25 Must-Read Works of LGBT Non-Fiction
To mark the release of Choire Sicha’s much-heralded Very Recent History, a tale about a group of gay men struggling to make ends meet in New York City during the late-2000’s recession, Flavorwire has compiled a list of other must-reads for fans of LGBT non-fiction. The list comprises 25 works, including recent offerings like Christopher Bram’s witty (and one of my personal faves) Eminent Outlaws and Justin Vivian Bond’s trans-experience autobiography, Tango. A handful of classics make the cut, too, like Randy Shilts’ And the Band Played On and 1968’s The Naked Civil Servant by gay icon Quentin Crisp.
Check out the entire list below, including links to where you can buy each book from local LGBT bookstore Giovanni’s Room (you e-readers will have to do a little Google-ing). To see Flavorwire’s list, click here.
1. The Gay Metropolis: The Landmark History of Gay Life in America by Charles Kaiser
2. The Velvet Rage: Overcoming the Pain of Growing Up in a Straight Man’s World by Alan Downs
3. Before Night Falls by Reinaldo Arenas
4. Beyond Shame: Reclaiming the Abandoned History of Radical Gay Sexuality by Patrick Moore
5. A Queer History of the United States by Michael Bronski
6. Lost Prophet: The Life and Times of Bayard Rustin by John D’Emilio
7. The Gentrification of the Mind: Witness to a Lost Generation by Sarah Schulman
8. Close to the Knives: A Memoir of Disintegration by David Wojnarowicz
9. And the Band Played On: Politics, People, and the AIDS Epidemic by Randy Shilts
10. Beyond Paradise: The Life of Ramon Novarro by André Soares
11. Eminent Outlaws: The Gay Writers Who Changed America by Christopher Bram
12. Covering: The Hidden Assault on Our Civil Rights by Kenji Yoshino
13. Sister Outsider by Audre Lorde
14. Dreadful: The Short Life and Gay Times of John Horne Burns by David Margolick
15. Tango: My Childhood, Backward and in High Heels by Justin Vivian Bond
16. Fun Home by Alison Bechdel
17. Ceremonies by Essex Hemphill
18. Queer and Loathing: Rants and Raves of a Raging AIDS Clone by David B. Feinberg
19. Gender Outlaw: On Men, Women, and the Rest of Us by Kate Bornstein
20. The Naked Civil Servant by Quentin Crisp
21. Secret Historian: The Life and Times of Samuel Steward, Professor, Tattoo Artist, and Sexual Renegade by Justin Spring
22. Gay New York: Gender, Urban Culture, and the Making of the Gay Male World, 1890-1940 by George Chauncy
23. Real Man Adventures by T Cooper
24. The Trouble with Normal: Sex, Politics, and the Ethics of Queer Life by Michael Warner
25. Borderlands / La Frontera: The New Mestiza by Gloria Anzaldua
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