Collection: Biography & Memoir

Bronze Winner for the 2017 Independent Publisher Book Awards in the category of Gay/Lesbian/Bi/Trans Non-Fiction

Foregrounding the voices of transgender and non-binary people, this honest and insightful book is a compilation of the voices of those who have decided to undergo transition - both male-to-female and female-to-male. Drawing on over one hundred interviews with individuals, the book details the diverse experiences and challenges faced by those who transition, exploring a range of topics such as hormone treatments; reassignment surgeries; coming out; sex and sexuality; physical, emotional and mental health; transphobia; discrimination; and hate crime, as well as highlighting the lives of non-binary individuals and those who cross-dress to form a wider understanding of the varied ways in which people experience gender.

This powerful book is an ideal introduction to those keen to understand more about contemporary trans issues as well as those questioning their own gender identity.

"Some children are born into the world and are home as soon as they come Earthside. Others spend their lifetimes searching for a home, a place to belong, a place where they are safe. I am one of those children."

After running away from residential school, Bernard Andreason and his two best friends begin a harrowing 130-kilometre journey from Inuvik to Tuktoyaktuk, one which only Bernard would survive. In this heartbreaking and beautifully told graphic memoir, Bernard recounts his time in residential school and the tragic journey that took the lives of his two best friends. We then follow Bernard as he returns home, haunted by his past and struggling to find his place. Despite enduring more challenges into adulthood, Bernard never stops pursuing healing and higher learning, and he finds a support network that helps him. His story shows us that the possibility of finding a safe and loving home exists, and it is something every child deserves.

Mangilaluk is an extraordinarily affecting new addition to Qinuisaarniq ("resiliency"), a collection of books created to educate readers about the history and impacts of residential schools.

Over the years, many things have been written about him. The scandals, love affairs, the lies, the backstage feuds.

Stories from social media, TMZ, Der Spiegel, Le Monde, The Sun, Page 6, National Enquirer, et. al.

Here, star of stage, screen, and roadside café, BRYAN MURPHY, the boy from Brooklyn, finally sets the record straight. In his own words.

The first oral biography of John F. Kennedy Jr. is an extraordinarily intimate, comprehensive look at the real man behind the myth. Sharing never-before-told stories and insights, his closest friends, confidantes, lovers, classmates, teachers, and colleagues paint a vivid portrait of one of the most beloved figures of the 20th century, revealing how the boy who saluted became the man America came to know and love who still captures public imagination twenty-five years after his tragic death.

Born into the spotlight, John F. Kennedy Jr. lived a short but remarkable life filled with expectation, ambition, family pressures, love, and tragedy. JFK Jr. dives deep into his complicated psyche and explores the what-ifs, illuminating both the cultural and political moment he inhabited and the way this son of a president, so full of promise and possibility, embodied America's most cherished hopes.

Stacey Abrams is a lawyer, entrepreneur, and voting rights activist. After working in government, she founded Fair Fight Action to improve voting access. Learn about Abrams's early life and what she plans to do next.

In Anima, Kapka Kassabova introduces us to the "pastiri" people--the shepherds struggling to hold on to an ancient way of life in which humans and animals exist in profound interdependence. Following her three previous books set in the Balkans, and with an increasinging interest in the degraded state of our planet and culture, Kassabova reaches further into the spirit of place than she ever has before. In this extraordinary portrayal of pastoral life, she investigates the heroic efforts to sustain the oldest surviving breeds of our domesticated animals, and she shows us the epic, orchestrated activity of transhumance--the seasonal movement, on foot, of a vast herd of sheep, working in tandem with dogs. She also becomes more and more attuned to the isolation and sacrifices inherent in the lives shaped by this work.

