Batwoman: Elegy. Art by J.H. Williams III; color by Dave Stewart; letters by Todd Klein. 2010.192p. DC Comics, $24.99. (978-1-4012-2692-3). After the “don’t ask don’t tell” policy forces Kate Kane out of West Point, she joins Batman and battles a crazed cult called the Religion of Crime led by an Alice-in-Wonderland look-alike porcelain-pale Goth who may be Kate’s twin, long thought dead. [GN]

Horror

Brownworth, Victoria A. Day of the Dead. 2009 (Sept.). 170p. Spinsters Ink, $14.95. (978-1-935226-05-5). Hot, steamy New Orleans nights bring out vampires, succubi, and other netherworld predators who connect with the–temporarily–living, in stories of love, death, and the ‘living dead.’  [H]

Cardamone, Tom. Pumpkin Teeth. 2009 (Oct.). 184p. Lethe Press, $15.00. (978-1590211328). In this wicked universe, a boy transforms into lightning and illuminates his emerging sexuality, a nurse finds herself working in a retirement home for vampires, a man questions his decision to live life as a manatee, and more. [H]

Files, Gemma. A Book of Tongues: Volume One of the Hexslinger Series. 2010. 274p. Chizine Publications, $16.95. (978-0-9812978-6-6). Following the Civil War, Pinkerton detective Ed Murrow infiltrates a renegade Confederate gang to investigate the hexslinging abilities of Rev. Asher Rook and his psychopathic lover Chess Pargeter, as the goddess Ixchel attempts to reinstate the Aztec gods by seducing Rook into a ritual marriage, forcing his Wild West gang into a journey through Hell. [H, W]

Mystery

Bidulka, Anthony. Aloha, Candy Hearts: A Russell Quant Mystery. 2009 (Oct.). 244p. Insomniac Press, $15.95. (978-1-897178-76-8). Returning to Saskatoon from a vacation in Hawaii after becoming engaged to Alex, private investigator Russell Quant finds himself hunted while investigating a mysterious treasure map and the dark past of a famous author. [M]

Bidulka, Anthony. Date with a Sheesha. 2010. 262p. Insomniac Press, $16.95. (978-1-897178-90-4). Canadian PI Russell Quant goes undercover and explores the Middle East from Dubai glitz to the sand dunes of Saudi Arabia as he tries to rescue a gay man facing murder. [M]

Hart, Ellen. The Cruel Ever After. 2010. 320p. Minotaur, $25.99. (978-0-312-61476-8). The lives of lesbian restaurateur Jane Lawless and her niece are endangered by the return of Hart’s ex-husband—who turns out not to be an ex—and his involvement in smuggling ancient Iraqi artifacts. [M]

Lanyon, Josh. The Dark Tide: An Adrien English Mystery 2010. 294p. MLR, $14.99. (978-1-60820-123-5). A few weeks after open-heart surgery, Adrien English, who lives above his Cloak and Dagger Bookstore, hears someone trying to break into his apartment.  Then, the discovery of a 50-year-old skeleton in the floor of his renovation and the re-appearance of three ex-lovers leads Adrien to hire one ex–the handsome ex-cop and ex-straight–Jake Riordan as a private detective. [M]

Redmann, J.M. Water Mark. 2010. 281p. Bold Strokes Books, $16.95. (978-1-602821-79-8). Following Hurricane Katrina’s destruction of her beloved New Orleans, private investigator Micky Knight tries to put her life back in order, but at loose ends, with her lover missing and her friends focused on their own losses, Micky decides to investigate one of the many dead bodies in the city, a quixotic quest that leads her to a naive Midwestern teenager in danger of becoming the next unidentified dead body. [M]

Reynolds, Sean. Dying for a Change. 2009 (Sept.). 256p. Suspect Thoughts Press, $16.95.  (978-0-9789023-15). In the sweltering Chicago summer of 1965, lesbian Chan Parker–tall, handsome, and Black–decides to leave the mob and go legit as a private detective. With the help of best friend Henrietta Wild Cherry, Parker investigates the murder of famous drag queen Miss Dove, but finds that her former career isn’t so easy to shake off. [M]

