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Everything I Learned, I Learned in a Chinese Restaurant: A Memoir
Par Curtis Chin. 2023
An American Library Association Stonewall Honor BookMost Anticipated This Fall in TIME, San Francisco Chronicle, The Washington Post, Goodreads, Lamba…
Literary Review, Kirkus Reviews, and PinkNewsThis &“vivid, moving, funny, and heartfelt&” memoir tells the story of Curtis Chin&’s time growing up as a gay Chinese American kid in 1980&’s Detroit (Lisa Ko, author of The Leavers). Nineteen eighties Detroit was a volatile place to live, but above the fray stood a safe haven: Chung&’s Cantonese Cuisine, where anyone—from the city&’s first Black mayor to the local drag queens, from a big-time Hollywood star to elderly Jewish couples—could sit down for a warm, home-cooked meal. Here was where, beneath a bright-red awning and surrounded by his multigenerational family, filmmaker and activist Curtis Chin came of age; where he learned to embrace his identity as a gay ABC, or American-born Chinese; where he navigated the divided city&’s spiraling misfortunes; and where—between helpings of almond boneless chicken, sweet-and-sour pork, and some of his own, less-savory culinary concoctions—he realized just how much he had to offer to the world, to his beloved family, and to himself. Served up by the cofounder of the Asian American Writers&’ Workshop and structured around the very menu that graced the tables of Chung&’s, Everything I Learned, I Learned in a Chinese Restaurant is both a memoir and an invitation: to step inside one boy&’s childhood oasis, scoot into a vinyl booth, and grow up with him—and perhaps even share something off the secret menu.The Red Widow: The Scandal that Shook Paris and the Woman Behind it All
Par Sarah Horowitz. 2022
"An unforgettable portrait of a woman who became one of the most notorious figures of her day and whose scandalous…
story sheds fascinating light not only on her own tumultuous time but ours as well." — Harold Schechter, author of Hell's Princess: The Mystery of Belle Guinness, Butcher of MenSex, corruption, and power: the rise and fall of the Red Widow of ParisParis, 1889: Margeurite Steinheil is a woman with ambition. But having been born into a middle-class family and trapped in a marriage to a failed artist twenty years her senior, she knows her options are limited.Determined to fashion herself into a new woman, Meg orchestrates a scandalous plan with her most powerful resource: her body. Amid the dazzling glamor, art, and romance of bourgeois Paris, she takes elite men as her lovers, charming her way into the good graces of the rich and powerful. Her ambitions, though, go far beyond becoming the most desirable woman in Paris; at her core, she is a woman determined to conquer French high society. But the game she plays is a perilous one: navigating misogynistic double-standards, public scrutiny, and political intrigue, she is soon vaulted into infamy in the most dangerous way possible.A real-life femme fatale, Meg influences government positions and resorts to blackmail—and maybe even poisoning—to get her way. Leaving a trail of death and disaster in her wake, she earns the name the "Red Widow" for mysteriously surviving a home invasion that leaves both her husband and mother dead. With the police baffled and the public enraged, Meg breaks every rule in the bourgeois handbook and becomes the most notorious woman in Paris.An unforgettable true account of sex, scandal, and murder, The Red Widow is the story of a woman determined to rise—at any cost.Sipping Dom Pérignon Through a Straw: Reimagining Success as a Disabled Achiever
Par Eddie Ndopu. 2023
Apple's Best Books of August 2023 A memoir penned with one good finger, Ndopu writes about being profoundly disabled and profoundly…
successful. Global humanitarian Eddie Ndopu was born with spinal muscular atrophy, a rare degenerative motor neuron disease affecting his mobility. He was told that he wouldn&’t live beyond age five and yet, Ndopu thrived. He grew up loving pop music, lip syncing the latest hits, and watching The Bold and the Beautiful for the haute couture, and was the only wheelchair user at his school, where he flourished academically. By his late teens, he had become a sought after speaker, travelling the world to address audiences about disability justice. Ndopu was ecstatic when he was later accepted on a full scholarship into one of the world's most prestigious schools, Oxford University. But he soon learns that it's not just the medical community he must thwart— it's the