Showing titles in Biographies & Memoirs

In the 1950s, a young Ngāhuia is fostered by a family who believe in hard work and community. Although close to her kuia, she craves more: she wants higher education and refined living. But whānau dismiss her dreams. To them, she is just a show-off, always getting into trouble, talking back and running away. In this fiery memoir about identity and belonging, Ngāhuia te Awekōtuku describes what was possible for a restless working-class girl from the pā.

Comedian Stephen K Amos is one of eight children, whose parents came to London from Nigeria in the 60s. In these three series, co-written with multi-award-winning British playwright Jonathan Harvey, he takes us back in time to the 1980s, as he reminisces about his dysfunctional childhood and formative experiences, and shares the dramas and traumas of his teenage years.

In The Lives of Michel Foucault, David Macey quotes the iconic French philosopher as speaking “nostalgically...of 'an unforgettable evening on LSD, in carefully prepared doses, in the desert night, with delicious music, [and] nice people'". This came to pass in 1975, when Foucault spent Memorial Day weekend in Southern California at the invitation of Simeon Wade - ostensibly to guest-lecture at the Claremont Graduate School where Wade was an assistant professor, but in truth to explore what he called the Valley of Death.

Benjamin Law considers himself pretty lucky to live in Australia: he can hold his boyfriend's hand in public and lobby his politicians to recognize same-sex marriage. But as the child of immigrants, he's also curious about how different life might have been had he grown up in Asia. So he sets off to meet his fellow Gaysians.

Ryousuke Nanasaki married his husband in 2016 in the first religiously recognized same-sex wedding in Japanese history. This collection of essays follows Ryousuke's search for love on the journey to his extraordinary marriage. From unrequited junior high crushes to awkward dating sites to finally finding a community, Ryousuke's heartfelt reflections on his coming-of-age as a young gay man in Hokkaido will touch listeners all over the world.

As his parents watched their restaurant business collapse in the wake of the Great Recession, Michael Sayman was googling “how to code". Within a year, he had launched an iPhone app that was raking in thousands of dollars a month, enough to keep his family afloat - and in America. Entirely self-taught, Sayman headed from high school straight into the professional world, and by the time he was 17, he was Facebook’s youngest employe ever, building new features that wowed its founder Mark Zuckerberg and are now being used by more than half a billion people every day.

The “Willie Tales,” you are about to listen to, was originally written to share as FaceBook entries and will take you on the journey we experienced from my age of 5 to 55 and Willie from age 30-85. I am now 84, so you see how little time we have to get it right. If we had not chosen to face our demons, I would not be who I am today. I took the chance to know and develop a father / son relationship with Willie and I am eternally grateful. It was the one most precious gifts I could have given to my father and in turn, the gift of his open love valve brings me blessings to this day.

In his second book of cultural memoir, following up his “absolute tour de force” (Maggie Nelson) Gay Bar, Jeremy Atherton Lin lays bare a love outside the law—the blooming of his relationship through pivotal years in the gay marriage debate. In 1996, Atherton Lin meets the boy of his dreams—a mumbling, starry-eyed Brit—just as US Congress prepares the Defense of Marriage Act, which denies same-sex couples federal rights, including immigration. Being together across borders means dropping out, hiding away, and seeking out sanctuary among unlikely allies in a “city of refuge.”

They call Montauk the end of the world, a spit of land jutting into the Atlantic. The house was a ramshackle split-level set on a hill, and each summer 31 people would sleep between its thin walls and shag carpets. Against the moonlight the house's octagonal roof resembled a bee's nest. It was dubbed The Hive. In 2013, John Glynn joined the share house. Packing his duffel for that first Memorial Day weekend, he prayed for clarity. At 27, he was crippled by an all-encompassing loneliness, a feeling he had carried in his heart for as long as he could remember.

In Rebent Sinner, Ivan Coyote takes on the patriarchy and the political, as well as the intimate and the personal in these beguiling and revealing stories of what it means to be trans and non-binary today, at a time in their life when they must carry the burden of heartbreaking history with them, while combatting those who would misgender them or deny their very existence. These stories span thirty years of tackling TERFs, legislators, and bathroom police, sure, but there is joy and pleasure and triumph to be found here, too.

