AlterHeros knows how difficult it can be to find a good book to read. Hence, we’ ve put together a list of books of interest to gay and bisexual youth. Scroll down and have a look at what we have to offer.
Happy reading!
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Someone Is Watching
by Mark A. Roeder
Book Description
It’s hard hiding a secret. It’s even harder keeping that secret when someone else knows.
Someone is watching. Someone knows. It was a nightmare come true for seventeen year-old Ethan. It’s hard hiding a secret. It’s even harder keeping that secret when someone else knows. Who is the mysterious note-writer, the secret tormentor? Who is the enemy that hides among Ethan’s friends and teammates? Who holds Ethan’s secret over his head, threatening to destroy his entire world?
Someone Is Watching is the story of a young high school wrestler who must come to terms with being gay. He struggles first with himself, then with an unknown classmate that hounds his every step. While struggling to discover the identity of his tormentor, Ethan must discover his own identity and learn to live his life as his true self. He must choose whether to give up what he wants the most, or face his greatest fear of all.
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Go Tell It On The Mountain
by James Baldwin
Book Description
Go Tell It On The Mountain, first published in 1953, is Baldwin’s first major work and his greatest work, a novel that has established itself as an American classic. With lyrical precision, psychological directness, and a rage that is at once unrelenting and compassionate, Baldwin chronicles a fourteen-year-old boy’s discovery of the terms of his identity as the stepson of the minister of a storefront Pentecostal church in Harlem one Saturday in March of 1935. The book it draws heavily on Baldwin’s own intense childhood experiences with religious doubt, racism, sexual ambivalence, and a complex relationship with a difficult father. Its brilliant style and sophisticated portrait of a young man struggling with complex issues made this one of the landmark novels of the postwar period.
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A Better Place
by Mark A. Roeder, Ronald L. Donaghe
Book Description
High school football, a hospital of horrors, a long journey, and an unlikely love await Brendan and Casper as they search for a better place…
Casper is the poorest boy in school. Brendan is the captain of the football team. Casper has nothing. Brendan has it all; looks, money, popularity, but he lacks the deepest desire of his heart. The boys come from different worlds, but have one thing in common that no one would guess.
Casper goes through life as the “invisible boy”; invisible to the boys that pick on him in school, invisible to his abusive father, and invisible most of all to his older brother, who makes his life a living Hell. He can’t believe his good luck when Brendan, the most popular boy in school, takes an interest in him and becomes his friend. That friendship soon travels in a direction that Casper would never have guessed.
A Better Place is the story of an unlikely pair, who struggle through friendship and betrayal, hardships and heartbreaks, to find the desire of their hearts, to find a better place.
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Dream Boy
by Jim Grimsley
Book Description
First love is never easy. But when the new boy in a small town is being secretly abused by his father, first love might be the only thing that can save him. With his mother busy in the kitchen and his drunken father reading scripture in the living room, Nathan can watch his schoolmate Roy from his upstairs bedroom window and dream about a life free from his father’s night-time prowling. Nathan feels safer with Roy in the house next door and safer still with Roy beside him. Studying algebra shoulder to shoulder on Nathan’s bed, one thing leads to another. But where will love lead Nathan? In a corner of the rural South blistering with hatred and petty meanness, Nathan and Roy must hide their love from their friends, church, and families. But that comes easily to Nathan, who is used to keeping secrets. He is only afraid of the one secret he has always kept, even from Roy – the terrible truth about his father that makes his life impossible. Fleeing the house one night with only a blanket to shelter him, Nathan escapes with Roy on a camping trip to the haunted ruins of a plantation. As the boys track a path through the otherworldly wilderness, a sense of unnerving peace begins to surface in Nathan, along with the awful certainty that he will never return home.
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A Destiny of Souls
by Christopher Rice
Book Description
Take the sensuous, fecund New Orleans setting, add a generous helping of tangled Southern family history, and season liberally with a sensitive teenage boy rejected by his friends and frightened of his own homoerotic impulses and you wouldn’t be surprised to discover that the novel containing all of the above was written by someone named Rice. But a few paragraphs into the first page, it’s clear that Anne Rice’s son’s first novel isn’t about vampires or witches and does not otherwise read like one of her exceedingly popular books. The only family resemblance is in the setting, the sexual orientation of the lovingly described male characters, and the scent of overripe magnolias.
