Titres dans Biographies et mémoires

Thirty years ago, a professor threw a chair at Sina Queyras after they’d turned in an essay on Virginia Woolf. Queyras returns to that contentious first encounter with Virginia Woolf to recover the body and thinking of that time. Using Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own as a touchstone, this book is both an homage to and provocation of the idea of a room of one’s own at the center of our idea of a literary life. How central is the room? And what happens once we get one? Do we inhabit our rooms? Or do the rooms contain us?

For decades, our cultural discourse around trans and gender-diverse people has been viewed through a medical lens, through diagnoses and symptoms set down in books by cisgender doctors, or through a political lens, through dangerous caricatures. But those who claim non-binary gender identity deserve their own discourse. In Transit looks forward to a world where being who we are, whatever that looks like, isn't met with tension and long-winded explanations, but rather with acceptance and love. Being non-binary is about finding home in the in-between places.

Some years ago, Oliver Darkshire stepped into the hushed interior of Henry Sotheran Ltd on Sackville Street (est. 1761) to interview for their bookselling apprenticeship, a decision which has bedevilled him ever since. He'd intended to stay for a year before launching into some less dusty, better remunerated career. Unfortunately for him, the alluring smell of old books and the temptation of a management-approved afternoon nap proved irresistible. Soon he was balancing stacks of first editions, fending off nonagenarian widows with and trying not to upset the store's resident ghost.

Finding self-acceptance both on and off the mat. In Sanskrit, yoga means to “yoke.” To yoke mind and body, movement and breath, light and dark, the good and the bad. This larger idea of “yoke” is what Jessamyn Stanley calls the yoga of the everyday—a yoga that is not just about...

Ink from the Pen is the story of an educated, HIV+ gay man whose decades-long walk on the wild side came crashing down in 2004, when he found himself facing nine months in prison for dealing the crystal meth he’d become addicted to during the worst of the AIDS epidemic. Olmsted soon discovered his love of words was precisely what would get him through the experience. With a keen eye for detail and an unerring capacity to deftly convey the poignancy and absurdities of incarceration, Mark learned that creativity is one of the most powerful survival tools there is.

A NEW YORKER BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR A warm, funny, irresistible memoir that follows an improbable and life-changing college friendship over the course of forty years—from the best-selling author of The End of Your Life Book Club “A rare view of male friendship.”—NPR...

Jonathan is thirty-one-years-old, living in Milan with his boyfriend of three years and their two cats when he gets a fever. But unlike most, this fever doesn’t go away. After spending weeks Googling his symptoms and documenting his illness, he finally sees a doctor. A series of blood tests, hospital visits, and repeated misdiagnoses ensue, until the truth is finally revealed: Jonathan is HIV-positive. In the vein of Edouard Louis, Fever is at once a deeply personal story and a searing examination of class, poverty, prejudice, and opportunity in modern Europe.

Henry Gerber was the father of American gay liberation. Born in 1892 in Germany, Henry Gerber was expelled from school as a boy and lost several jobs as a young man because of his homosexual activities. He emigrated to the United States and enlisted in the army for employment. After his release, he explored Chicago’s gay subculture: cruising Bughouse Square, getting arrested for “disorderly conduct,” and falling in love.

Imagine a pied piper singing in a dazzling falsetto, wearing glittering sequins, and leading the young people of the nation to San Francisco and on to liberation where nothing was straight-laced or old-fashioned. And everyone, finally, was welcome—to come as themselves. This is not a fairy tale. This was real, mighty real, and disco sensation Sylvester was the piper. Joshua Gamson—a Yale-trained pop culture expert—uses him, a boy who would be fabulous, to lead us through the story of the '70s when a new era of change liberated us from conformity and boredom.

With chapters covering sexual and cultural identity, body hair, colourism and mental health, and a particular focus on the suffocating beauty standards South Asian women are expected to adhere to, Sharan Dhaliwal speaks openly about her journey toward loving herself, offering advice, support and comfort to people that are encountering the same issues.

In this unique and hilarious debut memoir, writer and comedian Greg Mania chronicles life as a "pariah prodigy." From inadvertently coming out to his Polish immigrant parents, to immersing himself in the world of New York City nightlife, and finding himself and his voice in comedy. Born to Be Public is a vulnerable and poignant exploration of identity (and the rediscovery of it), mental health, sex and relationships, all while pursuing a passion with victories and tragicomic blunders.

Meet Shane Jenek. Raised in the Brisbane suburbs by loving parents, Shane realises from a young age that he's not like all the other boys. At a performing arts agency he discovers his passion for song, dance and performance, and makes a promise to himself: to find a bigger stage. Meet Courtney Act.

In 2009, Juliet Patterson was recovering from a serious car accident when she learned her father had died by suicide. His death was part of a disturbing pattern in her family. Her father’s father had taken his own life; so had her mother’s. Over the weeks and months that followed, grieving and in physical pain, Patterson kept returning to one question: Why? Why had her family lost so many men, so many fathers, and what lay beneath the silence that had taken hold?

A woman, groomed to be a wife and mother, discovers through her clandestine interaction with a free-spirited foreigner that she has a right to determine her own destiny. Every step Elena takes toward personal liberation is considered treason by her society, driving her deeper and deeper underground and threatening her escape from Russia. Elena Vaytsel is one of the two women featured in BBC's Outlook Weekend: The Voyage of Meg and Elena, and NPR's Snap Judgment: Kismet, for their escape from Russia and yearlong planet-crossing run for their lives and freedom.

Part butch memoir, part ekphrastic travel diary, part queer family tree, Raquel Gutiérrez’s debut essay collection, Brown Neon, gleans insight from the sediment of land and relationships. For Gutiérrez, terrain is essential to understanding that no story, no matter how personal, is separate from the space where it unfolds.  

*From the Viral Clark Atlanta University Commencement Speaker* *From the Georgia Author of the Year Award Winner* *A Zibby's Most Anticipated Book of 2023* *A "Next Big Idea Club" Must-Read Book for January* *An Essence "Books by Black Authors to Read This Winter" Pick* *An Ebony Entertainment...

A story of rough beginnings as I struggled to find gender and sexual identity in a small country town in North Carolina in the 1940s and '50s. I found my way to fame and fortune. My goal in sharing this is to help someone who may find themselves in a similar situation. You can survive.

This memoir that "will take your breath away" chronicles a harrowing journey through homelessness and poverty in New York City, followed by a turbulent experience in foster care (Jeanette Walls, New York Times bestselling author of The Glass Castle). This powerful memoir exposes the harsh...

The Wisdom of Guncles is about queer people and our relationship with family—however we choose to define it. Featuring a diverse pantheon of gay uncles (“guncles”) and other queer mentors, these stories offer unique perspectives about life, love, and personal empowerment. With each chapter, I examine what various LGBTQ+ experiences teach about disrupting norms, exploring identity, and creating chosen families that affirm one’s truth.

An intimate, coming-of-age memoir by legendary guitarist Kid Congo Powers, detailing his experiences as a young, queer Mexican-American in 1970s Los Angeles through his rise in the glam rock and punk rock scenes. Kid Congo Powers has been described as a “legendary guitarist and paragon of...