Boy with the Bullhorn is a treasure for every generation, written with personal wit and charm, yet far-ranging enough to inspire anyone who must navigate a hostile political environment. Goldberg has personalized a richly detailed resource for activists today, scholars of medical history, and students of social movements. Rare is the memoir that includes a 91-page index and 32 pages of endnotes, but Goldberg has managed to incorporate these tools while engaging the reader with his deeply personal story. Read More
In Robyn Gigl’s third novel in the Erin McCabe legal thriller series, we find Erin surrounded by a hellscape of villainous men. She can hardly turn around without one or more of them trying to frame her for crimes she didn’t commit, ruin her reputation as an honorable and highly skilled lawyer, or, quite often, kill her. Read More
Manuel Ulacia (1953 – 2001) was the grandson of Manuel Altolaguirre and Concha Mendez, two artists in Spain’s “Generation of ’27,” associated with the liberal leftist reform movement of Spain and persecuted by Franco at the start of the Spanish Civil War. Ulacia’s family first fled to Cuba and then settled in Mexico, where the poet was raised. Manuel received a master’s and Ph.D. in Hispanic literature at Yale in the 1970s, where he specialized in the poetry of the gay Spanish poet Luis Cernuda. Ulacia would then return to Mexico, teach at the Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico, become a protégé of Octavio Paz, and eventually become president of PEN’s Mexico chapter, where he actively supported dissident writers. Furthermore, Ulacia was gay. He died in 2001 at age 48, swept out to sea while swimming off a Mexican beach. Read More
Cracking the cover of a Christopher Bollen novel is a guaranteed door into a new world, even if it’s one you think you already know. His stories, always credible, suspenseful, and filled with engaging characters, have so many unexpected twists that you can’t guess the ending. You don’t want it to be finished when you turn the last page because getting there was so gripping. Read More
Happy June! There are so many exciting events around the corner, including the Lambda Literary Awards. But as you recoup from Pride or if you just want to celebrate from your couch, we have some great recommendations straight from the staff of Lambda Literary!
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How does one write of a self that is fundamentally displaced? Are our bodies really our own? Who on Earth understands what we are here for? What does it mean to be a body of movement and slippery definitions in a world that runs on categorization, separation, and the exhausting desire to know? What can we learn from the gestures of fish, from water, if we dare to listen and invite them to baptize us? Read More
“Once upon a time, I wrote a fairy tale…It’s about a young man whose heart is dying.” Silvera first released They Both Die at the End in 2017, but thanks to the book trending on TikTok in 2020, the novel hit the bestseller list for the first time years after its publication. Five years after the first novel’s release, Silvera’s prequel, The First to Die at the End, hit shelves. The magic trick New York Times bestselling author Adam Silvera pulls off with his Death-Cast series is inherent in the novels’ titles. While both titles specifically give away the central plot and ending, Silvera still takes readers on a journey of love and life that will have them hoping for anything but the inevitable outcome. Read More
Miah Jeffra's American Gospel (Black Lawrence Press, $ 26.95) questions the idea of the American dream in a braided novel that weaves together how race, sexuality, gender, and class are affected when a developer begins displacing a neighborhood in a bid to make an amusement park. The novel is told in three voices, Peter Cryer, a queer mixed-race teenager navigating love and desire; Ruth Anne, his Irish Appalachian mother living in fear of domestic abuse by her estranged partner; and Thomas, a teacher and brother at the private Catholic school where Peter attends on scholarship. The three perspectives reveal an America struggling to find itself in the wake of commercialism, addiction, and toxicity. In each case, powerlessness leads to violence; this overarching theme of Gospel spans gender, sexuality, race, and class, as nearly every character or institution is affected by conditions created by white-collar corruption. Read More
May means the start of freedom for so many of us. No school, no teaching-- even summer Fridays! But for us who are still 9-5ing it, we remember what the smell of cut grass meant to us as kids: reading in the park, or long visits to the library. And we have just the books to scratch that itch! This list is full of exciting and intriguing writing, including a memoir by the Inaugural J. Michael Samuel Prize, Jobert Abueva; new YA from Lammy winner Abdi Nazemian; and new books from Lammy finalists Stephanie Adams-Santos and Nicole Melleby Read More
And to pick up where I left off, a few more poets of this generation particularly stand out. Saeed Jones’ Prelude...