There’s murder, suicide, and madness at the heart of this coming-of-age story, which focuses on the youthful friendship of Stephen Conlin, Meredith Ducote, Greg Darby, and Brandon Charbonnet. This friendship is destroyed by a sexual incident that takes place just before the foursome enters Cannon, an exclusive prep school. There, Stephen is ostracized by his former friends, now the most popular kids on campus, who’d just as soon forget their own complicity in the event. Envy, passion, and rage drive the narrative. A book that does a good job dealing with homosexuality all around, from the reactions of high school students to gay classmates to the confusion gay teenagers feel to the loving relationship between Jordan and Stephen. A great debut novel from Christopher Rice.
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The World of Normal Boys
by K. M. Soehnlein
Book Description
Robin McKenzie is just starting high school and ready for change, ready to appear more “cool,” make new friendships, and fit in more. But after his younger brother, Jackson, injures himself in an accidental and dangerous fall, Robin’s life will never be the same. As his parents’ fighting escalates under the strain and his family begins to fall apart, Robin adapts to the strangeness of high school. Central in his anxieties is his sexual attraction to other boys. His parents are no help, and to add to his confusion, Robin’s friends are just as lost as he is: one minute he and Todd (the cute boy next door) are fooling around, and the next Todd refers to homosexuals as queers and fags. Feeling scared and isolated, Robin starts experimenting with drugs, cuts class, and thinks of boys instead of schoolwork. Full of tension and suspense, Soehnlein’s well-paced debut novel is a fresh look at one boy’s sexual awakening in the 1970s and his journey to find a place where he can fit in. An extraordinary experience.
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Holding the Man
by Timothy Conigrave
Book Description
The mid-seventies – and satin baggies and chunky platforms reigned supreme. Jethro Tull did battle with glam-rock for the airwaves. At an all-boys Catholic school in Melbourne, Timothy Conigrave fell wildly and sweetly in love with the captain of the football team. So began a relationship that was to last for 15 years, a love affair that weathered disapproval, separation and, ultimately death. Holding the Man recreates that relationship. With honesty and insight it explores the highs and lows of any partnership: the intimacy, constraints, temptations. And the strength of heart both men had to find when they tested positive to HIV. This is a book as refreshing and uplifting as it is moving; a funny and sad and celebratory account of growing up gay.
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Every Nine Seconds: A Queer As Folk Novel
by Joseph Brockton
Book Description
Flashback to 1989 with your favorite characters from Queer as Folk in this new line of books based on the record-breaking Showtime/Showcase series.
Before they were grown men working and playing in Pittsburgh, Brian Kinney and Michael Novotny were high-school friends dealing with bullies, secret crushes, and their emerging sexuality. Step back in time with two of Queer as Folk’s hottest characters in the first book in this provocative new series.
On the eve of Brian Kinney’s eighteenth birthday, he and his best friend, Michael Novotny, celebrate a bond that could link them forever if their future paths don’t separate them for good. In a few short weeks Brian, the seductive soccer star, will leave for college, where he’ll be free to explore the adult pursuits in which he’s only dabbled in high school. Michael is destined for a more sedate life in community college while living at home with his eccentric mom. But before their lives diverge, a hot new club will open, they’ll go to the prom “stag” together, and family strife will turn their world upside down. Brian and Michael still have some unforgettable times to share before graduation ushers in the next stages of their lives.
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At Swim Two Boys
by Jamie O’Neill
Book Description
Set in Dublin, At Swim, Two Boys follows the year to Easter 1916, the time of Ireland’s brave but fractured uprising against British rule. O’Neill tells the story of the love of two boys: Jim, a naive and reticent scholar and the younger son of the foolish aspiring shopkeeper Mr. Mack, and Doyler, the dark, rough-diamond son of Mr. Mack’s old army pal. Doyler might once have made a scholar like Jim, might once have had prospects like Jim, but his folks sent him to work, and now, schoolboy no more, he hauls the parish midden cart, with socialism and revolution and willful blasphemy stuffed under his cap.
And yet the future is rosy, Jim’s father is sure. His elder son is away fighting the Hun for God and the British Army, and he has such plans for Jim and their corner shop empire. But Mr. Mack cannot see that the landscape is changing, nor does he realize the depth of Jim’s burgeoning friendship with Doyler. Out at the Forty Foot, that great jut of rock where gentlemen bathe in the scandalous nude, the two boys meet day after day. There they make a pact: Doyler will teach Jim to swim, and in a year, Easter 1916, they will swim the bay to the distant beacon of Muglins Rock and claim that island for themselves.
