In June, the city of San Francisco – and the world – commemorates the 1969 Stonewall riots, which paved the way for the Gay Liberation Movement, with Pride events and the iconic parade, held on June 28th this year. The purpose of LGBT Pride month is to recognize the historical impacts made by lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender individuals. In honor of the contributions of these individuals to our collective cultural heritage, this month Mechanics’ Institute staff members select some of our favorite works by LGBTQ authors, about LGBTQ characters, and exploring subjects relevant to the LGBTQ community.
Chris recommends Fun Home : a family tragicomic by Alison Bechdel (741.5 B391)
Recently adapted into a successful Broadway musical, Bechdel's memoir recalls her relationship with her father, a gifted intellectual grappling with his homosexuality as a closeted man in a small town. When Alison goes off to college and comes out as gay, tensions rise back home. Both humorous and tragic, Fun Home is a brilliant coming of age story awash with literary reference and personal insight, uniquely told and illustrated.
Kevin recommends Now Is The Hour by Tom Spanbauer (FIC)
You'll get hooked on this funny, deeply moving coming-of-age tale that's not afraid to tell the messy truth about family, religion, growing up and falling in love. You could even say it's the coming-of-age, gay romance set in 1967 rural Idaho that you've been waiting for!
Taryn recommends The Drinker by Hans Fallada (FIC)
A prominent early 20th century German writer, Fallada was horribly injured as a child which marked his life with isolation, self-doubt, and crippling pain. His emerging homosexuality and society's increasing homophobia led to a bungled suicide pact and a lifelong addiction to morphine and alcohol. A gifted writer, Fallada's prose in The Drinker drags the reader deeply into the spiral of alcohol addiction……when you claw your way back to the surface you will greedily read Fallada's other books.
Heather recommends White Girls by Hilton Als (814 A461)
Hilton Als reads race, gender, and culture like a modern artist slashing paint across the canvas – or like a musician improvising beats onstage, a verbal jam that spins so fast you can barely keep up, even though you’re setting your own reading pace. And that’s just talking about style. The great Junot Díaz calls White Girls a must-read, which was why I picked it up in the first place, but then I couldn’t put it down again, even when I’d read it all. That is to say, it sticks with you. (That’s talking about content.) In these essays, you’ll find insight on identity and sexuality, exploration of voice and the acquisition of knowledge. Whether he’s writing about the over-exposed Truman Capote or the under-appreciated Henry Dumas, Als is one of those people you imagine as a thrilling IRL raconteur with a searing intellect and a sizzling tongue. That is to say, he gets under your skin, makes you think about what it’s like to live the lives of others. This is one of those books you come away from, your head so crowded with thoughts that you can hardly bear it, but still – hungry for more.
JUNE STAFF PICKS
Dorothy Allison Two or three things I know for sure
Carol Anshaw Lucky in the corner
Djuna Barnes Nightwood: the original version & related drafts Before Stonewall: activists for gay & lesbian rights in historical context
John Boswell Same-sex unions in premodern Europe
Melvin Jules Bukiet Strange fire
David Carter Stonewall: the riots that sparked the gay revolution
George Chauncey Gay New York: gender, urban culture & the making of the gay male world, 1890-1940
Sally Cline Radclyffe Hall: a woman called John
Samuel R. Delany The motion of light in water: sex & science fiction writing in the East Village, 1957-1965
Samuel R. Delany Times Square red, Times Square blue
Tom Dolby The trouble boy
Lillian Faderman Odd girls & twilight lovers: a history of lesbian life in twentieth-century America
Philip Gambone Beijing
Alan Helms Young man from the provinces: a gay life before Stonewall
Andrew Holleran The beauty of men Love makes a family: portraits of lesbian, gay, bisexual & transgender parents & their families
Paul Kafka-Gibbons Dupont Circle
Jonathan Ned Katz Love stories: sex between men before homosexuality
Elisabeth Ladenson Proust's lesbianism
David Leavitt While England sleeps
Mabel Maney The case of the good-for-nothing girlfriend: a Nancy Clue mystery
Eric Marcus Making gay history: the half-century fight for lesbian & gay equal rights
Deirdre McCloskey Crossing: a memoir
Diana McLellan The girls: Sappho goes to Hollywood
Joanne Meyerowitz How sex changed: a history of transsexuality in the United States
David Moats Civil wars: a battle for gay marriage
Achy Obejas We came all the way from Cuba so you could dress like this?: stories Pages passed from hand to hand: the hidden tradition of homosexual literature in English from 1748 to 1914
Felice Picano Like people in history
Dan Savage The kid: (what happened after my boyfriend & I decided to go get pregnant): an adoption story
Sarah Schulman Rat bohemia