educational one too. In Sipping Dom Pérignon Through a Straw, we follow Ndopu, sporting his oversized, bejewelled sunglasses, as he scales the mountain of success, only to find exclusion, discrimination, and neglect waiting for him on the other side. Like every other student, Ndopu tries to keep up appearances—dashing to and from his public policy lectures before meeting for cocktails with his squad, all while campaigning to become student body president. Privately, however, Ndopu faces obstacles that are all too familiar to people with disabilities, yet remain unnoticed by most people. With the revolving door of care aides, hefty bills, and a lack of support from the university, Ndopu feels alienated by his environment. As he soars professionally, sipping champagne with world leaders, he continues to feel the loneliness and pressure of being the only one in the room. Determined to carve out his place in the world, he must challenge bias at the highest echelons of power and prestige. But as the pressure mounts, Ndopu must find his stride or collapse under the crushing weight of ableism. Written with his one good finger, this evocative, searing, and vulnerable prose will leave you spellbound by Ndopu&’s remarkable journey to reach beyond ableism, reminding us of our own capacity for resilience.Dreaming of Ramadi in Detroit: Essays
Par Aisha Sabatini Sloan. 2024
An electric essay collection about Blackness, art, and dreaming of new possibilities in a time of constrictionThis collection of innovative,…
penetrating, and lively essays features swimming pools and poets, road trips and museums, family dinners and celebrity sightings. In a voice that is at once piercing, mournful, and slyly comic, Aisha Sabatini Sloan inhabits several roles: she is an art enthusiast in Los Angeles during a city-wide manhunt; a daughter on a road trip with her father; a professor playing with puppets in the wilds of Vermont; an interloper on a police ride-along in Detroit; a collector of the dreams of scientists at a biostation. As she watches cell phone video recordings of murder and is haunted in her sleep by the news, she reflects on her formative experiences with aesthetic and spiritual discovery, troubling those places where Blackness has been conflated with death.Sabatini Sloan’s lively style is perfectly suited to the way she circles a subject or an idea before cinching it tight. The curiosity that guides each essay, focusing on the period between the 2016 election and the onset of the pandemic, is rooted in the supposition that there is an intrinsic relationship between the way we conceptualize darkness and our collective opportunity for awakening.My Life in Transition: A Super Late Bloomer Collection
Par Julia Kaye. 2020
My Life in Transition is a story that&’s not often told about trans lives: what happens beyond the early days of transition. Both deeply personal…
and widely relatable, this collection illustrates six months of Julia's life as an out trans woman—about the beauty and pain of love and heartbreak, struggling to find support from bio family and the importance of chosen family, moments of dysphoria and misgendering, learning to lean on friends in times of need, and finding peace in the fact that life keeps moving forward.After the nerve-wracking, anxiety-ridden early transition period has ended and the hormones have done their thing, this book shows how you can be trans and simply exist in society. You can be trans and have a successful future. You can be trans and have a normal life full of ups and downs. In our current political and social climate, this hopeful, accessible narrative about trans lives is both entertaining and vital.Gentle Chaos: Poems, Tales, and Magic
Par Tyler Gaca. 2023
From the wild imagination of Tyler Gaca, also known as TikTok's Ghosthoney, comes a beautiful compendium of poems, images, personal…
stories, and vignettes that explore magic, queerness, Tyler&’s unique story, and the enchantment and comfort to be found in the weird, the dark, and the different. In this raw yet enchanting collection of poems, essays, photographs, and artworks, Tyler Gaca dreamily navigates themes of magic and queerness, offering readers an intimate look inside his mind and his worlds, real and imagined. The writings in Gentle Chaos reflect on growing up queer and in love with magic, discovering yourself and your place in the world, and daring to seek out love and hope. The artworks are dedicated to salvaged antique photographs, haircuts, dead moths, the creatures we dream up, and much more. The result is a whimsical, vulnerable, and transporting journey into the gentle chaos within us all.All That Heaven Allows: A Biography of Rock Hudson
