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Gay Sex, Gay Health: All You Need to Know About Gay Sex and Sexual Health
by Dr Alex VassWith rates of sexually transmitted infections, including HIV, and sexual problems at an all time high Gay Sex, Gay Health is essential reading for all gay men, with informed advice on sexual, physical and emotional problems, including practising safe sex and taking responsibility for oneself. Serious and authoritative in tone but also upbeat and informal in style, the book also includes sections on gay sex and variations in sexual activities, recreational drugs associated with gay sex and up-to-date statistics and case studies.
Gender Panic, Gender Policy (Advances in Gender Research #24)
by Vasilikie Demos Marcia Texler SegalUsing diverse theories and methods including analysis of online data, feminist critical discourse, fieldwork, grounded theory, and queer theory, this edited volume explores gender panic and policy in the United States as well as Argentina, Australia, Belarus, Japan, Russia, Sweden, and subnational populations. Contributors consider a range of issues from the meaning of learning to play the traditional female role in order to develop a contemporary heteronormative romantic relationship to the difficulties of fairly accommodating non-binary people in traditionally gendered settings or the problem of implementing a gender-neutral rape law in a prison system that is structurally gendered. Gendered policies pertaining, particularly, to women and their fertility as a result of panics over low birthrates are explored as are issues relating to the validation of and problems with binary gender categories in elite sports. The impact of UN gender equality initiatives including LGBT equality on nation-states is also examined.
Loaded
by Christos TsiolkasAri is nineteen, Greek, gay, unemployed, looking for something - anything - to take him away from his aimless existence in suburban Melbourne. Torn between the traditional Greek world of his parents and friends and the alluring, destructive world of clubs and drugs and anonymous sex, all Ari can do is ease his pain in the only way he knows how.Christos Tsiolkas' The Slap became an international bestseller and was longlisted for the Booker Prize in 2009. This is his sensational first novel.
Devil in Disguise
by Julian ClaryHow far would you go for fame and fortune?Would you change your name?Change your personality?Reveal your inner drag queen?Betray your friends?Would you kill?Fab, filthy and funny, Julian Clary's Devil in Disguise is a tale of friendship, celebrity and the lengths people will go to for both...
Straight
by Boy GeorgeFrom his days as a club face alongside Philip Sallon, Marilyn and Steve Strange, through the years of global pop superstardom with Culture Club, his rebirth as a world-class DJ, as a leading light of musical theatre with the award-winning Taboo, a cutting edge photographer and a confrontational and acclaimed fashion designer, one of the many things you can say about George is: he's never stood still.It's been one hell of a trip. A decade and a half ago, George was coming to terms with the fall-out from serious drug addiction, the failure of his relationship with Jon Moss and the collapse of Culture Club.For lesser men this would have been the end but for George it became the start of a period of remarkable reinvention.Told with George's trademark biting wit, brutal honesty and sparkling insight, this book reveals the whole story, reappraising his rise to stardom and all the madness that followed.He talks about his solo singing career, his initiation into the dance music scene, and his role as the driving force behind theatrical sensation Taboo.George also discusses the achievement of the apparently impossible task of reuniting the famously fractious Culture Club.It is only now, many years on from the glittering, glossy Eighties, that George makes an insightful and often hilarious assessment of the impact of that extraordinary era.
The Mad Boy, Lord Berners, My Grandmother And Me: An Aristocratic Family, A High-society Scandal And An Extraordinary Legacy
by Sofka ZinovieffFaringdon House in Oxfordshire was the home of Lord Berners, composer, writer, painter, friend of Stravinsky and Gertrude Stein, a man renowned for his eccentricity – masks, practical jokes, a flock of multi-coloured doves – and his homosexuality. Before the war he made Faringdon an aesthete’s paradise, where exquisite food was served to many of the great minds, beauties and wits of the day. Since the early thirties his companion there was Robert Heber-Percy, twenty-eight years his junior, wildly physical, unscholarly, a hothead who rode naked through the grounds, loved cocktails and nightclubs, and was known to all as the Mad Boy. If the two men made an unlikely couple, at a time when homosexuality was illegal, the addition to the household in 1942 of a pregnant Jennifer Fry, a high society girl known to be ‘fast’, as Robert’s wife was simply astounding.After Victoria was born the marriage soon foundered (Jennifer later married Alan Ross). Berners died in 1950, leaving Robert in charge of Faringdon, aided by a ferocious Austrian housekeeper who strove to keep the same culinary standards in a more austere age. This was the world Sofka Zinovieff, Victoria’s daughter, a typical child of the sixties, first encountered at the age of seventeen. Eight years later, to her astonishment, Robert told her he was leaving her Faringdon House.Her book about Faringdon and its people is marvellously witty and full of insight, bringing to life a vanished world and the almost fantastical people who lived in it.
