Showing titles in Biographies & Memoirs

This is my story of how I went through struggles, mostly believing that I was the victim, to finally achieving sporadic enlightenment. The sporadic is because being mindful in the present is very hard to do. I do believe that if you listen to it, you may understand and achieve it yourself. The book must be listened to from beginning to the end. I promise you that you will enjoy it and learn from it. It benefits everyone LGBTQ2S+ and straight. Currently, I am running for office in Calgary so that I can help the homeless and addicts, as well as to address affordable housing.

Craig Russell was an internationally admired entertainer and actor, known for his outrageous impersonations of some of Hollywood's greatest female celebrities: Mae West, Barbra Streisand, Bette Midler, Carol Channing, and Judy Garland, to name a few. Lori Russell Eadie, a shy theater lover, was Craig's number-one fan and, eventually, his wife. Together they were fun, fabulous, and eschewed convention. But behind the curtains, Craig and Lori's lives were troubled by their mental health, drug addiction, sexual assault, and abuse.

Michael Koresky's most formative memories were simple ones. A movie rental. A mug of tea. And a few shared hours with his mother. Years later and now a successful film critic, Koresky set out on a journey with his mother to discover more about their shared cinematic past. They rewatched ten films that she first introduced to him as a child, one from every year of the '80s, each featuring women leads.

Dan Mathews knew that his witty, bawdy 78-year-old mother, Perry, was unable to maintain her fierce independence - so he flew her across the country to Virginia to live with him in an 1870 townhouse badly in need of repairs. But to Dan, a screwdriver is a cocktail not a tool, and he was soon overwhelmed with two fixer-uppers: the house and his mother.

I Don’t Want to Die Poor is an unforgettable and relatable examination about what it’s like leading a life that often feels out of your control. But in Michael’s voice that’s “as joyful as he is shrewd” (BuzzFeed), these razor-sharp essays will still manage to make you laugh and remind you that you’re not alone in this often intimidating journey.

Ryan never envisioned just how far his football career would take him. But bubbling under the surface of his entire NFL career was a collision course between his secret sexuality and his hidden drug use. As injuries mounted and his daily intake of opioids reached a near-lethal level, he wrote his suicide note to his parents and plotted his death. Yet, someone had been watching. A member of the Chiefs organization stepped in, recognizing the signs of drug addiction. Ryan reluctantly sought psychological help, and it was there that he revealed his lifelong secret for the very first time.

Atticus Blake is an unsuspecting young gay boy who, early on in life, was derailed from the true admission of who he was. Having the influences of obsessive-compulsive disorder, religion, confusion, love, and obsession, he hides who he is from everyone he loves. That is, until his doubts overcame his fear of learning and led him to reason, rationality, and, most of all, acceptance of his sexuality.

Although he died at a heartbreakingly young age and appeared in only a handful of movies, James Dean revolutionized American manhood. As a celebrity and icon, he melded vulnerability with determination, sensitivity with strength, in a way that offered a bracing and—for some—threatening new vision of masculinity. His massive influence and the fascination he has always inspired are inseparable from his identity as a queer man whose complex sexuality shattered the norms of midcentury American society.

Owning It, produced especially for Pride Month in collaboration with the historic live event and podcast Don’t Tell My Mother!, brings Audible Members a collection of uplifting, raw, and hilarious stories from queer actors, comedians, and personalities. Cohosted by beloved actress and activist Alexandra Billings and storytelling maven Nikki Levy, Owning It is a joyous celebration of LGBTQIA+ stories and icons.

In The Lives of Michel Foucault, David Macey quotes the iconic French philosopher as speaking “nostalgically...of 'an unforgettable evening on LSD, in carefully prepared doses, in the desert night, with delicious music, [and] nice people'". This came to pass in 1975, when Foucault spent Memorial Day weekend in Southern California at the invitation of Simeon Wade - ostensibly to guest-lecture at the Claremont Graduate School where Wade was an assistant professor, but in truth to explore what he called the Valley of Death.

A riotous collection of "witty and captivating" (Bitch Magazine) essays by a gay Filipino immigrant in America learning that everything is about sex - and sex is about power.

Profoundly moving and instructive, My Sister offers insight into the lives of two siblings learning to be their authentic selves. Ultimately, theirs is a story of hope, one that will resonate with and affirm those in the process of transitioning, watching a loved one transition, and anyone taking control of their gender or sexual identities.

David Hallberg, the first American to join the famed Bolshoi Ballet as a principal dancer and the dazzling artist the New York Times described as "the foremost classical stylist of our day", presents an intimate journey through his artistic life up to the moment he returns to the stage after a devastating injury almost cost him his career. Beginning with his real-life Billy Elliot childhood - an all-American story marred by intense bullying - and culminating in his hard-won comeback, Hallberg's brave memoir dives deep into life as an artist.

Craig was the last person anyone would have expected to open an American diner in Paris. He came from humble beginnings in a working-class town in Connecticut, had never worked in a restaurant, and didn't know anything about starting a brand-new business. But from his first visit to Paris, Craig knew he had found the city of his dreams. Pancakes in Paris is the story of Craig tackling the impossible - from raising the money to fund his dream to tracking down international suppliers for "exotic" American ingredients, and even finding love along the way.

One of nineteen children in a blended family, Hari Ziyad was raised by a Hindu Hare Kṛṣṇa mother and a Muslim father. Through reframing their own coming-of-age story, Ziyad takes listeners on a powerful journey of growing up queer and Black in Cleveland, Ohio, and of navigating the equally complex path toward finding their true self in New York City. Exploring childhood, gender, race, and the trust that is built, broken, and repaired through generations, Ziyad investigates what it means to live beyond the limited narratives Black children are given....

The long-awaited memoir from one of the most acclaimed radical writers in American literature. Gary Indiana is a true radical whose caustic voice has by turns haunted and influenced the literary and artistic establishments. With I Can Give You Anything but Love, Gary has composed literary and revealing montage of excursions into his life and work—from his early days growing up gay in rural New Hampshire to his escape to Haight-Ashbury in the post-summer-of-love era, the sweltering 1970s in Los Angeles, and ultimately his existence in New York in the 1980s as a bona fide downtown personality.

Following in the footsteps of such category killers as Milk and Honey and Whiskey Words & a Shovel I, Fariha Róisín's poetry book is a collection of her thoughts as a young, queer, Muslim femme navigating the difficulties of her intersectionality. Simultaneously, this compilation unpacks the contentious relationship that exists between Róisín and her mother, her platonic and romantic heartbreaks, and the cognitive dissonance felt as a result of being so divided among her broad spectrum of identities.

This short book aims to shed light on the insidious nature of addiction, using a powerful metaphor to illustrate its destructive grip.

Early in the morning of October 9, 1776—in the small farming community of Cumberland, Rhode Island, in a house surrounded by cherry trees—twenty-three-year-old Jemima Wilkinson died, and the Public Universal Friend was born.

In Worthy: The Memoir of an Ex-Mormon Lesbian, Davis tells her story of growing up in a Mormon household in Maine. Her nostalgic and sometimes humorous childhood memories of family and friends provide life lessons that influence her during the traumatic experiences she has as a woman and as a closeted queer person in the church. It isn't until one of her children comes out that Davis is forced to choose between religion and family. She chooses love.