Par Mark Griffin. 2018
The inspiration for the HBO® Original Documentary, Rock Hudson: All that Heaven Allowed, airing June 28!The definitive biography of the deeply complex…
and widely misunderstood matinee idol of Hollywood’s Golden Age.“Mark Griffin paints a vivid portrait of a man who lived a double life in order to maintain his status as a movie star. Griffin’s sources are candid but credible, which makes the book a real page-turner. I came away admiring Hudson all the more, and feeling sad for the secret existence that Hollywood demanded of its leading men in the 1950s and 60s.” — Leonard Maltin, author of Hooked on Hollywood: Discoveries from a Lifetime of Film FandomDevastatingly handsome, broad-shouldered and clean-cut, Rock Hudson was the ultimate movie star. The embodiment of romantic masculinity in American film throughout the ‘50s and ‘60s, he reigned supreme as the king of Hollywood.As an Oscar-nominated leading man, Hudson won acclaim for his performances in glossy melodramas (Magnificent Obsession), western epics (Giant) and blockbuster bedroom farces (Pillow Talk). In the ‘70s and ‘80s, Hudson successfully transitioned to television; his long-running series McMillan & Wife and a recurring role on Dynasty introduced him to a whole new generation of fans.The icon worshipped by moviegoers and beloved by his colleagues appeared to have it all. Yet beneath the suave and commanding star persona, there was an insecure, deeply conflicted, and all too vulnerable human being. Growing up poor in Winnetka, Illinois, Hudson was abandoned by his biological father, abused by an alcoholic stepfather, and controlled by his domineering mother.Despite seemingly insurmountable obstacles, Hudson was determined to become an actor at all costs. After signing with the powerful but predatory agent Henry Willson, the young hopeful was transformed from a clumsy, tongue-tied truck driver into Universal Studio’s resident Adonis. In a more conservative era, Hudson’s wholesome, straight arrow screen image was at odds with his closeted homosexuality.As a result of his gay relationships and clandestine affairs, Hudson was continually threatened with public exposure, not only by scandal sheets like Confidential but by a number of his own partners. For years, Hudson dodged questions concerning his private life, but in 1985 the public learned that the actor was battling AIDS. The disclosure that such a revered public figure had contracted the illness focused worldwide attention on the epidemic.Drawing on more than 100 interviews with co-stars, family members and former companions, All That Heaven Allows delivers a complete and nuanced portrait of one of the most fascinating stars in cinema history.Griffin provides new details concerning Hudson’s troubled relationships with wife Phyllis Gates and boyfriend Marc Christian. And here, for the first time, is an in-depth exploration of Hudson’s classic films, including Written on the Wind, A Farewell to Arms, and the cult favorite Seconds. With unprecedented access to private journals, personal correspondence, and production files, Griffin pays homage to the idol whose life and death had a lasting impact on American culture.Ten Bridges I've Burnt: A Memoir in Verse
Par Brontez Purnell. 2024
"This book is brutal and brutally honest, but still perversely addictive because Brontez Purnell is a performer in the truest…
sense. Reading Ten Bridges I've Burnt, I felt tucked-in with him, along for the intimate ride, and paused only once to write down a part I’d been looking for my whole life." —Miranda JulyFrom the beloved author of 100 Boyfriends, a wrenching, sexy, and exhilaratingly energetic memoir in verse.In Ten Bridges I’ve Burnt, Brontez Purnell—the bard of the underloved and overlooked—turns his gaze inward. A storyteller with a musical eye for the absurdity of his own existence, he is peerless in his ability to find the levity within the stormiest of crises. Here, in his first collection of genre-defying verse, Purnell reflects on his peripatetic life, whose ups and downs have nothing on the turmoil within. “The most high-risk homosexual behavior I engage in,” Purnell writes, “is simply existing.”The thirty-eight autobiographical pieces pulsing in Ten Bridges I’ve Burnt find Purnell at his no-holds-barred best. He remembers a vicious brawl he participated in at a poetry conference and reckons with packaging his trauma for TV writers’ rooms; wrestles