When Jan Morris passed away in 2020, she was considered one of Britain's best-loved writers. The author of Venice, Pax Britannica, Conundrum, and more than fifty other books, her work was known for its observational genius, lyricism, and humor, and had earned her a passionate readership around the world.

Told from the very personal perspective of a loving mother torn between social constructs and her son’s gender nonconforming behavior, Mommy, I’m a Girl! Takes listeners inside the mind of a parent coming to terms with raising a transgender child. In following her child’s lead, Kuxhausen found acceptance. This is the story of how her daughter’s life changed her own, and she hopes it brings clarity to others.

Tania De Rozario was just twelve years old when she was gay-exorcised. Convinced that her boyish style and demeanor were a sign of something wicked, her mother and a pair of her church friends tried to “banish the evil” from Tania. That day, the young girl realized that monsters weren’t just found in horror tales. They could lurk anywhere—including your own family and community—and look just like you. Dinner on Monster Island is Tania’s memoir of her life and childhood in Singapore—where she discovered how difference is often perceived as deviant, damaged, disobedient, and sometimes, demonic.

Drags, fags and trans-women were attracted to the Big Apple because they were able to find work as impersonators in a small number of Lower East Side clubs. Decades before Stonewall, they occupied the margins of society, determined to live as they pleased, despite of the attentions of the police. Sometimes reduced to stealing to get their costumes, these girls were unstoppable, fearless and fabulous. When a cache of their letters were discovered, these individuals were given a voice where they had traditionally been silenced.

As a trans man born into an evangelical Christian family that prevented his true identity from emerging, Alex spent years struggling with depression, anxiety, and addiction, trying to break free of the oppressive beliefs that bound him. After years of fighting—for his life, his freedom, and his truth—Alex learnt to surrender and come home to himself. In this part memoir, part self-help book, Alex weaves his own story with healing guidance for you to take away and implement in your own life.

Flailing in jobs, failing at love, getting addicted and un-addicted to people, food, and drugs - I'll Tell You in Person is a disarmingly frank account of attempts at adulthood and all the less than perfect ways we get there. Chloe Caldwell has an unsparing knack for looking within and reporting back what's really there, rather than what she'd like you to see.

As the US occupation of Iraq rages, novelist Mortada Gzar, a student at the University of Baghdad, has a chance encounter with Morise, an African American soldier. It’s love at first sight, a threat to them both, and a moment of self-discovery. Challenged by society’s rejection and Morise’s return to the US, Mortada takes to the page to understand himself. In his affecting memoir, Mortada interweaves tales of his childhood work as a scrap-metal collector in a war zone and the indignities faced by openly gay artists in Iraq with his impossible love story and journey to the US.

Living on the street, Dr. George ran a prostitution and drug dealing business to feed his addiction to sex and drugs. His life spiraled out of control, leading him to the confines of a prison cell. When released on probation he risked it all on a drug blow out. This was the catalyst that started an intentional climb towards a life of freedom. In this book, Dr. George guides the listener through his personal story and how he used the power of intention to change his life.

Eve Adams was a rebel. Born Chawa Zloczewer into a Jewish family in Poland, Adams emigrated to the United States in 1912. The young woman befriended anarchists, sold radical publications, took a new name, and ran lesbian-and-gay-friendly speakeasies in Chicago and New York. Then, in 1925, Adams risked all to write and publish a book titled Lesbian Love. In The Daring Life and Deadly Times of Eve Adams, acclaimed historian Jonathan Ned Katz has recovered the extraordinary story of an early daring activist.

Alan Turing had a radical and ingenious mind. He is considered one of the fathers of artificial intelligence, and his theories on this matter range from purely mechanical to almost spiritual. During World War II, his decryption of the Nazis’ Enigma codes proved vital for the Allied victory over the Axis powers. Turing’s fingerprints are everywhere, and yet his own country for quite some time failed to acknowledge it.