Ryan, Garry. Smoked: A Detective Lane Mystery. 2010. 228p. NeWest, $18.95. (978-1-897126-62-2). When Jennifer Towers is found dead in a graffiti-tagged dumpster, Detectives Lane and Harper must decode the artwork and infiltrate the underground graffiti culture to solve the case. [M]

Nonfiction

Badgett, M.V. Lee. When Gay People Get Married: What Happens When Societies Legalize Same-Sex Marriage. 2009 (Aug.). 285p. NYU Press, $35.00. (978-0-8147-9114-1). Explore the issues surrounding gender-neutral marriage, backed by analysis of data from several countries and the personal stories of couples from the Netherlands. [N]

Ball, Carlos A. From the Closet to the Courtroom: Five LGBT Rights Lawsuits that Have Changed Our Nation. 2010. 286p. Beacon Press, $27.95. (978-0-8070-0078-6). Among the many legal battles surrounding LGBT rights, five U.S. cases have changed history. [N]

Biegel, Stuart. The Right to Be Out: Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity in America’s Public Schools. 2010. 300p. University of Minnesota Press, $19.95. (978-0-8166-7458-9). A safe and supportive educational environment for all students is possible when people recognize the First Amendment right to express an identity and the Fourteenth Amendment right to be treated equally. [N]

Chapman, David and Brett Josef Grubisic. American Hunks. 2009 (Oct.). 352p. Arsenal Pulp Press, $29.95. (978-1-55152-256-2). Images of the muscular American male shown in popular culture from 1860 to 1970 demonstrate how masculine imagery has been used to sell everything from military involvement to laundry detergents. [N]

Donoghue, Emma. Inseparable: Desire between Women in Literature. 2010. 271p. Knopf, $27.95. (978-0-307-27094-8). Donoghue traces the history of lesbian literary passion from ancient times to the present, discussing “texts in which the attraction between women is undeniably there [and has] consequences for the story.” [N]

Duder, Cameron. Awfully Devoted Women: Lesbian Lives in Canada, 1900-65. 2010. 313p. University of British Columbia Press. (978-0-7748-1739-4). Through letters and interviews, the author explores the romantic lives of Canadian lesbians—upper-middle-class professionals from the first half of the twentieth century and lower-middle class women in the post-World War II period. [N]

Echols, Alice. Hot Stuff: Disco and the Remaking of American Culture. 2010. 338p. Norton, $26.95. (978-0-393-0667503). More than a representation of a shallow decade, disco helped shape the culture of blacks, feminists, and gays in a time when they were searching for safe places. [N]

Fellows, Will and Helen P. Branson. Gay Bar: The Fabulous, True Story of a Daring Woman and Her Boys in the 1950s. 2010. 166p. University of Wisconsin Press, $26.95. (978-0-2992485-0-5). At a time when laws barred gays from meeting in bars, a straight woman in her 60s provided a gay haven in her Los Angeles tavern for nine years and published a supportive book about her “boys” in 1957; this book expands the original publication with a gay historical perspective on the 1950s. [N]

Gambone, Philip. Travels in a Gay Nation:  Portraits of LGBTQ Americans. 2010. 294p.  University of Wisconsin Press, $26.95. (978-0-29923684-7). From a gay teenager born with AIDS to an 85-year-old writer, the LGBTQ people in these 40 interviews come from a variety of ethnic backgrounds and careers in the arts, entertainment, religion, politics, activism, etc. to provide a portrait of queer humanity. [N]

Golden Age of Gay Fiction. Ed. by Drewey Wayne Gunn. 2009 (Sept). 262p. MLR Press, $69.99.  (978-1-608200481). Nineteen authors introduce the reader to the great explosion of gay writing between the first Kinsey Report and the first collection of Tales of the City during the 1950s and into the 1970s. [N]

Herman, Joanne. Transgender Explained: For Those Who Are Not. 2009 (Sept.). 148p. AuthorHouse, $14.95. (978-1-4490-2966-1). The complex world of transgender is explored through the personal reflections of the author as she describes issues of employment, marriage, insurance, childhood, medical procedures, and more. [N]