Weaving together lyrical writing about place with a sweeping sense of the traumatic histories that have shaped this mountainous region of Bulgaria, Kassabova shows how environmental change and industrial capitalism are endangering older, sustainable ways of living, and by extension she reveals the limited nature of so much of modern life. But shining through Kassabova's passionate, intimate response to the monoculture that is "Anthropos" is her indelible portrait of a circulating interdependence of people and animals that might point to a healthier way to live.

The internationally bestselling therapy memoir translated by International Booker Prize shortlisted Anton Hur.

PSYCHIATRIST: So how can I help you?

ME: I don't know, I'm-what's the word-depressed? Do I have to go into detail?

Baek Sehee is a successful young social media director at a publishing house when she begins seeing a psychiatrist about her-what to call it?-depression? She feels persistently low, anxious, endlessly self-doubting, but also highly judgmental of others. She hides her feelings well at work, but the effort is exhausting, overwhelming, and keeps her from forming deep relationships. This can't be normal. But if she's so hopeless, why can she always summon a desire for her favorite street food: the hot, spicy rice cake, tteokbokki? Is this just what life is like?

Recording her dialogues with her psychiatrist over a twelve-week period, and expanding on each session with her own reflective micro-essays, Baek begins to disentangle the harmful behaviors that keep her locked in a cycle of self-abuse. Part memoir, part self-help book, I Want to Die but I Want to Eat Tteokbokki is a book to keep close and to reach for in times of darkness.

Featuring the life of former NASA astronaut, engineer, and physician Mae Jemison, the second title in the new Black History Heroes children's book series.

From Stanford and Cornell to the Peace Corps and from a trip on the space shuttle to an appearance on Start Trek, Mae Jemison's life continues to feature the hard work and dedication to science, healthcare, and care for others that brought her to the highest levels of a career in science. Written by former pro-baseball player, inspirational speaker, and author Chris Singleton.

An inspiration to millions, the life of Mae Jemison is indeed proof that Black History Heroes.

Black History Heroes shares the lives and inspirations of black men and women who changed the world,
yesterday, today, and for tomorrow.

Terrell and Jarius' are a beautiful couple you see online every day. They met during their freshman year of college at a haunted house, and soon realized they could not live without each other. Soon, the couple became famous for sharing their love story via social media and now, they live and work together as content creators, activists, and social media stars. Before these gorgeous people became highly sought-after brand ambassadors, they kept their whole relationship a secret. Now as major Influencers in the LGBTQ+ space, they are writing a book to show all the major obstacles that have allowed them to achieve their dream life today. Through prejudice, marriage, disappointments, loss, secrecy, parenthood, and adversity, the couple shows that despite what you think, love is what makes all their dreams come true.

Love Out Loud shares the couple's love through their private moments of embracing who they are as individuals, as a couple, and as a family unit, and truly how beautiful those moments can be. Love Out Loud is about love, relationships, and surviving through storms together no matter what is thrown at you. The two men share the life they have dreamed about and how they achieved it despite societal pressures around them. Through personal anecdotes, the two offer the powerful lessons that they only could have learned on their distinct as gay, black men, they have tremendous empathy that comes across on screen that translates to nuclear and alternative families alike.

A mesmeric, harrowing and uplifting childhood memoir that will open up much-needed conversations about identity and mental health

It was an ordinary day in 2016. In Gatwick Airport, Jonathan and his wife Anna were having breakfast with their two little children while waiting for their flight to be called. And then it happened, a familiar sensation that Jonathan hadn't had for decades: an out-of-body experience that transported him to another place, the safe place he used to escape to in his mind when he was a boy.

Because growing up in conservative 1980s Dublin, where there was little tolerance for children who were "different", Jonathan Joly was, indeed, a different sort of child: creative, expressive, and - on the inside - a girl. The limitations of the people around him to understand his differences led to years of tyrannical bullying and abuse, forcing him to withdraw within himself to the point of clinical absence. His only chance for survival was the inner world he created for himself, rich with loving and supportive friends and playmates, that only he could see. Jonathan's invisible friends were his lifeline, and on that day at the airport, they came flooding back, and have remained with him to this day.

