Some of my favorite books I’ve read thus far, from the Groups or Lists I categorized within the 52-week Book Donation Project appendix of my (2015) book, OK2BG.
The OK2BG Book Donation Project includes a list of 2,000+ books in Memoir, Biography, Autobiography & Anthology format, by or about 1,000+ allegedly gay men.
Memoirs about bold men who had the tenacity to express themselves!
1) An Immaculate Mistake: Scenes from Childhood and Beyond
a. Paul Bailey / 1990
b. ‘A noted author, actor, and playwright relates his experiences growing up gay in a working-class London community.’ – Google Books
2) An Underground Life: The Memoirs of a Gay Jew in Nazi Berlin
a. Gad Beck / 2000
b. ‘That a Jew living in Nazi Berlin survived the Holocaust at all is surprising. That he was a homosexual and a teenage leader in the resistance and yet survived is amazing. But that he endured the ongoing horror with an open heart, with love and without vitriol, and has written about it so beautifully is truly miraculous. This is Gad Beck's story.’ – Google Books
3) Angels & Demons - One Actor's Hollywood Journey - An Autobiography
a. Ray Stricklyn / 1999
b. ‘Angels & Demons is the story of one actor's rise, fall and ultimate triumph, an intimate look at a life in Hollywood and in the theater. Stricklyn pulls no punches as he portrays the angels and demons he met along the way and those he discovered within himself.’ – Google Books
4) Boys Like Us - Gay Writers Tell Their Coming Out Stories
a. Patrick Merla / 1996 / Anthology
b. ‘In stunning essays written especially for this collection, 29 noted gay writers recount their true "coming out" stories, intensely personal histories of that primal process by which men come to terms with their desire for other men.’ – Google Books
Click the pic of the open book to preview the Table of Contents.
Click the book cover to link to Google Books.
5) Crunching Gravel: a Wisconsin Boyhood in the Thirties
(prequel to - For You, Lili Marlene: A Memoir of World War II)
a. Robert Peters / 1993
b. ‘No nostalgic tale of the good old days, Robert Peters’ recollections of his adolescence vividly evoke the Depression on a hardscrabble farm near Eagle River.... Peters’ clear-eyed memoir reveals a poet’s eye for rich and stark detail even as a boy of twelve.’ – Google Books
5.5) For You Lili Marlene - A Memoir of World War II
(sequel to - Crunching Gravel: a Wisconsin Boyhood in the Thirties)
a. Robert Peters / 1995
b. 'Drafted into the U.S. army in 1943, Robert Peters was a shy and devout eighteen-year-old from a remote and impoverished Wisconsin farm. Now one of our leading poets, he has written a lyrical memoir of a young man coming of age in the middle of World War II, making his way through personal land mines of morality and sexuality.
In this sequel to Crunching Gravel, his celebrated account of a rural boyhood, Peters writes with humor and honesty of his self-revelations.' - Amazon
6) Footnotes: a Memoir
a. Tommy Tune / 1997
b. ‘In scintillating, sharp-witted "short takes", sometimes wildly funny, sometimes deeply moving, Tommy Tune shares the memories of a stellar career, from his coming of age in a small Texas town to his current status as one of the most celebrated, beloved, and original of Broadway stars. Dancing is in his blood!’ – Google Books
7) Friends & Apostles - The Correspondence of Rupert Brooke and James Strachey 1905 – 1914
a. Keith Hale / 1998
b. ‘The correspondence between the poet Rupert Brooke (1887-1915) and his friend James Strachey, later the primary English translator of the works of Sigmund Freud, appears in print here for the first time. As well as their shared interest in politics, literature, art and theatre, the letters deal often and explicitly with the subject of homosexuality and with the sometimes, scandalous activities of many of their close circle.’ – Google Books
8) Hornito: My Lie Life
a. Mike Albo / 2000
b. ‘Mike Albo offers his own unique, witty, and touching tale on being young, single, and gay in today's media-obsessed culture.’ – Google Books
9) Mama's Boy, Preacher's Son - A Memoir of Growing Up, Coming Out, and Changing America's Schools
a. Kevin Jennings / 2007
b. ‘Long before Kevin Jennings began advocating to end anti-GLBT bias in schools, he was a victim of it. In Mama’s Boy, Preacher’s Son, Jennings traces the roots of his activism to his school days in the conservative South, where “faggot” became more familiar to him than his own name. Creating safe schools for all youth is now a central part of the progressive agenda in American education, and Kevin Jennings is at the forefront of that fight.’ – Google Books
10) My Queer War
a. James Lord / 2010
b. ‘A powerful story of sexual awakening during the 2nd World War, from the noted memoirist & critic. In My Queer War, James Lord tells the story of a young man’s exposure to the terrors, dislocations, and horrors of armed conflict.’ – Google Books
11) Queer 13 - Lesbian and Gay Writers Recall Seventh Grade
a. Clifford Chase / 1998 / Anthology
b. ‘Seventh grade: You remember it, don't you? Sweet sixteen seemed impossibly far away, an elegant, unattainable future. All that we had was the doldrums of thirteen -- not so sweet, and definitely queer. Now, some of the finest observers of the gay experience take us back to the homerooms and hallways of our youth, in a collection of original essays that captures that time of adolescence when social and sexual development was at its raging worst.’ – Google Books
Click the link below to preview the Table of Contents -
12) Suicide Notes
a. Michael Thomas Ford / 2010