with the curses, and gifts, passed down from generations of family members; and chronicles, with breathless verve, a list of hell-raising misadventures and sexcapades. Through it all, he muses on everything from love and loneliness to capitalism and Blackness to jogging and the ethics of art, always with unpredictable clarity and movement. With the same balance of wit and wisdom that made 100 Boyfriends a sensation, Purnell unleashes another collection of boundary-pushing writing with Ten Bridges I’ve Burnt, a book as original and thrilling as the author himself.As featured in People magazine: One LGBTQ family’s inspiring, heartfelt story of the many alternative paths that lead to a…
loving family, with lessons for every parent Trystan and Biff had been dating for just a year when the couple learned that Biff’s niece and nephew were about to be removed from their home by Child Protective Services. Immediately, Trystan and Biff took in one-year-old Hailey and three-year-old Lucas, becoming caregivers overnight to two tiny survivors of abuse and neglect. From this unexpected start, the young couple built a loving marriage and happy home—learning to parent on the job. They adopted Hailey and Lucas, tied the knot, and soon decided to try for a baby that Trystan, who is transgender, would carry. Trystan’s groundbreaking pregnancy attracted media fanfare, and the family welcomed baby Leo in 2017. In this inspiring memoir, Trystan shares his unique story alongside universal lessons that will help all parents through the trials of raising children. How We Do Family is a refreshing new take on family life for the LGBTQ community and beyond. Through every tough moment and touching memory, Trystan shows that more important than getting things right is doing them with love.How to Be a Girl: A Mother's Memoir Of Raising Her Transgender Daughter
Par Marlo Mack. 2021
A poignant narrative of one mom’s journey to support her transgender daughter—showing how any parent can forge a deeper bond…
with their child by truly listening Mama, something went wrong in your tummy. And it made me come out as a boy instead of a girl. When Marlo Mack’s three-year-old utters these words, her world splits wide open. Friends and family, experts, and Marlo herself had long downplayed her “son’s” requests for pretty dresses and long hair as experimentation—as a phase—but that time is over. When little “M” begs, weeping, to be reborn, Marlo knows she has to start listening to her kid. How to Be a Girl is Mack’s unflinching memoir of M’s coming out—to her father, grandparents, classmates, and the world. Fearful of the prejudice that menaces M’s future, Mack finds her liberal values surprisingly challenged: Why can’t M just be a boy who wears skirts and loves fairies? But M doesn’t give up: She’s a girl! As mother and daughter teach one another How to Be a Girl, Mack realizes it’s really the world that has a lot to learn—from her sparkly, spectacular M.I Finally Bought Some Jordans: Essays
Par Michael Arceneaux. 2024
"Very good writers have an ability to make you understand what they're feeling. But the very best writers have an…
ability to make you understand what you're feeling. And that's where Michael Arceneaux sits, and that's what he does in this new book. It's like he's crawling around inside your head opening file cabinets and telling you what the gibberish you've scribbled on each page in each file means. What a great, fun read."—Shea Serrano, #1 New York Times bestselling authorNew York Times bestselling author Michael Arceneaux returns with a hilarious collection of essays about making your voice heard in an increasingly noisy and chaotic world.In his books I Can't Date Jesus and I Don't Want to Die Poor, Michael Arceneaux established himself as one of the most beloved and entertaining writers of his generation, touching upon such hot-button topics as race, class, sexuality, labor, debt, and, of course, paying homage to the power and wisdom of Beyoncé. In this collection, Arceneaux takes stock of how far he has traveled—and how much ground he still has to cover in this patriarchal, heteronormative society. He explores the opportunities afforded to Black creatives but also the doors that remain shut or ever-so-slightly ajar; the confounding challenges of dating in a time when social media has made everything both more accessible and more unreliable; and the allure of returning home while still pushing yourself to seek opportunity elsewhere.I Finally Bought Some Jordans is both a corrective to, and a balm for, these troubling times, revealing a sharply funny and keen-eyed storyteller working at the height of his craft.I Heard Her Call My Name: A Memoir of Transition