Ten years in the writing, At Swim, Two Boys has already caused a sensation in England and Ireland, earning lavish praise for its masterful portrayal of class, tradition, and the conflict that has haunted Ireland for centuries. Jamie O’Neill’s poetic and evocative storytelling makes him a natural successor to James Joyce and Flann O’Brien.
At its heart, At Swim, Two Boys is a tender and tragic love story that will resonate with all readers. But it is also a compelling and important work, a novel about people caught up in the tide of history — set in a place and culture both unfamiliar and unforgettable.
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Queer Blues
by Kimeron N. Harden & Marney Hall
Book Description
Despite social and political gains, most gays and lesbians still experience discrimination, and many continue to struggle with guilt and negative messages from others. One effect is an increase of depression in members of the gay and lesbian community. Queer Blues explains the many forms of depression and explores its unique impact on lesbians and gay men. A self-test helps readers determine their level of depression and assess its impact on their lives. The book shows how to gauge the relationship between mood and self-esteem and identifies self-sabotaging habits. An excellent book for any gay or lesbian person who is suffering or has suffered from depression–a condition which is not at all rare in our community.
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The Year of Ice
by Brian Malloy
Book Description
A gay high school senior struggles to cope with his father’s irresponsibility in Malloy’s poignant, quietly effective debut, set in Minneapolis in the late ’70s. From the outside looking in, protagonist Kevin Doyle seems like a normal, party-happy 17-year-old, but the combination of a troubled family life and his secret crush on one of his best friends definitely sets him apart from the pack. The family issues revolve around his dad, Pat, an ordinary 40-something widower with plenty of romantic prospects as the book opens. But Kevin is furious when he learns that Pat’s infidelity may have contributed to the car accident that took his mother’s life, and his anger increases exponentially when his father impregnates the woman he had the affair with, then marries her after a brief dalliance with another woman. Malloy’s coming-of-age narrative can be generic, but he handles the gay angle nicely as he explores Kevin’s difficulty in finding an outlet for his hormonal urges even as he struggles to maintain a relationship with a classmate named Allison Minczeski, who falls for him. The author also displays a razor-sharp comic touch in the verbal sparring between father and son as Pat tries to bring his instant family together, and he balances the comedy with some touching scenes after Pat messes up his latest domestic venture. Malloy shows plenty of talent in his gay spin on the genre, and this debut bodes well for his literary future.
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And Then I Became Gay: Young Men’s Stories
by Ritch C. Savin-Williams
Book Description
“…And Then I Became Gay is about the lives of young men who express the complications, adversities, and satisfactions of being a sexual outsider in North America during the 1980s and 1990s. Consisting of narratives which chronicle developmental progression from first memories of being attracted to other males to a subsequent integration of their sexual identity with a personal identity, this book is also unique in its cross-section of men from different ethnic backgrounds. Although each story in this volume has a personal meaning to the individual youth disclosing it, aspects of these narratives can express a normative experience growing up gay or bisexual during the past two decades. For many of the contributors and readers, these stories may prove to be not only ones of coming out, but coming of age. –This text refers to the edition.
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Like People in History
by Felice Picano
Book Description
Along with Andrew Holleran and Edmund White, Felice Picano emerged in the 1970s as part witness to, part participant in an era. This early-’90s novel is the story of several generations of gay men, an epic saga that White has called the “gay Gone With the Wind.” Picano’s big new novel is the story of two cousins, both who manage to have incredible (literally!) lives–managing expensive stores and art galleries, inheriting fortunes, editing highfalutin opera magazines, having long-term relationships with Adonises, and generally making Lives of the Rich and Famous look like middle-class America. Picano fills the dialogue with humor and the plot with interest. Rather, being both gay and an epic, it succeeds as a story that doesn’t take itself too seriously and will be much in demand as a beach book.
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Desert Sons
by Mark Kendrick
Book Description
Scott Faraday is sixteen, is in a small-town rock band, is fun-loving, and out to only a select few. Ryan St. Charles is seventeen, hot-tempered, brash, has already been in a long relationship, yet is barely out to himself. Behind his carefully fashioned facade is an emotionally scarred little boy with a past he’s never reconciled. As a result, he’s attempted suicide several times. When Ryan comes to live with his uncle in Yucca Valley, he meets Scott. An unlikely pair, they form a tentative friendship. When Scott suspects that Ryan might be gay, he plans his coming out to him. The result is that he transforms their friendship into his first real relationship. Then Ryan’s hidden past comes into view. Scott is not at all prepared for what he discovers. Despite their vast differences, Scott sticks with Ryan and learns more about himself and relationships than he ever thought possible. And with the threat of death stalking Ryan the whole way, they’re plunged headlong into a summer that will forever change them both.