Hockney: A Pilgrim's Progress
by Christopher Simon SykesIn this fascinating and entertaining second volume, Christopher Sykes explores the life and work of Britain's most popular living artist. David Hockney's career has spanned and epitomised the art movements of the past five decades. Volume 1 covered his early life: his precocious achievement at Bradford Art College and the Swinging 60s in London, where he befriended many of the iconic cultural figures of the generation. Picking up Hockney's story in 1975, this volume finds him flitting between Notting Hill and California, where he took inspiration for the swimming pool series of paintings; creating the acclaimed set designs for operas around the world; and embracing emerging technologies – the camera and fax machine in the 1970s and 80s, and most recently the iPad. Hockney's boundless energy extends to his personal life too, and this volume illuminates the glamorous circles he moved in, as well as his sometimes turbulent relationships.With unprecedented access to Hockney's paintings, notebooks, diaries and the man himself, this second volume continues the lively and revelatory account of an acclaimed artist and an extraordinary man.
Becoming Drusilla: One Life, Two Friends, Three Genders
by Richard BeardFor years Richard Beard would take spontaneous holidays with his motor-cycling friend Drew. They would spend a few days walking, camping, cycling, canoeing - outdoor, manly fun - before returning to everyday life: wives, children, jobs. Richard was writing novels. Drew was working in the engine-room of cross-channel passenger ferries. Then one year Drew phoned to announce a complication: he was planning to have a sex change. This is the story of how Drew became Dru, of what happened to their friendship, and their adventures in wildest Wales the first time they went camping as man and woman. It is warm, sad, funny; an intimate tale of shared humanity.
Briefs Encountered
by Julian ClaryWhoever said the afterlife would be easy...?The new inhabitants of an old house in deepest darkest Kent are about to discover the previous owner – a certain Mr Noël Coward – never quite left the building...A wickedly dark ghost story about love, scandals and things that go bump in the night.
Olivia: A Novel
by Dorothy StracheyWhen Olivia turns sixteen she is sent to a Parisian finishing school to broaden her education. Soon after her arrival, she finds herself falling under the spell of her beautiful and charismatic teacher. But Madamoiselle Julie's life is not as straightforward as Olivia imagines and the school year is destined to end abruptly in tragedy.
My Story: My Story
by Dale WintonFor over 25 years, Dale Winton (1955-2018) was one of Britain's most popular stars.His warm and winning ways made him one of Britain's most popular and powerful personalities on TV, radio and with live audiences everywhere – but Dale's life was far from perfect.The story of his private life was traumatic and eventful, a tale of childhood insecurity, poverty and heartbreaking family tragedy – but also courage, commitment and strength. In this emotional, heartfelt book, Dale discusses the problems, the pain and the personalities of a life lived to the full in the mad world of showbusiness – as well as his plastic surgery, his lifelong battle with his weight, and the complicated truth about his sexuality.Rawest and most affecting is his honest account of his relationship with his parents, his bullying father who died on the day of Dale’s bar mitzvah – but particularly his close relationship with his troubled mother, whose struggle with depression ended with her taking her own life, her body found by Dale just days after his 21st birthday.With an eye to the future as well as his fascinating past, Dale Winton's autobiography will make compelling reading for millions, testament to the legacy of one of Britain's great entertainers.
The Road Between Us
by Nigel Farndale1939: In a hotel room overlooking Piccadilly Circus, two young men are arrested. Charles is court-martialled for ‘conduct unbecoming’; Anselm is deported home to Germany for ‘re-education’ in a brutal labour camp. Separated by the outbreak of war, and a social order that rejects their love, they must each make a difficult choice, and then live with the consequences. 2012: Edward, a diplomat held hostage for eleven years in an Afghan cave, returns to London to find his wife is dead, and in her place is an unnerving double – his daughter, now grown up. Numb with grief, he attempts to re-build his life and answer the questions that are troubling him. Was his wife’s death an accident? Who paid his ransom? And how was his release linked to Charles, his father? As dark and nuanced as it is powerful and moving, The Road Between Us is a novel about survival, redemption and forbidden love. Its moral complexities will haunt the reader for days after the final page has been turned.