This extraordinary childhood memoir is not only an important, thought-provoking and exhilarating read, it gives hope and community for all those who have ever felt 'other', and proves how vital it is to provide children with the safe space to be themselves.

In All My Friends are Invisible, Jonathan Joly, known widely as one of social media's most successful content creators, shares the secret he's kept hidden these many years. He shows the beautiful world he retreated to time and time again when life was unbearable for his "skin machine". Most importantly, he introduces us to his invisible friends, and in so doing you may be transported back to the friends you had as a child that no one else could see, and who may have saved you, too.

"When you find yourself living in a world that doesn't understand you, and you lack any connection to anyone or any place, you are faced with few options. You can choose to leave this world and hope whatever lies beyond ends up being better, or you can create your own. It will require grit, hardship, pain and suffering, but the rewards will be great, and the journey will be greater, and the adventures will be endless. So, at a very young age and faced with these options, I chose the latter."

All My Friends are Invisible will be one of the most talked about books of 2022.

"A searching memoir . . . A subtle, expertly written repudiation of the American dream in favor of something more inclusive and more realistic."--Kirkus, starred review

There are many Pedros living in many Americas . . .

One Pedro goes to a school where they take away his language. Another disappears in the desert, leaving behind only a backpack. A cousin Pedro comes to visit, awakening feelings that others are afraid to make plain. A rumored Pedro goes missing so completely it's as if he were never there.

In Pedro's Theory Marcos Gonsalez explores the lives of these many Pedros, real and imagined. Several are the author himself, while others are strangers, lovers, archetypes, and the men he might have been in other circumstances. All are journeying to some sort of Promised Land, or hoping to discover an America of their own.

With sparkling prose and cutting insights, this brilliant literary debut closes the gap between who the world sees in us and who we see in ourselves. Deeply personal yet inspiringly political, it also brings to life those selves that never get the chance to be seen at all.

Relates the story of Raleigh from his boyhood days on the coast of Devonshire, to his exploits in Ireland and his unexpected entry into the court of Queen Elizabeth. We travel with him as he pursues the ships of the Spanish Armada and makes voyages to the New World in search of gold and lands to settle. We see his efforts come to naught and hear how he is relegated to the Tower of London where he spends the last years of his life. Includes the fabled story of the velvet cloak and the role Raleigh played in introducing potatoes and tobacco to the Old World. One of the volumes in the highly acclaimed Children's Heroes series, first published at the beginning of the last century. Suitable for ages 8 and up.

'I read the book in one go. I laughed and cried like a baby, and was transported back to a time of innocence, clouded by the enormity of the harsh reality . . . Just amazing' CATHERINE ZETA JONES

'As it happens, I was also a Jill in the eighties - but not half as good a Jill as real Jill' DAWN FRENCH

'Jill met the crisis head on . . . She held the hands of so many men. She lost them, and remembered them, and somehow kept going' RUSSELL T DAVIES

A heartbreaking, life-affirming memoir of love, loss and cabaret through the AIDS crisis, from IT'S A SIN's Jill Nalder

When Jill Nalder arrived at drama school in London in the early 1980s, she was ready for her life to begin. With her band of best friends - of which many were young, talented gay men with big dreams of their own - she grabbed London by the horns: partying with drag queens at the Royal Vauxhall Tavern, hosting cabarets at her glamorous flat, flitting across town to any jobs she could get.

But soon rumours were spreading from America about a frightening illness being dubbed the 'gay flu', and Jill and her friends now found their formerly carefree existence under threat.

In this moving memoir, IT'S A SIN's Jill Nalder tells the true story of her and her friends' lives during the AIDS crisis -- juggling a busy West End career while campaigning for AIDS awareness and research, educating herself and caring for the sick. Most of all, she shines a light on those who were stigmatised and shamed, and remembers those brave and beautiful boys who were lost too soon.