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Into This World We’re Thrown
by Mark Kendrick
Book Description
The sequel to the book Desert Sons, Into This World We’re Thrown concludes the story about Scott and Ryan.
While Desert Sons deftly handles the difficult and sometimes dangerous coming out process of young lovers Ryan and Scott, the sequel finds that lingering tensions remain, while new challenges continue to surface. Infidelity, jealousy, town gossip, and buried feelings threaten to destroy their relationship. Worse yet, the threat of violence looms constantly in their lives.
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The Gay and Lesbian Self-Esteem Book: A Guide to Loving Ourselves
by Kimeron N. Harden
Book Description
For gays and lesbians, self-acceptance means challenging society’s persistent stereotypes and prejudices about homosexuality. Rather than translating self-esteem guidance from books with a hetero- centrist viewpoint, Kimeron Hardin has created a personal growth book specifically aimed at helping gays and lesbians deal with the very particular issues they have in their lives. He examines feelings of shame left over from childhood; discusses how careers, relationships, and lifestyle choices are affected by self-doubts; and suggests a variety of proven healing strategies. He also includes exercises that readers can use to change what they say to themselves, begin to recognize their strengths, and develop new directions for self-growth. An excellent and very inspiring book.
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In Your Face: Stories from the Lives of Queer Youth
by Mary L. Gray
Book Description
In Your Face: Stories from the Lives of Queer Youth is a groundbreaking and informative collection of essays derived from discussions about gender and sexuality with gay, lesbian, and bisexual youths. Fifteen teens, age 14-18, discuss their lives, personal backgrounds, and visions for the future to give researchers, parents, and educators rare insight into the difficulties of being a sexual minority. In addition, this book is intended to reach out to other gay, lesbian, and bisexual youths in both rural and suburban areas of the country. In Your Face presents unique identity and social issues experienced by these youths in order to help you understand their needs and how to effectively address their fears, concerns, and questions. Offering responses from a variety of ethnic backgrounds and situations, this book is not confined to stories that involve one family type or religion. The contributors’ ages, backgrounds, hometowns, childhood experiences, and plans for the future are discussed to give you a deeper understanding of their emotions and the problems they grapple with.
With In Your Face, you will explore the hardships and perspectives of gay, lesbian, and bisexual youths in relation to several issues, including:-coming out to yourself-coming out to family and friends-dealing with the school environment-getting involved in the queer community-realizing how religion impacts one’s sense of self In Your Face also investigates the Internet’s impact on the global queer movement. Providing you with stories from chat sessions and e-mail messages, this book reveals how youths deal with their sexuality in increasingly public ways, such as becoming editors of online queer magazines and participating in online support groups, and how the Internet can help them find out what is means to be gay, lesbian, and bisexual. In examining many stereotypes and prejudices about sexuality, this valuable text documents essential information to help you relate to and comprehend the normal dilemmas faced by these teens. In Your Face confirms the needs of these youths and will assist you in giving support and reassurance to gay, lesbian, and bisexual youths.
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Hey, Joe: A Novel
by Ben Neihart
Book Description From Kirkus Reviews
Two very different narratives crash (and burn) in this breezy first novel set in New Orleans over a single day: A spunky gay teen comes of age and almost collides with the characters in a strange courtroom drama. Sixteen-year-old Joe Keith likes to puff a little weed, hang around the downtown alternative music stores, and cruise older men at the health club. A crypto-slacker, he’s also “making the first moves into being a citizen of the world” with helpful advice from his older friends: Kel, who runs a music shop; White Donna, a “faux teen” deejay; and Black Chris, her Tulane med school student boyfriend.