The Miseducation of Cameron Post
by Emily DanforthNow a major motion picture starring Chloë Grace Moretz * Sundance Grand Jury Prize Winner"LGBTQ cinema is out in force at Sundance Film Festival," proclaimed USA Today. "The acerbic coming-of-age movie is adapted from Emily M. Danforth's novel, and stars Chloë Grace Moretz as a lesbian teen who is sent to a gay conversion therapy center after she gets caught having sex with her friend on prom night."---------- 'If Holden Caulfield had been a gay girl from Montana, this is the story he might have told-it's funny, heartbreaking, and beautifully rendered' Curtis Sittenfeld, bestselling author of Prep and American Wife 'An important book - one that can change lives' Jacqueline Woodson, award-winning author of Brown Girl Dreaming ----------The night Cameron Post's parents died, her first emotion was relief. Relief they would never know that hours earlier, she'd been kissing a girl.Now living with her conservative Aunt in small-town Montana, hiding her sexuality and blending in becomes second nature to Cameron until she begins an intense friendship with the beautiful Coley Taylor.Desperate to 'correct' her niece, Cameron's Aunt takes drastic action.Now Cameron must battle with the cost of being her true-self even if she's not completely sure who that is. The Miseducation of Cameron Post is a stunning and unforgettable literary debut about discovering who you are and finding the courage to live life according to your own rules.Don't miss this raw and powerful own voices debut, the basis for the award-winning film starring Chloë Grace Moretz.----------Praise for The Miseducation of Cameron Post: 'Danforth's narrative of a bruised young woman finding her feet in a complicated world is a tremendous achievement: strikingly unsentimental, and full of characters who feel entirely rounded and real . . . An inspiring read' Sarah Waters, author of Tipping the Velvet and Fingersmith "Rich with detail and emotion, a sophisticated read for teens and adults alike." Kirkus starred review'The story is riveting, beautiful, and full of the kind of detail that brings to life a place (rural Montana), a time (the early 1990s), and a questioning teenage girl' Publishers Weekly starred review
We Are All Made of Molecules
by Susin NielsenMeet Stewart. He’s geeky, gifted and sees things a bit differently to most people. His mum has died and he misses her all the more now he and Dad have moved in with Ashley and her mum.Meet Ashley. She’s popular, cool and sees things very differently to her new family. Her dad has come out and moved out – but not far enough. And now she has to live with a freakazoid step-brother.Stewart can’t quite fit in at his new school, and Ashley can’t quite get used to her totally awkward home, which is now filled with some rather questionable decor. And things are about to get a whole lot more mixed up when these two very different people attract the attention of school hunk Jared. . .
The Way Back Home
by Allan StrattonZoe Bird is going nowhere fast. She’s angry and lonely, and her only true friend is her granny, whose Alzheimer’s is worsening. When her parents put Granny in a home, Zoe decides now is the time to break free. She smuggles Granny out and together they hit the tracks on a cross-country trip to find Zoe’s long-lost uncle. But there will be some home truths along the way. . .An emotional story about family, surviving school and being true to yourself for fans of The Art of Being Normal and Unbecoming.
Troublemakers
by Catherine BarterShortlisted for the Waterstones Children's Book Prize 2018Nominated for the CILIP Carnegie Medal 2018Longlisted for the Branford Boase Award 2018In three years I will be able to vote and I will still have less power than I did at the moment that I saw that email, which was such a tiny thing but look what happened.Fifteen-year-old Alena never really knew her political activist mother, who died when she was a baby. She has grown up with her older half-brother Danny and his boyfriend Nick in the east end of London. Now the area is threatened by a bomber who has been leaving explosive devices in supermarkets. It is only a matter of time before a bomb goes off. Against this increasingly fearful backdrop, Alena seeks to discover more about her past, while Danny takes a job working for a controversial politician. As her family life implodes, and the threat to Londoners mounts, Alena starts getting into trouble. Then she does something truly rebellious.A searing, heartbreaking coming-of-age tale for fans of Lisa Williamson, Jenny Downham and Sarah Crossan.
