Biographies & Memoirs

There is a voice of longing inside each woman. We strive so mightily to be good: good partners, daughters, mothers, employees, and friends. We hope all this striving will make us feel alive. Instead, it leaves us feeling weary, stuck, overwhelmed, and underwhelmed....

In The House of Hidden Meanings, RuPaul strips away all artifice and recounts the story of his life with breathtaking clarity and tenderness, bringing his signature wisdom and wit to his own biography....

The fullest, most textural, most accurate - most human - account of Oscar Wilde's unique and dazzling life - based on extensive new research and newly discovered materials, from Wilde's personal letters and transcripts of his first trial to newly uncovered papers....

Bloomsbury presents The Loves of My Life by the legendary author Edmund White, a stunning, revelatory memoir of a lifetime of gay love and sex. Read by Joel Froomkin.

A heart-wrenching, eye-opening, and giggle-inducing memoir about what it's like to grow up not sure if you're (a) a boy, (b) a girl, (c) something in between, or (d) all of the above....

What is the difference between men and women? Jennifer Finney Boylan examines the divisions—as well as the common ground—between the genders, and reflects on her own experiences, both difficult and joyful, as a transgender American.

An 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 was.

Angela Davis has been a political activist at the cutting edge of the Black Liberation, feminist, queer, and prison-abolitionist movements for more than 50 years....

When fourteen-year-old Lamya H realizes she has a crush on her teacher—her female teacher—she covers up her attraction, an attraction she can’t yet name, by playing up her roles as overachiever and class clown.

A humorous collection of autobiographical essays from comedian and Somebody Somewhere actor Jeff Hiller, who shares his journey from growing up “profoundly gay” in 1980s Texas to his experiences as an inept social worker and how he clawed, scraped, and brawled to Hollywood’s lower middle-tier.

Graham Norton has been entertaining audiences and having fun with some of the world's biggest stars for nearly 20 years....

Award-winning actor, creator of a myriad of memorable characters from Lady Whiteadder to Professor Sprout, Miriam Margolyes is a national treasure....

In 1986, 26-year-old Ruth is visiting a friend at the hospital when she notices the door to one of the rooms is painted red. She witnesses nurses drawing straws to see who will tend to the patient inside, all reluctant to enter the room. Out of impulse, Ruth enters the quarantined space....

In this poignant and urgent love letter to his son, award-winning Broadway, TV, and film producer Richie Jackson reflects on his experiences as a gay man in America and the progress and setbacks of the LGBTQ community over the last 50 years....

When Wayne and Kelly Maines adopted identical twin boys, they thought their lives were complete. But it wasn't long before they noticed a marked difference between Jonas and his brother, Wyatt....

The man behind the Real Housewives writes about his lifelong love affair with pop culture that brought him from the suburbs of St. Louis to his own television show

You may not know it, but you've met Augusten Burroughs. You've seen him on the street, in bars, on the subway, at restaurants...

In this remarkable memoir, former Olympian and Kardashian family member Caitlyn Jenner reveals shocking and heartbreaking stories from her journey to become a transgender woman and fight for the LGBTQ+ community....

In this intimate memoir, Luke takes us behind the scenes of his career on the stage and screen. He writes beautifully of the relationship he now has with his family and the respect they all have for one another on their different paths.

There is absolutely no logical reason why I am here. The life trajectory my nationality and class and circumstances portended for me was not even remotely close to the one I now navigate. But logic is a science and living is an art....

Before she became the first transgender person to speak at a national political convention in 2016 at the age of twenty-six, Sarah McBride struggled with the decision to come out—not just to her family but to the students of American University, where she was serving as student body president....

The relationship between Freddie Mercury and Jim Hutton evolved over several months in 1984 and 1985. Even when they first slept together, Hutton had no idea who Mercury was, and, when the star told him his name, it meant nothing to him....

Running with Scissors is the true story of a boy whose mother (a poet with delusions of being Anne Sexton) gave him away...

By turns hilarious and deeply moving, Jennifer Finney Boylan explores the territory that lies between men and women....

In the vein of works by Gary Janetti and Danny Pellegrino, Jeffery Self shares an honest, funny, and heartfelt memoir-in-essays about chasing your dreams, making big messes, and finding yourself along the way.

What is the difference between men and women? Jennifer Finney Boylan, bestselling author of She’s Not There and co-author of Mad Honey with Jodi Picoult, examines the divisions—as well as the common ground—between the genders, and reflects on her own experiences, both difficult and joyful, as a transgender American.

Written with White’s signature honesty, irreverence, and wit, The Loves of My Life is the culmination of a legend's life and work, a delightful and moving tour of over seventy years of being unabashedly gay and in love with love in all its forms.

This is not your mother's memoir. In The Chronology of Water, Lidia Yuknavitch expertly moves the listener through issues of gender, sexuality, violence, and the family from the point of view of a lifelong swimmer turned artist. In writing that explores the nature of memoir itself, her story traces the effect of extreme grief on a young woman's developing sexuality that some define as untraditional because of her attraction to both men and women.

The story of Christopher Isherwood's life is one of pilgrimage: away from the constraints of inheritance and empire and toward authenticity and spiritual illumination. Isherwood—the author of Goodbye to Berlin, which inspired Cabaret, and A Single Man—was born the heir to a crumbling English estate. He died an icon of gay liberation in California while his partner of thirty years painted his death portrait. Katherine Bucknell charts the quest of the restless, blackly comic mind through books, films, foreign lands, love affairs, and collaborations toward self-understanding and happiness.

In this raw, intimate and unflinchingly honest book, we follow Harry as he navigates the sometimes fraught and contradictory worlds of contemporary gay culture as a trans gay man, from Grindr, dating and gay bars, to saunas, sex and ultimately, falling in love. Harry's brave and uplifting journey will show you there is joy in finding who you are.

How to Win a Million Dollars is a madcap, self-deprecating, laugh-out-loud, mostly true misadventure that takes readers on an adventure through the wildly inventive, sometimes-questionable, but always entertaining schemes of a boy who would do anything to make it big.

What happens when two women commit to serving the Catholic Church as nuns taking vows of chastity, but fall passionately in love? They defy the Church's rules against same-sex relationships and blaze a bold trail for a joyous life together at a time when LGBTQ people could be killed for being gay and same-sex marriage was decades in the future.

Growing up in Seale, Alabama as a Black Queer kid, then attending the Rhode Island School of Design as an undergraduate, Jon Key hungered to see himself in the fields of Art and Design. But in lectures, critiques, and in the books he read, he struggled to see and learn about people who intersected with his identity or who GOT him. So he started asking himself questions: What did it mean to be a graphic designer with his point of view? What did it mean to be a Black graphic designer?

Coming Out and Coming Through is Matt Smeltzer's autobiographical story of his life growing up gay in a conservative Christian household, becoming the youth leader at his church, coming out, and the subsequent actions taken by the church in the wake of this revelation. Facing adversity could never break his spirit. He chose to take his struggles and turn them into empowerment and positivity to prove that you do not have to choose between your sexuality and your religion.

This memoir is a testament to the enduring power of love, resilience, and memory—a tribute to one mother’s extraordinary strength and an intimate exploration of the universal journey through loss and healing.