While Joe seems reconciled to his father’s death from cancer, his mother Sherry can’t let go of father or son, and worries a lot about her smart-tongued boy. Then, improbably, mother and son get drawn into a tale much in the local news: Rae Schipke, a grants administrator, is being sued by the boys of a local orphanage who claim she molested them in their prepubescence. But creepier-than-life Rae has managed to infiltrate the jury with Seth Michaels, a hustler who’s done lots of dirty work for her in the past. Seth, however, has a change of heart and votes for Rae’s guilt with the rest of the jury. This sends the mad sex pervert on a late-night rampage to Sherry Keith’s house. Her presence results from an intercepted phone message on Seth’s answering machine: Joe had left his number, hoping to resume some groping he and Seth enjoyed a month or so earlier in the health club. If this seems confusing, it’s because events unravel so implausibly here, though Joe does manage to have his first big night of hot sex. The hip patois and up-to-the-minute dance track pulsing in the background can’t disguise the clichs of young love, nor explain the absurd counterplot. — Copyright ©1996, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
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Boyfriend Material
by Jon Jeffrey
Book Description From Booklist
A group of single gay men meet regularly to bemoan the lack of decent “boyfriend material.” Then one by one each finds a fellow who is part dream-boy in bed and part boyfriend-from-Hell. Carson St. John, editor of Throb, spends secret nights with a closeted married father of three. Conservative attorney Danny Kimura winds up being an official groupie to Leo Summer, lead singer of a rock group for whom he negotiates contracts, but Danny must endure decibel-splitting concerts followed by being a humiliated wallflower during on-the-road partying. Rob Cahill is a teacher whose sex-obsessed but gorgeous straight student, Brad, arranges a date for Rob with Brad’s equally yummy-looking father.
Meanwhile, Nathan, a naive young African American who manages an art gallery, winds up with a show of all-black canvases done by an arrogant, nontalented felon–not to mention a case of the crabs. So it goes, in lightweight sit-com fashion, in this predictable, but nonetheless, thoroughly enjoyable romp. Whitney Scott Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
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Revolutionary Voices: A Multicultural Queer Youth Anthology
by Amy Sonnie
Book Description
This groundbreaking, multicultural collection of stories by the queer and young should be required reading for every jaded adult–teachers, parents, politicians–and anyone who fears for the future of our country. In fact, 22-year-old editor Amy Sonnie should run for Congress. Her introduction to this touching, funny, and sometimes sad anthology is smarter and more thoughtful than any political rhetoric this old queer has heard lately.
While the work is wildly diverse (one of my favorites involves a mother who bakes a cake to help her queer daughter celebrate Ellen DeGeneres’s coming-out), all of it speaks to the isolation and fear of being queer and young. A boy lies awake at night practicing to be more masculine. An intersexed gay boy comes out to his high school. A butch girl tells of years of daily bashing. Fear, though, is not the overriding emotional tone to this collection. The contributors exhibit a belief in themselves, a well-placed youthful confidence that speaks as loudly as the most poignant writing. Their determination to survive and thrive despite a homophobic society comes through loud and clear. It’s the perfect antidote to adult cynicism about youth. –Jack Connolly (Amazon.com)
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Gay Sex Book: A Manual for Men Who Love Men (Revised)
by Jack Hart
Book Description
We live in a world obsessed with (and appalled by) sex. Open any magazine–certainly any gay male magazine–and you will find it clogged with sexualized images. But a fundamental, hardcore American puritanism still prevents open, honest, and useful discussions of sexuality. While this is true for heterosexuality, it is even more so for gay men and lesbians. Jack Hart’s Gay Sex is a fine, witty, and eminently reasonable guide to being a sexually active gay man in the world today. Like Felice Picano and Charles Silverstein’s The New Joy of Gay Sex (a classic in the field), Hart’s book is an all-purpose guide to living a sexually energetic and fulfilling life. Gay Sex gives gay men all they need to know, from tips on how to meet men (in bars, on the Net, in the street) to negotiating safe sex (from talking to finding the right condom) to dealing with relationships (be it sex-buddy or monogamous). There are also discussions on the mental-health aspects of masturbation, fantasy, dating, bondage, S/M, recreational drugs, role-playing, and general physical well-being. Hart’s writing is clear, concise, and informative; he never overloads the reader with too much scientific information or confusing detail and never adopts a patronizing or moralizing tone. By treating sex as a vital and exhilarating aspect of everyday life, he manages to both introduce these topics to the novice in unthreatening and helpful ways and inform and enlighten those who have been out and about for years. –Michael Bronski
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City of Night
by John Rechy
Book Description
This poetic, existential novel narrated by a young hustler still stands as the template for every “underground” or “transgressive” queer book written since. Dennis Cooper, good as he is, is merely this guy’s grandson.