The Animals: Love Letters between Christopher Isherwood and Don Bachardy
by Christopher Isherwood Don BachardyChristopher Isherwood was a celebrated English writer when he met the Californian teenager Don Bachardy on a Santa Monica beach in 1952. They spent their first night together on Valentine’s Day 1953. Defying the conventions, the two men began living as an openly gay couple in an otherwise closeted Hollywood. The Animals provides a loving testimony of an extraordinary relationship that lasted until Chris’s death in 1986 – and survived affairs (on both sides) and a thirty-year-age-gap.In romantic letters to one another, the couple created the private world of the Animals. Chris was Dobbin, a stubborn old workhorse; Don was the playful young white cat, Kitty. But Don needed to carve out his own identity – some of their longest sequences of letters were exchanged during his trips to London and New York, to pursue his career as an artist and to widen his emotional and sexual horizons.Amidst the intimate domestic dramas, we learn of Isherwood’s continuing literary success –the royalty cheques from Cabaret, the acclaim for his pioneering novel A Single Man – and the bohemian whirl of Californian film suppers and beach life. Don, whose portraits of London theatreland were making his name, attends the world premiere of The Innocents with Truman Capote and afterwards dines with Deborah Kerr and the rest of the cast, spends weekends with Tennessee Williams, Cecil Beton, or the Earl and Countess of Harewood, and tours Egypt and Greece with a new love interest. But whatever happens in the outside world, Dobbin and Kitty always return to their ‘Basket’ and to each other. Candid, gossipy, exceptionally affectionate, The Animals is a unique interplay between two creative spirits, confident in their mutual devotion.
Queer City: Gay London from the Romans to the Present Day
by Peter Ackroyd*** A Sunday Times Bestseller ***In Roman Londinium the city was dotted with lupanaria (‘wolf dens’ or public pleasure houses), fornices (brothels) and thermiae (hot baths). Then came the Emperor Constantine, with his bishops, monks and missionaries. And so began an endless loop of alternating permissiveness and censure.Ackroyd takes us right into the hidden history of the city; from the notorious Normans to the frenzy of executions for sodomy in the early nineteenth century. He journeys through the coffee bars of sixties Soho to Gay Liberation, disco music and the horror of AIDS.Today, we live in an era of openness and tolerance and Queer London has become part of the new norm. Ackroyd tells us the hidden story of how it got there, celebrating its diversity, thrills and energy on the one hand; but reminding us of its very real terrors, dangers and risks on the other.
The End of Eddy
by Mr Edouard Louis Michael Lucey‘A brilliant novel… courageous, necessary and deeply touching’ GuardianÉdouard Louis grew up in a village in northern France where many live below the poverty line. His bestselling debut novel about life there, The End of Eddy, has sparked debate on social inequality, sexuality and violence.It is an extraordinary portrait of escaping from an unbearable childhood, inspired by the author’s own. Written with an openness and compassionate intelligence, ultimately, it asks, how can we create our own freedom?‘A mesmerising story about difference and adolescence’ New York Times‘Édouard Louis…is that relatively rare thing – a novelist with something to say and a willingness to say it, without holding back’ The Times‘Louis’ book has become the subject of political discussion in a way that novels rarely do’ Garth Greenwell, New Yorker
Physical
by Andrew McMillanWinner of the 2015 Guardian First Book AwardWinner of the 2015 Fenton Aldeburgh First Collection Prize Shortlisted for the 2015 Costa Poetry PrizeShortlisted for the 2015 Forward Prize for Best First CollectionRaw and urgent, these poems are hymns to the male body – to male friendship and male love – muscular, sometimes shocking, but always deeply moving. We are witness here to an almost religious celebration of the flesh: a flesh vital with the vulnerability of love and loss, to desire and its departure. In an extraordinary blend of McMillan’s own colloquial Yorkshire rhythms with a sinewy, Metaphysical music and Thom Gunn’s torque and speed – ‘your kiss was deep enough to stand in’ – the poems in this first collection confront what it is to be a man and interrogate the very idea of masculinity. This is poetry where every instance of human connection, from the casual encounter to the intimate relationship, becomes redeemable and revelatory. Dispensing with conventional punctuation, the poet is attentive and alert to the quality of breathing, giving the work an extraordinary sense of being vividly poised and present – drawing lines that are deft, lyrical and perfectly pitched from a world of urban dereliction. An elegant stylist and unfashionably honest poet, McMillan’s eye and ear are tuned, exactly, to both the mechanics of the body and the miracles of the heart.