Randy Shilts The mayor of Castro Street: the life & times of Harvey Milk
Alan Sinfield Out on stage: lesbian & gay theatre in the twentieth century Baby Precious always shines: selected love notes between Gertrude Stein & Alice B. Toklas
David Strah Gay dads: a celebration of gay fatherhood
Ronald Tierney Eclipse of the heart
Monique Truong The book of salt
Edmund White The burning library: writings on art, politics & sexuality 1969-1993
Edmund White The married man Wrestling with the angel: faith & religion in the lives of gay men We do: a celebration of gay & lesbian marriage
Alan Hollinghurst The line of beauty
Peter Parker Isherwood: a life revealed
Darcey Steinke Milk
Deborah Rudacille The riddle of gender: science, activism & transgender rights
Michelle Tea The beautiful: collected poems
Alan Downs The velvet rage: overcoming the pain of growing up gay in a straight man's world
Hans Fallada The drinker
Dan Savage The commitment: love, sex, marriage & my family
Aaron Hamburger Faith for beginners
Matt Houlbrook Queer London: perils & pleasures in the sexual metropolis, 1918-1957
Richard Tagett Breaking the silence: epistles Hitched!: wedding stories from San Francisco City Hall
Michelle Tea Rose of no man's land
Joe Keenan My lucky star The collected poems: with notes toward the memoirs
Tahar Ben Jelloun The last friend
Josh Kilmer-Purcell I am not myself these days: a memoir
Barry McCrea The first verse
Alison Bechdel Fun home: a family tragicomic
Tom Spanbauer Now is the hour
Lillian Faderman & Stuart Timmons Gay L.A.: a history of sexual outlaws, power politics & lipstick lesbians
Marcia M. Gallo Different daughters: a history of the Daughters of Bilitis & the rise of the lesbian rights movement
William Lipsky Gay & lesbian San Francisco Baby remember my name: an anthology of new queer girl writing
Peter Plate Soon the rest will fall
Christopher Bram Exiles in America
Michael Schiefelbein Body & blood
Michael Thomas Ford Changing tides
Catherine McCall Lifeguarding: a memoir of secrets, swimming & the South
Ali Smith Girl meets boy: the myth of Iphis
Nancy D. Polikoff Beyond (straight & gay) marriage: valuing all families under the law
Stephanie Grant Map of Ireland
Alain Claude Sulzer A perfect waiter
Timothy James Beck When you don't see me
Russell Bush Affectionate men: a photographic history of a century of male couples (1850's to 1950's)
Jill Malone Red Audrey & the roping
Stella Duffy Mouths of babes
Joanne Passet Sex variant woman: the life of Jeannette Howard Foster
Maureen Seaton Sex talks to girls: a memoir
Elinor Lipman The family man
William J. Mann Object of desire
Jack Fritscher Stonewall: stories of gay liberation
Peter Gadol Silver Lake
Edmund White City boy: my life in New York during the 1960s & 70s
Leila J. Rupp Sapphistries: a global history of love between women
Terry Castle The professor & other writings
Amie Klempnauer Miller She looks just like you: a memoir of (nonbiological lesbian) motherhood
Wendy Moffat A great unrecorded history: a new life of E.M. Forster
Carlos A. Ball From the closet to the courtroom: five LGBT rights lawsuits that have changed our nation
Stephen McCauley Insignificant others
Justin Spring Secret historian: the life & times of Samuel Steward, professor, tattoo artist & sexual renegade
Charles Higham In & out of Hollywood: a biographer's memoir
Will Fellows & Helen P. Branson Gay bar: the fabulous, true story of a daring woman & her boys in the 1950s
David Levithan Boy meets boy
Max Schaefer Children of the sun
Craig Chester Adam & Steve
Michael Sledge The more I owe you
Jodi Picoult Sing you home
Rupert Smith Man's world Gay in America
Sally Bellerose The Girls Club
Ian Holding Of beasts & beings
James C. Hormel & Erin Martin Fit to serve: reflections on a secret life, private struggle & public battle to become America's first openly gay U.S. ambassador
Meredith Maran A theory of small earthquakes
Jeanette Winterson Why be happy when you could be normal?
Kim Stanley Robinson 2312
Linda Hirshman Victory: the triumphant gay revolution
David M. Halperin How to be gay
Sarah Schulman The gentrification of the mind: witness to a lost imagination
John Rechy City of night
Madeleine George The difference between you & me
Emily M. Danforth The miseducation of Cameron Post
Virginia Woolf Orlando: a biography
Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore The end of San Francisco
Sara Farizan If you could be mine
Wally Lamb We are water
Kristin Elizabeth Clark Freakboy
Alysia Abbott Fairyland: a memoir of my father
E. M. Forster A room with a view ; Howards end ; Maurice
Hilton Als White girls
Audre Lorde Zami: a new spelling of my name
Tess Sharpe Far from you
Francine Prose Lovers at the Chameleon Club, Paris 1932
Edan Lepucki California
Suzanna Danuta Walters The tolerance trap: how God, genes & good intentions are sabotaging gay equality
Amin Ghaziani There goes the gayborhood?
Terry Mutchler Under this beautiful dome: a senator, a journalist & the politics of gay love in America
Robbie Rogers with Eric Marcus Coming out to play
Robert Beachy Gay Berlin: birthplace of a modern identity