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Drowning in Fire
by Craig S. Womack
Book Description
As a boy growing up in the Muskogee Creek Nation in Oklahoma, Josh Henneha feels inflamed and ashamed by his attraction to other boys. Lifted by his Aunt Lucille’s tales of her own wild girlhood, Josh learns to fly back through time and uncover a legacy of ceremonies and secrets he can forge into a new sense of himself. Interweaving explicit realism and dreamlike visions, Drowning in Fire explores Josh’s journey to understand his identity within the framework of his heritage.
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Out & about Campus: Personal Accounts by Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgendered College Students
by Kim Howard, Annie Stevens
Book Description
Many of the stories in Out & About Campus are as upsetting or enraging as one would imagine, given the scenario of a queer or questioning youth thrust into a historically straight institution and surrounded by other equally insecure young people. Tales of intolerant classmates and obstructive professors abound, with the usual threats of violence, gay bashings, and episodes of self-loathing. But the gradual movement toward acceptance of “diversity” on college campuses since the mid-1980s has clearly altered the social landscape. In “Sisterhood,” for instance, Stephanie J. Stillman recounts her gradual coming-out to her sorority sisters, most of whom had figured it out for themselves and none of whom condemned her as she had expected. In “Competitive College,” Ruth Wielgosz explains the informal designation of “Big Dyke on Campus” at Bryn Mawr and describes the requirements for the position (as listed in the college newspaper), which begin with “(1) Has lots of attitude, very self-confident,” then move on to “(5) Unattainable, or nearly so, (6) Many people have crushes on her, and many more feel too unworthy, and (7) Visually impressive, especially with regard to hair.” Several contributors describe their political activism on campus and their service work for other gay students. Overall, these stories provide an encouraging look at an unprecedented cultural expansion. –Regina Marler
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Black Like Us: A Century of Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual African American Fiction
by Devon Carbado, Donald Weise, Dwight A. McBride
Book Description
The definitive and most comprehensive book of 20th century African American lesbian, gay, and bisexual writing ever published.Chronicling one hundred years, Black Like Us showcases a canon of work that often falls beyond narrow parameters of African American or lesbian and gay fiction.
Beginning with the turn-of-the-century writings of Angelina Weld Grimke and Alice Dunbar-Nelson, the collection charts the literary evolution of black lesbian and gay fiction into the Harlem Renaissance of Langston Hughes and Countee Cullen and later post-war protest era, in which works by Audre Lorde, Samuel R. Delany, and James Baldwin signal the emerging sexual liberation movements.
Black Like Us also highlights outstanding contemporary works by E. Lynn Harris, Shay Youngblood, James Earl Hardy, Randall Kenan, Cheryl Clarke, Michelle Cliff, Helen Elaine Lee, Thomas Glave, Jewelle Gomez, Brian Keith Jackson and more. An extended bibliography of poets, essayists, and playwrights that includes Essex Hemphill, Lorraine Hansberry, June Jordan, George C. Wolfe, Sapphire, and Pat Parker among many others is featured.
Contains three original introductions, 36 author profiles, a foreword by Evelym C. White, and the largest bibliography of black lesbian, gay and bisexual-related writing available.
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Nightswimmer
by Joseph Olshan
Book Description From Booklist
“Nightswimmer” is the sobriquet Will Kaplan uses for his first lover, who disappeared while swimming in the Pacific with Will several years ago. Because the young man’s body was never recovered, Will has not accepted his death and has vigorously avoided emotional attachments for almost 10 years. Then he meets Sean Paris, a stunningly beautifiul landscape architect, at a friend’s apartment and falls instantly in love. Sean, too, has for years been pining away for a lost love and has also been avoiding relationships. Sean’s life is further complicated by another relationship, with a young artist who, we learn late in the novel, killed himself because Sean didn’t return his love. Readers will also come to view the term nightswimmer as a metaphor for the enigmatic mood Olshan gives this tale of three men’s search for missing love. Olshan writes with a sensitive, caring tone that imparts an extra dimension to his characters. Highly recommended for collections where gay literature is popular. Charles Harmon –This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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Reclaiming Your Life: The Gay Man’s Guide to Love, Self-Acceptance, and Trust
by Rik Isensee
Book Description
This book is an excellent way for the gay male to let go of the baggage in his life that is the basis for self-destructive behavior. Gay males all too often fail to live up to their God-given potential because we carry baggage of growing up in repressive families, schools, and communities. Rik Isensee strikes a long-forgotten chord with his self-help book, “Reclaiming Your Life,” which gives strong psychological advice to gay men who have been through just about every situation imaginable. There are scenarios presented that will ring true for some readers, and Isensee offers his unique and insightful advice on each of them, giving the reader options to overcome overbearing feelings and/or situations that would cause others to commit drastic actions. This is an excellent book in the field of self-help, and onc finished, provides an uplifting light at the end of the tunnel.