The Well of Loneliness (Penguin Modern Classics Series)
by Radclyffe HallThe complete and enhanced editionThis edition contains extra information and archival material that tells the fascinating story behind The Well's controversial publication, trial and ban in 1928.As a little girl Stephen Gordon always felt different. A talent for sport, a hatred of dresses and a preference for solitude were not considered suitable for a young lady of the Victorian upper-class. But when Stephen grows up and falls passionately in love with another woman, her standing in the county and her place at the home she loves become untenable. Stephen must set off to discover whether there is anywhere in the world that will have her.
Rubyfruit Jungle: Crónica De Mi Vida Lesbiana (La\llave La Tengo Yo Ser.)
by Rita Mae BrownWITH AN INTRODUCTION BY RITA MAE BROWNMolly Bolt is a young lady with a big character. Beautiful, funny and bright, Molly figures out at a young age that she will have to be tough to stay true to herself in 1950s America. In her dealings with boyfriends and girlfriends, in the rocky relationship with her mother and in her determination to pursue her career, she will fight for her right to happiness. Charming, proud and inspiring, Molly is the girl who refuses to be put in a box.
Logical Family: A Memoir
by Armistead Maupin'A sweet, filthy peach of a memoir from a cultural explosion of a man.'CAITLIN MORANBorn in the mid-twentieth century and raised in the heart of conservative North Carolina, Armistead Maupin lost his virginity to another man “on the very spot where the first shots of the Civil War were fired.” Realizing that the South was too small for him, this son of a traditional lawyer packed his earthly belongings into his Opel GT (including a beloved portrait of a Confederate ancestor), and took to the road in search of adventure. It was a journey that would lead him from a homoerotic Navy initiation ceremony in the jungles of Vietnam to that strangest of strange lands: San Francisco in the early 1970s. Reflecting on the profound impact those closest to him have had on his life, Maupin shares his candid search for his “logical family,” the people he could call his own. "Sooner or later, we have to venture beyond our biological family to find our logical one, the one that actually makes sense for us,” he writes. “We have to, if we are to live without squandering our lives." From his loving relationship with his palm-reading Grannie who insisted Maupin was the reincarnation of her artistic bachelor cousin, Curtis, to an awkward conversation about girls with President Richard Nixon in the Oval Office, Maupin tells of the extraordinary individuals and situations that shaped him into one of the most influential writers of the last century.Maupin recalls his losses and life-changing experiences with humor and unflinching honesty, and brings to life flesh-and-blood characters as endearing and unforgettable as the vivid, fraught men and women who populate his enchanting novels. What emerges is an illuminating portrait of the man who depicted the liberation and evolution of America’s queer community over the last four decades with honesty and compassion—and inspired millions to claim their own lives.
Good As You: From Prejudice to Pride – 30 Years of Gay Britain
by Paul Flynn‘One of the most important books about gay culture in recent times’ The QuietusLong-listed for the Polari First Book PrizeIn 1984 the pulsing electronics and soft vocals of Smalltown Boy would become an anthem uniting gay men. A month later, an aggressive virus, HIV, would be identified and a climate of panic and fear would spread across the nation, marginalising an already ostracised community. Yet, out of this terror would come tenderness and 30 years later, the long road to gay equality would climax with the passing of same sex marriage.Paul Flynn charts this astonishing pop cultural and societal U-turn via the cultural milestones that effected change—from Manchester’s self-selection as Britain’s gay capital to the real-time romance of Elton John and David Furnish’s eventual marriage. Including candid interviews from major protagonists, such as Kylie, Russell T Davies, Will Young, Holly Johnson and Lord Chris Smith, as well as the relative unknowns crucial to the gay community, we see how an unlikely group of bedfellows fought for equality both front of stage and in the wings.This is the story of Britain’s brothers, cousins and sons. Sometimes it is the story of their fathers and husbands. It is one of public outrage and personal loss, the (not always legal) highs and the desperate lows, and the final collective victory as gay men were final recognised, as Good As You.
The Importance of Being Earnest and Other Plays: Salome; Lady Windermere's Fan (Oxford World's Classics)
by Oscar WildeWho would have thought a comedy of manners written more than a hundred years ago would still be so apt and so funny? Oscar Wilde was a genius of play-writing, and his deftness, wit and sharp eye for social satire keep audiences in thrall to this day. Alongside Earnest, discover a biblical tragedy retold, Lady Windemere and her infamous fan and Wilde's take on an ideal husband, in this selection of Wilde's most important plays.