'Thank God for people like [Jill] . . . I cannot recommend this book highly enough' MICHAEL BALL

'An engaging, moving account' TIMES SATURDAY REVIEW

'Simultaneously devastating and uplifting' GRAZIA

'Engrossing, heart-breaking and inspiring' MATT CAIN

A stunning lyrical commentary on the constructions of race, gender, and class in the fraught nexus of a Black woman's personal experience and cultural history

The Fair Housing Act passed in 1968, and more than fifty years later, yours is seemingly the only Black family on your block in Minneapolis. You and your Black African husband, both college graduates, make less money than some white people with a felony record and no high school diploma. You're the only Black student in your graduate program. You just aren't working hard enough. You're too sensitive. Sandra Bland? George Floyd? Don't take everything so personally. Amid the white smiles of Minnesota Nice and the Minnesota Paradox--the insidious racism of an ostensibly inclusive place to live--what do you do? If you're Taiyon J. Coleman, you write.

In Traveling without Moving, Coleman shares intimate essays from her life: her childhood in Chicago--growing up in poverty with four siblings and a single mother--and the empowering decision to leave her first marriage. She writes about being the only Black student in a prestigious and predominantly white creative writing program, about institutional racism and implicit bias in writing instruction, about the violent legacies of racism in the U.S. housing market, about the maternal health disparities seen across the country and their implication in her own miscarriage. She explores what it means to write her story and that of her family--an act at once a responsibility and a privilege--bringing forth the inherent contradictions between American ideals and Black reality.

Using a powerful blend of perspectives that move between a first-person lens of lived experience and a wider-ranging critique of U.S. culture, policy, and academia, Coleman's writing evinces how a Black woman in America is always on the run, always Harriet Tubman, traveling with her babies in tow, seeking safety, desperate to survive, thrive, and finally find freedom.

A history of aging in the United States and an innovative blueprint for revolutionizing care for older adults from Northwell Health, New York's largest health care system.

The New York Times described Dr. Robert Butler as "the man who saw old age anew." In his 1975 book Why Survive: Being Old in America, Butler argued that for far too many people old age was "a period of quiet despair . . . and muted rage" and he set out to mitigate it. Nearly five decades since he penned his book, a devoted band of brilliant physicians and others in the healthcare field have realized at least a portion of Butler's dream: to recognize and alleviate suffering among the aging.

The Aging Revolution is the story of Butler and his disciples: women and men who saw older distressed adults in hospitals and homes, and worse: being ignored by most of the medical establishment. These revolutionaries could not ignore the suffering, and they set out--individually and collectively--to create entirely new ways of caring for aging adults to ease their suffering and improve their quality and length of life.

This revelatory book tells a story never-before told in its entirety, recounting the one of the most significant periods of improvement in American medical history. Readers will learn about pioneering individuals, concepts, and ideas that have improved the lives of millions, including: the women who placed the spotlight on delirium and falls--major issues for older adults; the campaign to build and spread Geriatric and Palliative Care; the small bands of doctors who worked the halls of Congress to create a new program that provides primary care along with home visits from healthcare professionals; and the New York-based foundation that has devoted its mission and millions exclusively to improving care and quality of life for aging adults.

Today, as a result, chronic conditions that almost always accompany old age are far more manageable. Older people enjoy more options for work and professional development, for education, for leisure and travel, for sports and maintaining physical strength and mobility. For increasing numbers of Americans, life is healthier and richer in the experiences that matter most.

Yet, aging in America can still be a challenge and, too often, particularly for the poor, a painful struggle. The range of mental and physical well-being has almost infinite variations: ninety-year-olds running marathons; sixty-five-year-olds incapacitated by stroke. While this book celebrates the incredible progress and strides made in this field, it also highlights areas that need improvement. The authors lay out specific steps that, if implemented, could ignite the aging revolution and diminish the total volume of older adults suffering in America.