Par Lucy Sante. 2024
&“Reading this book is a joy... much to say about the trans journey and will undoubtedly become a standard for those…
in need of guidance. &” — The Washington Post"Sante&’s bold devotion to complexity and clarity makes this an exemplary memoir. It is a clarion call to live one&’s most authentic life.&” — The Boston Globe&“Not to be missed, I Heard Her Call My Name is a powerful example of self-reflection and a vibrant exploration of the modern dynamics of gender and identity.&” — Lit Hub&’s Most Anticipated Books of 2024An iconic writer&’s lapidary memoir of a life spent pursuing a dream of artistic truth while evading the truth of her own gender identity, until, finally, she turned to face who she really wasFor a long time, Lucy Sante felt unsure of her place. Born in Belgium, the only child of conservative working-class Catholic parents who transplanted their little family to the United States, she felt at home only when she moved to New York City in the early 1970s and found her people among a band of fellow bohemians. Some would die young, to drugs and AIDS, and some would become jarringly famous. Sante flirted with both fates, on her way to building an estimable career as a writer. But she still felt like her life a performance. She was presenting a façade, even to herself.Sante&’s memoir braids together two threads of personal narrative: the arc of her life, and her recent step-by-step transition to a place of inner and outer alignment. Sante brings a loving irony to her account of her unsteady first steps; there was much she found she still needed to learn about being a woman after some sixty years cloaked in a man&’s identity, in a man&’s world. A marvel of grace and empathy, I Heard Her Call My Name parses with great sensitivity many issues that touch our lives deeply, of gender identity and far beyond.Aimee & Jaguar: A Love Story, Berlin 1943
Par Erica Fischer. 1994
This powerful, poignant, and inspirational novel, a Lambda Literary Award winner, is the true story of two unlikely lovers set…
against World War II Berlin—a riveting chronicle of love, loyalty, and survival against all odds.“A memorable, vivid, and intimate portrait.” — Entertainment WeeklyBerlin 1942. Lilly Wust, 29, married, four children, led a life as did millions of German women. But then she met the 21-year-old Felice Schragenheim.It was love almost at first sight. Aimée and Jaguar started forging plans for the future. They composed poems and love letters to each other, and wrote their own marriage contract. When Jaguar-Felice admitted to her lover that she was Jewish, this dangerous secret drew the two women even closer to one another. But their luck didn’t last. On August 21, 1944, Felice was arrested and deported.At the age of 80, Lilly Wust told her story to Erica Fischer, who turned it into a poignant testimony. After the book appeared in 1994 she was contacted by additional contemporaries of Aimée and Jaguar, who offered new material that has been integrated into the present edition.The book, translated into twenty languages, and the film based on it—directed by Max Färberböck, with Juliane Köhler and Maria Schrader in the leading roles—have made Aimée and Jaguar’s story known around the world.Hiding in Hip Hop: On the Down Low in the Entertainment Industry—from Music to Hollywood
Par Terrance Dean. 2008
&“If you&’re a fan of the hit show Empire and its characters Cookie, Lucious, Hakeem, Jamal, and Andre, then you…
have to check out Terrance Dean&’s provocative memoir Hiding in Hip Hop. Dean writes a compelling story about black gay men in Hip Hop and Hollywood, and what it takes for them to make it the entertainment industry.&” – JL King, New York Times bestselling author of On The Down LowCelebrated blogger and former MTV insider Terrance Dean reveals a hidden side of Hollywood and hip hop in this explosive and illuminating memoir.Terrance Dean worked his way up for more than ten years in the entertainment industry from intern to executive and has lived the life of glitz and bling along with Hollywood and Hip Hop&’s most glamorous heavy hitters. As a gay man immersed within the world of the famous and the fabulous, Dean knows well the industry&’s secrets and the façade that is kept, that for men, promotes machismo and heteronormative behavior.Most of what Dean unveils in this book is fascinating and salacious, but all of it is true. He also shares his own secrets, and an account of the pain of his mother&’s addiction, and the poverty and molestation he experienced as a child.Hiding in Hip Hop is not a traditional tell-all. It&’s personal. It&’s poignant. It&’s a provocative and honest look at stardom and sexuality.The Prince of Los Cocuyos: A Miami Childhood