Keep Your Wives Away from Them: Orthodox Women Unorthodox Desires. Ed. by Miryam Kabakov. 2010. 169p. North Atlantic Books, $16.95. (978-1-55643-897-0). First-person accounts of 14 lesbians living at the intersection of conflicting sexual and religious identities describe their experiences as individuals and community members, reconciling their commitment to Orthodox Judaism and living as out lesbians. [N]

Kicked Out. Ed. by Sassafras Lowrey; foreword by Judy Shepard. 2010. 222p. Homofactus Press, $19.95. (978-0-97859736-8). Interviews, poetry, and pictures show the resilience and courage of LGBT youth forced to leave their homes after coming out to their parents. [N]

Kinsman, Gary and Patrizia Gentile. The Canadian War on Queers: National Security as Sexual Regulation. 2010. 554p. University of British Columbia Press, $37.95. (978-0-7748-1628-1). Drawing on official security documents and interviews with the investigators and investigated, this book chronicles the campaigns of fear and lies that shattered the lives of gay and lesbian Canadians in the name of national security during the second half of the twentieth century. [N]

LeVay, Simon. Gay, Straight, and the Reason Why: The Science of Sexual Orientation. 2010.  412p. Oxford University Press, $27.95. (978-0-19-973767-3). A child grows up gay or straight as the result of interaction among genes, sex hormones, and the cells of the developing body and brain, according to the wealth of scientific evidence provided by neuroscientist LeVay. [N]

Ramer, Andrew, Jay Michaelson, Rabbi Camille Shira Angel, and Rabbi Dev Noily. Queering the Text: Biblical, Medieval, and Modern Jewish Stories  2010. 278p. White Crane Books/Lethe Press, $20.00. (978-1590211830). Narratives inspired by the midrashim, homoerotic love poems, and present-day stories bring gay and lesbian narratives back into the 3000-year history of the Jewish people. [N]

Schulman, Sarah. Ties That Bind: Familial Homophobia and Its Consequences. 2009 (Oct.).  171p. New Press, $23.95. (978-1-59558-480-9). Schulman’s analysis of homophobia begins with the family and the resulting abuse and neglect of LGBTQ family members and community and clearly identifies inequalities in familial support as a cultural crisis. [N]

Serwatka, Thomas S. Queer Questions, Clear Answers: The Contemporary Debates on Sexual Orientation. 2010. 265p. Praeger, $44.95. (978-0-313-38612-1). In a conversational question and answer format, Serwatka explores issues of religion, history, “reparative therapy,” stereotypes, civil rights, and schooling in the ongoing cultural and political debates about lesbians, gays, and bisexuals.[N]

Sheng, Jeff. Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, V. 1. 2010. Jeff Sheng Studios, $24.95. (978-0-9844474-1-1). The misery of enforced closeting of patriotic gays and lesbians by the U.S. military is powerfully illuminated in these 20 photographic portraits accompanied by selected anonymous emails courageously describing their silent war. [N]

Poetry

Borland, Bryan. My Life as Adam. 2010. 121p. Sibling Rivalry Press, $14.00. (978-0-57805117-8). Seventy poems touching on religion, sexuality, Southern life, and self-acceptance reveal the poet’s growing up, coming out, and becoming an adult in all its joys and sorrows. [P]

Dumesnil, Cheryl. In Praise of Falling. 2009 (July). 78p. University of Pittsburgh Press, $14.95.  (978-0-8229-6041-6). The introductory Zen proverb, “Fall down seven times, get up eight,” reflects the spirit of Dumesnil’s passionate poems that celebrate life, past and present, in simple eloquence and celebration of the details that give us meaning. [P]

Enszer, Julie R. Handmade Love. 2010. 62p. Midsummer Night’s Press, $11.95. (978-0-9794208-5-6). Smart, sexy poems tell LGBT stories about the political and the sensuous from street demonstrations to bedroom romps. [P]

Luczak, Raymond. Mute. 2010. 62p. Midsummer Night’s Press, $11.95. (978-0-9794208-6-3). A deaf man uses these poems to tell about the frustrations of his silent world when trying to communicate with other men. [P]