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The Shared Heart: Portraits and Stories Celebrating Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual Young People
by Adam Mastoon
Book Description
In this stirring collection of photographs and personal narratives, forty lesbian, gay, and bisexual young people share their thoughts and experiences about family, friends, culture, and coming out. Their writings reflect the soul searching, pain, and transformation they have undergone. The photographs show the faces of dynamic, thoughtful, hopeful members of our communities and world.
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My First Time: Gay Men Describe Their First Same-Sex Experience
by Jack Hart
Book Description From Ingram
Evoking the heart-pounding excitement that fuels the first trip down the road of carnal knowledge, these first-person actual accounts provide zeal and the knowledge of a gay man’s sexual experience.
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Out on Fraternity Row: Personal Accounts of Being Gay in a College Fraternity
by Shane Windmeyer, Pamela W. Freeman
Book Description
This uncompromising first-person series of accounts of life inside that traditionally homophobic institution-the college fraternity-is riveting and brutally honest. Brotherhood, friship, and a chance to belong are the promises offered to young men by campus fraternities. But what if the young man happens to be gay? Will his brothers accept him, or will he lose his friships and his community? More than 30 men join voices in this emotionally charged and important anthology to tell their individual stories of coming out or keeping silent and how this decision changed their fraternal experience, their view of themselves, and even their lives. Also included are information and educational interventions on how to deal with homophobia in the college fraternity and how to encourage the Greek system to accept openly gay members. For anyone struggling with issues of trying to belong or being true to himself, “Out on Fraternity Row will provide the comfort of knowing he is not alone.
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Gaydar: The Official Insider Guide
by Reuter F., Donald F. Reuter
Book Description
This book is funny and beautifully illustrated. But it’s not just another flip look at gay life. Rather it’s a nuanced and thoughtful examination of what makes “us” tick.
It’s great birthday or holiday gift for someone special or someone difficult to buy for.
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Tales of the City
by Armistead Maupin
Book Description
This hilarious GLBT serial-soap is as dear as a gossipy old girlfriend. Maupin’s six books, which got their start as a column in a San Francisco daily newspaper in the mid-’70s, have probably introduced more nongay readers to gay characters and situations than any other. Tales is San Francisco’s answer to Dancer >From the Dance, but it’s about a much more integrated group of people, featuring every color, class, and persuasion.
Don’t forget to check out the article Books for Anybody & Everybody for a more comprehensive list of great books to read.
If you have any suggestions or recommendations about a great book that’s worth reading, please let us know. Click on the ‘React’ icon and make your suggestions.
Équipe AlterHéros
Julie-Maude Beauchesne
François Paquette
Dee Gamme
Samuel A.
Marion Téjédor
I would simply like to recommend three of my favourite gay themed novels, which are: The World of Normal Boys by K.M. Soehnlein (an excellent coming of age story and winner of the Lambada Press award) The second and third are both written by Christopher Rice and they are titled A Density of Souls and the other is titled The Snow Garden. (They’re a little flighty but they are grabbing and very fun to read).
“Holding the Man” by Timothy Conigrave is an excellent autobiography about growing up gay – simultaneously funny, touching and bittersweet.
Also, Bruno Bouchet’s “All Sorts”, a veritable list of gay and lesbian stereotypes as seen through the eyes of a gay man, is outright hilarious.
Check those out!
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I would simply like to recommend three of my favourite gay themed novels, which are: The World of Normal Boys by K.M. Soehnlein (an excellent coming of age story and winner of the Lambada Press award) The second and third are both written by Christopher Rice and they are titled A Density of Souls and the other is titled The Snow Garden. (They’re a little flighty but they are grabbing and very fun to read).
“Holding the Man” by Timothy Conigrave is an excellent autobiography about growing up gay – simultaneously funny, touching and bittersweet.
Also, Bruno Bouchet’s “All Sorts”, a veritable list of gay and lesbian stereotypes as seen through the eyes of a gay man, is outright hilarious.
Check those out!
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