Par Richard Blanco. 2014
“In this vibrant memoir, Obama-inaugural poet Richard Blanco tenderly, exhilaratingly chronicles his Miami childhood amid a colorful, if suffocating, family…
of Cuban exiles, as well as his quest to find his artistic voice and the courage to accept himself as a gay man.” — O, The Oprah MagazineA poignant, hilarious, and inspiring memoir from the first Latino and openly gay inaugural poet, which explores his coming-of-age as the child of Cuban immigrants and his attempts to understand his place in America while grappling with his burgeoning artistic and sexual identities.Richard Blanco’s childhood and adolescence were experienced between two imaginary worlds: his parents’ nostalgic world of 1950s Cuba and his imagined America, the country he saw on reruns of The Brady Bunch and Leave it to Beaver—an “exotic” life he yearned for as much as he yearned to see “la patria.”A prismatic and lyrical narrative rich with the colors, sounds, smells, and textures of Miami, Richard Blanco’s personal narrative is a resonant account of how he discovered his authentic self and ultimately, a deeper understanding of what it means to be American. His is a singular yet universal story that beautifully illuminates the experience of “becoming;” how we are shaped by experiences, memories, and our complex stories: the humor, love, yearning, and tenderness that define a life.Fire Shut Up in My Bones
Par Charles M. Blow. 2014
A New York Times Notable Book | Lambda Literary Award Winner | Long-listed for the PEN Open Book Award &“Charles Blow is…
the James Baldwin of our age.&” — Washington Blade &“[An] exquisite memoir . . . Delicately wrought and arresting.&” — New York TimesUniversally praised on its publication, Fire Shut Up in My Bones is a pioneering journalist&’s indelible coming-of-age tale. Charles M. Blow&’s mother was a fiercely driven woman with five sons, brass knuckles in her glove box, and a job plucking poultry at a factory near their segregated Louisiana town, where slavery's legacy felt close. When her philandering husband finally pushed her over the edge, she fired a pistol at his fleeing back, missing every shot, thanks to &“love that blurred her vision and bent the barrel.&” Charles was the baby of the family, fiercely attached to his &“do-right&” mother. Until one day that divided his life into Before and After—the day an older cousin took advantage of the young boy. The story of how Charles escaped that world to become one of America&’s most innovative and respected public figures is a stirring, redemptive journey that works its way into the deepest chambers of the heart. &“Stunning . . . Blow&’s words grab hold of you . . . [and] lead you to a place of healing.&” — Essence &“The memoir of the year.&” — A. V. ClubCity Poet: The Life and Times of Frank O'Hara
Par Brad Gooch. 2014
The definitive biography of Frank O’Hara, one of the greatest American poets of the twentieth century, the magnetic literary figure…
at the center of New York’s cultural life during the 1950s and 1960s.City Poet captures the excitement and promise of mid-twentieth-century New York in the years when it became the epicenter of the art world, and illuminates the poet and artist at its heart. Brad Gooch traces Frank O’Hara’s life from his parochial Catholic childhood to World War II, through his years at Harvard and New York. He brilliantly portrays O’Hara in in his element, surrounded by a circle of writers and artists who would transform America’s cultural landscape: Willem de Kooning, Franz Kline, Helen Frankenthaler, Jackson Pollock, Gregory Corso, Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, LeRoi Jones, and John Ashbery.Gooch brings into focus the artistry and influence of a life “of guts and wit and style and passion” (Luc Sante) that was tragically abbreviated in 1966 when O’Hara, just forty and at the height of his creativity, was hit and killed by a jeep on the beach at Fire Island—a death that marked the end of an exceptional career and a remarkable era.City Poet is illustrated with 55 black and white photographs.In Search of Emma: How We Created Our Family, A Memoir
Par Armando Lucas Correa. 2021
Revised and updated with a new introduction by the author—and available in English for the first time—the moving story of…
