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.