Xavier, Emanuel. If Jesus Were Gay & Other Poems. 2010. 135p. Queer Mojo/Rebel Satori, $14.95. (978-1-60864-032-4). Love, lust, religion, race, sadness, and memory are the focus of these sometimes raw but always honest poems, both personal and universal, that make the ordinary extraordinary. [P]

Speculative Fiction

Carey, Jacqueline. Naamah’s Curse. 2010. 576p. Grand Central Publishing, $26.99. (978-0446198059). Bisexual Moirin, devoted servant of the goddess of desire, crosses Tatar territory to find Bao, who holds the missing half of her diadh-anam, the divine soul-spark of her mother’s people. Sequel to Naamah’s Kiss. [SF]

Clark, Naomi. Silver Kiss: An Urban Wolf Novel. 2010. 218p. Queered Fiction, $14.99. (978-1-920441-12-8). Lesbian shapeshifter Ayla Hammond returns home to mend fences with her parents and solve a missing persons case, while she debates whether she wants to rejoin the werewolf pack which might demand more than she is willing to sacrifice. [SF]

Dellamonica, A.M. Indigo Springs. 2009 (Oct.). 317p. Tor, $14.99. (978-0-7653-1947-0). As society teeters on the brink of magical ruin and revolution, government hostage negotiator Will Forest interrogates Astrid Lethewood, whose ability to enchant ordinary objects holds the keys to set the world right. [SF]

Lanyon, Josh. Strange Fortune. 2009 (Dec.). 311p. Blind Eye Books, $14.95. (978-1-03557-00-5). In an alternate universe reminiscent of India during its final days as a British colony, bisexual adventurer Valentine Strange and witch Aleister Grimshaw develop a mutual attraction and face traitors, wild animals, political monks, and a renegade spiritual force when they set out on a quest to a remote mountain monastery searching for a goddess’s lost diadem. [SF]

McDonald, Sandra. Diana Comet: And Other Improbable  Stories. 2010. 282p. Lethe Press, $15.00. (978-1-59021-094-9). Fifteen linked short stories set in an alternate Earth meld magic and the mundane through the exploits of heroic and complex characters, including the intrepid cross-dressing spy, Diana Comet. [SF]

Pitts, J.A. Black Blade Blues. 2010. 398p. Tor, $25.99. (978-0-7653-2467-2). Norse mythology meets the Pacific Northwest in this tale of dragons posing as investment bankers, as lesbian blacksmith Sarah Beauhall battles demons both without and within herself. [SF]

Schulman, Sarah. The Mere Future. 2009 (Sept.).183p. Arsenal Pulp Press, $22.95. (978-1-55152-257-9). In a near-future New York the charismatic mayor decrees that there will be no public advertising, no chain stores, and no homelessness. Citizens begin to wonder who is paying for the changes. [SF]

Western

Files, Gemma. A Book of Tongues: Volume One of the Hexslinger Series. 2010. 274p. Chizine Publications, $16.95. (978-0-9812978-6-6). Following the Civil War, Pinkerton detective Ed Murrow infiltrates a renegade Confederate gang to investigate the hexslinging abilities of Rev. Asher Rook and his psychopathic lover Chess Pargeter, as the goddess Ixchel attempts to reinstate the Aztec gods by seducing Rook into a ritual marriage, forcing his Wild West gang into a journey through Hell. [H,W]

Perez, Emma. Forgetting the Alamo, or Blood Memory. 2009. 206p. University of Texas, $24.95.  (978-0-292-7218-9). The vows of Micaela Campos, a Chicana lesbian cowgirl, to avenge the murder of her father and her younger siblings in the aftermath of the Alamo lead her into a violent collision of culture and politics involving Mexicans, African-Americans, Anglos, and indigenous peoples. [W]

Wunnicke, Christine. Missouri. Trans. by David Miller. 2010. 134p. Arsenal Pulp Press, $12.95.  (978-1-55152-344-6). In this gay love story, by turns comic and tragic, a nineteenth-century feral outlaw kidnaps a successful English poet who doesn’t want to be rescued. [W]

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