a man who always wanted to be a father and the long emotional road to making his dream come true.Born in Cuba and raised in the USA, Armando Lucas Correa epitomized the American dream. He had everything he wanted: an incredible job as the editor of People magazine, meeting and interviewing glamorous celebrities; a steady partner; and a comfortable life filled with travel. But with the new millennium, he realized something vital was missing. A child. In the years before gay marriage was widespread and legal across the nation, the road to parenthood was difficult for gay couples. Though his family would not be traditional, Correa was undaunted. Every setback, each emotional challenge was fuel that drove him to fulfill his dream. Exhaustively researching the possibilities, Correa eventually chose surrogacy—a long, arduous, and expensive method involving seemingly endless tests, paperwork, and difficult decisions. But with the help of science, a lot of patience, an egg donor, a gestational mother, and the unconditional support of her partner and family, Correa’s dream finally came true with the birth of his beloved daughter, Emma. In Search of Emma is an inspiring and beautiful story of love, family, and fatherhood that reminds us of that, despite the odds, we must never stop fighting to achieve our dreams. Completely revised and updated to reflect his growing family.The Riddles of the Sphinx: Inheriting the Feminist History of the Crossword Puzzle
Par Anna Shechtman. 2012
"A surprising and ambitious investigation of language and the varied ways women resist the paradoxes of patriarchy both on and…
off the page."—New York TimesCombining the soul-baring confessional of Brain on Fire and the addictive storytelling of The Queen’s Gambit, a renowned puzzle creator’s compulsively readable memoir and history of the crossword puzzle as an unexpected site of women’s work and feminist protest.The indisputable “queen of crosswords,” Anna Shechtman published her first New York Times puzzle at age nineteen, and later, helped to spearhead the The New Yorker’s popular crossword section. Working with a medium often criticized as exclusionary, elitist, and out-of-touch, Anna is one of very few women in the field of puzzle making, where she strives to make the everyday diversion more diverse.In this fascinating work—part memoir, part cultural analysis—she excavates the hidden history of the crossword and the overlooked women who have been central to its creation and evolution, from the “Crossword Craze” of the 1920s to the role of digital technology today. As she tells the story of her own experience in the CrossWorld, she analyzes the roles assigned to women in American culture, the boxes they’ve been allowed to fill, and the ways that they’ve used puzzles to negotiate the constraints and play of desire under patriarchy.The result is an unforgettable and engrossing work of art, a loving and revealing homage to one of our most treasured, entertaining, and ultimately political pastimes.Stone Motel: Memoirs of a Cajun Boy (Willie Morris Books in Memoir and Biography)
Par Morris Ardoin. 2020
In the summers of the early 1970s, Morris Ardoin and his siblings helped run their family's roadside motel in a…
hot, buggy, bayou town in Cajun Louisiana. The stifling, sticky heat inspired them to find creative ways to stay cool and out of trouble. When they were not doing their chores—handling a colorful cast of customers, scrubbing motel-room toilets, plucking chicken bones and used condoms from under the beds—they played canasta, an old ladies’ game that provided them with a refuge from the sun and helped them avoid their violent, troubled father. Morris was successful at occupying his time with his siblings and the children of families staying in the motel’s kitchenette apartments but was not so successful at keeping clear of his father, a man unable to shake the horrors he had experienced as a child and, later, as a soldier. The preteen would learn as he matured that his father had reserved his most ferocious attacks for him because of an inability to accept a gay or, to his mind, broken, son. It became his dad’s mission to “fix” his son, and Morris’s mission to resist—and survive intact. He was aided in his struggle immeasurably by the love and encouragement of a selfless and generous grandmother, who provides his story with much of its warmth, wisdom, and humor. There’s also suspense, awkward romance, naughty French lessons, and an insider’s take on a truly remarkable, not-yet-homogenized pocket of American culture.