Showing titles in Biographies & Memoirs

In a true story, the author writes of a brutal childhood interrupted by occasional spurts of Disneyland and ponies. After a fumbled ax attack by her mother, she takes to the streets at 14 years old. She is a prey looking for a predator. Predators she finds, as well as the unlikeliest of heroes. There is no “road less traveled”. There is no road. She makes her way through back alleys that are dark and mesmerizing. Occasionally brutal, occasionally flat out funny.

The world was not the least bit surprised when Branden James became a finalist on season eight of America's Got Talent, receiving high praise from the judges for his emotional, operatic vocals. Coming out and sharing intimate details of his broken ties with his religious family on the show, he received countless messages from fans who could relate to his personal struggles.

 One Bead at a Time is the oral memoir of Beverly Little Thunder, a two-spirit Lakota Elder from Standing Rock, who has lived most of her life in service to Indigenous and non-Indigenous women in vast areas of both the United States and Canada. 

All the Rage chronicles Brad Fraser's rise as he breaks with his past and enrolls as a performing arts student. He is pulled into the newly developing Canadian theatre scene, where he shows great promise. But his early career is one of challenge after challenge, some of which result from his upbringing and prejudice against his queerness. But just as many challenges arise from his combative personality and willingness to challenge the establishment. Few Canadian artists have been as abrasive, notorious, and polarizing as Fraser was in his youth.

The unimaginable, true story of a woman’s quest to escape poverty and serve in the Royal Navy. This shocking account exposes first-hand, the author’s personal journey from poverty in Liverpool, during the Thatcher era, and the wider picture as to why many working-class people turn to the Armed Forces for a career as a result. It exposes the shame and fear that gay service personnel had to endure, and the ensuing interrogations, during the years of the ban on LGBT+ people serving in HM Forces.

In this unflinching and riveting coming-of-age memoir, Patricia Grayhall battles sexism in a male-dominated profession. She plunges into a life that is never boring—and certainly never without passion. Tossed around in the rough seas of medical training, chronically exhausted and emotionally drained, Patricia chafes at the toxic masculinity of the culture of medicine facing many of the same issues women face in male-dominated fields today.

Tim and Rod grew up a few suburbs from each other in Newcastle, New South Wales. They were gay, but their worlds were not. Before they found each other, they were alone and miserable, marooned in a sea of impossible expectations. Rod was shackled by a conservative Christian upbringing, while Tim felt unmanly and inferior beside his macho, sport-obsessed older brothers. After enduring their own private versions of hell, Tim and Rod crossed paths on a dating app. They swiped for Mr Right, and suddenly everything clicked.

Men I've Never Been recounts Michael Sadowski's odyssey as a boy who shuns his own identity - and, ultimately, his sexual orientation - in order to become who he thinks he's supposed to be.

Making My Pitch tells the story of Ila Jane Borders, who, despite formidable obstacles, became a Little League prodigy, MVP of her otherwise all-male middle school and high school teams, the first woman awarded a baseball scholarship, and the first to pitch and win a complete men’s collegiate game. 

Meet the Law family - eccentric, endearing and hard to resist. Your guide: Benjamin, the third of five children and a born humorist. Join him as he tries to answer some puzzling questions: Why won't his Chinese dad wear made-in-China underpants? Why was most of his extended family deported in the 1980s? Will his childhood dreams of Home and Away stardom come to nothing? What are his chances of finding love? Hilarious and moving, The Family Law is a linked series of tales from a wonderful Australian talent.

Dual Citizen records the true story of how a boy navigated this world after he met the Tall Shiny Silver Figure when he was three years old. Read by the authors, the engaging narrative chronicles Tracy’s journey through childhood, Tracy’s intimate relationship with Him through his career and personal life as a black man, and ultimately answers the question, "How did you get here?" from guests checking in to the Black Walnut Point Inn.

Abiertamente homosexual, Truman Capote es considerado uno de los narradores más grandes de los Estados Unidos de la segunda mitad del siglo XX. Autor de la célebre novela "A sangre fría", su figura irreverente y frontal escandalizó al país.

In this raw yet enchanting collection of poems and essays, Tyler Gaca dreamily navigates themes of magic and queerness, offering readers an intimate look inside his mind and his worlds, real and imagined. The writings in Gentle Chaos reflect on growing up queer and in love with magic, discovering yourself and your place in the world, and daring to seek out love and hope. The result is a whimsical, vulnerable, and transporting journey into the gentle chaos within us all.

Born and raised in New York to a food-phobic mother and food-fanatical father, Elissa was trained early on that fancy is always best. After a childhood spent dining everywhere from Le Pavillion to La Grenouille, she devoted her life to all things gastronomical, from the rare game birds she served at elaborate dinner parties in an apartment so tiny that guests couldn’t turn around to the eight timbale molds she bought while working at Dean & DeLuca, just so she could make tall food.

As a trans man born into an evangelical Christian family that prevented his true identity from emerging, Alex spent years struggling with depression, anxiety, and addiction, trying to break free of the oppressive beliefs that bound him. After years of fighting—for his life, his freedom, and his truth—Alex learnt to surrender and come home to himself.

During her sophomore year at Middlebury College, Emily meets Max—“you” as she intimately refers to him in the book. Not exactly a tomboy, but not quite a girly girl either, Emily is intent on finding a masculine boyfriend to assuage a deeply rooted fear that she may not be quite feminine enough. Max—a boisterous class clown beloved by his many straight guy friends—has recently come out as gay and is embracing his newly claimed identity. Initially, Max and Emily dislike each other, but end up growing close after a make-out dare on Halloween.

A gripping portrait of life in a Montauk summer house - a debut memoir of first love, identity and self-discovery among a group of friends who became family. They call Montauk the end of the world, a spit of land jutting into the Atlantic. The house was a ramshackle split-level set on a hill, and each summer thirty one people would sleep between its thin walls and shag carpets. Against the moonlight the house's octagonal roof resembled a bee's nest. It was dubbed The Hive.

As the US occupation of Iraq rages, novelist Mortada Gzar, a student at the University of Baghdad, has a chance encounter with Morise, an African American soldier. It’s love at first sight, a threat to them both, and a moment of self-discovery. Challenged by society’s rejection and Morise’s return to the US, Mortada takes to the page to understand himself. In his affecting memoir, Mortada interweaves tales of his childhood work as a scrap-metal collector in a war zone and the indignities faced by openly gay artists in Iraq with his impossible love story and journey to the US.

A Mexican immigrant and rising star within the Christian community abandons his faith and comes out as a gay atheist in this exceptionally moving and soul-searching memoir. Fernando Alcántar recounts his incredible journey from poor Catholic boy on the dusty streets of Mexico to globetrotting missionary and high-profile Christian leader in the United States - where he eventually left his celebrated life behind to advocate for the liberating power of reason and equality.

Krista Doyle grew up in a small town in Louisiana where everyone was a gossip and a devout church goer. She attended church every Sunday where she listened to her grandfather preach from the stage, where she sang hymns from the audience as her mother led the choir, and where she was strictly taught that everything was black and white, right and wrong. So - how was Krista to cope with being a lesbian?