b. ‘Fifteen-year-old Jeff wakes up on New Year’s Day to find himself in the hospital—specifically, in the psychiatric ward. Despite the bandages on his wrists, he’s positive this is all some huge mistake. Jeff is perfectly fine, perfectly normal; not like the other kids in the hospital with him. But over the course of the next forty-five days, Jeff begins to understand why he ended up here—and realizes he has more in common with the other kids than he thought.’ – Google Books
13) Tab Hunter - Confidential, The Making of a Movie Star
a. Tab Hunter with Eddie Muller / 2005
b. ‘Welcome to Hollywood, circa 1950, the end of the Golden Age. A remarkably handsome young boy, still a teenager, gets "discovered" by a big-time movie agent. Because when he takes his shirt off young hearts beat faster, because he is the picture of innocence and trust and need, he will become a star. It seems almost preordained. The open smile says, "You will love me," and soon the whole world does.’ – Google Books
14) The Family Heart: a Memoir of When Our Son Came Out
a. Robb Forman Dew / 1994
b. ‘At the heart of this memoir lies a true epiphany: the author's sudden, galvanizing awareness of the suicidal consequences of homophobia. It is a chilling moment, and it is described with a writer's eloquence and a mother's rage.... Dew's intense imagination, combined with her ignorance of homosexuality, was as much a hindrance as a help, and it is to her credit that she has recorded the occasionally wacky assumptions and painful readjustments of her own odyssey with such care and humor.’ – The New Yorker
15) The Man I Might Become - Gay Men Write About Their Fathers
a. Bruce Shenitz / 2002 / Anthology
b. ‘Few men, straight or gay, find the father-son relationship easy, which explains why men's groups overflow with stories of fathers who ignored, brutalized, or otherwise wounded their sons. But gay men find the subject particularly problematic: When they come out to their families, they enter emotional territory their straight counterparts often avoid their entire lives. For many fathers and sons, the deepest feelings often remain unexpressed; if a son is gay, the very act of coming out virtually ensures that silence will be broken.’ – Google Books
Click the link below to preview the Table of Contents -
16) The Scarlet Professor: Newton Arvin: A Literary Life Shattered by Scandal
a. Barry Werth / 2002
b. ‘During his 37 years at Smith College, Newton Arvin published groundbreaking studies of Hawthorne, Whitman, Melville, and Longfellow that stand today as models of scholarship and psychological acuity. He cultivated friendships with the likes of Edmund Wilson and Lillian Hellman and became mentor to Truman Capote. A social radical and closeted homosexual, the circumspect Arvin nevertheless survived McCarthyism. But in September 1960 his apartment was raided, and his cache of beefcake erotica was confiscated, plunging him into confusion and despair and provoking his panicked betrayal of several friends.’ – Google Books
17) When I Knew
a. Robert Trachtenberg & Tom Bachtell / 2005 / Anthology
b. ‘When I Knew is a collection of smart, hilarious, and often poignant stories about that revelation for all gay men and women: when they first knew. In this gorgeously illustrated, cleverly designed, and colorful book, acclaimed fashion and celebrity photographer Robert Trachtenberg brings humor and style to the EUREKA! moments of more than 80 contributors....’ – Google Books
Click on the link below to preview the Table of Contents -
18) Who's Who in Gay and Lesbian History: From Antiquity to World War II
a. Garry Wotherspoon & Robert Aldrich / 2003 / Who's Who
b. ‘A comprehensive and fascinating survey of the key figures in gay and lesbian history from classical times to the mid-twentieth century. Over the course of some 500 entries, expert contributors provide a complete and vivid picture of gay and lesbian life in the Western world throughout the ages.’ – Google Books
19) Why the Long Face?: the Adventures of a Truly Independent Actor
a. Craig Chester / 2004
b. ‘Craig Chester's witty and wry observations on his life and those who have occupied it come together to create this funny, sentimental, yet irreverent collection of essays. From the backroads of Texas to the boardrooms of Hollywood, Craig Chester is unabashedly honest about the pain and the unique rewards of remaining an outsider in an insider's world.’ – Google Books
20) You Better Not Cry: Stories for Christmas
a. Augusten Burroughs / 2009
b. ‘In this caustically funny, nostalgic, poignant, and moving collection, Augusten Burroughs recounts Christmases past and present—as only he could. With gimlet-eyed wit and illuminated prose, Augusten shows how the holidays bring out the worst in us and sometimes, just sometimes, the very, very best.’ - Amazon
21) Young Man from The Provinces: A Gay Life Before Stonewall
a. Alan Helms / 1995
b. ‘Helms vividly brings to life the time just before Stonewall and the Gay Liberations Movement in this poignant, insightful, often humorous remembrance of his journey from a midwestern adolescence to a self-absorbed life as a male model in New York and Europe in the 1960s, ending with his self-acceptance as a gay man in a homophobic society.’ – Google Books
...to be continued!
Click the link below to view a list of some 159 guys from within these 21 books, sorted by their last name or surname.
Although, the Who's Who in Gay and Lesbian History book has hundreds of names, I've only included 1 name from the book, so as to add the title to this list of Memoirs.
"So, we might be cousins & could be friends," if only we make an effort to make it so. Maybe, we have the same surname, or we like something about one of these guys from whatever he revealed in his story, about some portion of his life.
So, make an effort & make it so!
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