There's too much stuff in your house.
Too much stuff leads to frustration. Frustration leads to cleaning. Cleaning leads to finding ( more ) stuff you forgot you had … like the bookstore gift certificate you got seven months ago.
Uh, oh.
So now what? You've read all the Buzz Books—so what get with that new-found gift certificate treasure? Here are some great ideas:
Younger readers may want to ask: what was it like in the beginning of the AIDS epidemic? Visions and Revisions, by Dale Peck, will show you. From the POV of an activist, this book is also somewhat of an autobiography and yes, a rant.
Caitlyn Jenner did it. Laverne Cox did it. If this is your year to do it, then you'll want Transgender Persons and the Law, Second Edition, by Ally Windsor Howell, LLM. This hot-off-the-presses book will help put your mind at ease when it comes to nagging questions on employment, health care, personal safety, and more. Nice touch: websites you can visit to learn more.
Students of LGBT history will definitely want to find Time on Two Crosses: The Collected Writings of Bayard Rustin, edited by Devon W. Carbado and Donald Weise, with a foreword by Barack Obama and afterword by Barney Frank. Back in 1963, in the middle of the civil-rights movement, Rustin was an openly gay man with strong political ties and influence, and was an organizer of the March on Washington. This powerful collection underscores his legacy through some fifty years of his life.
Here's a philosophical question for your summertime: what would you do to keep your sibling alive? In The Bone Bridge, by Yarrott Benz, the author finds out, as a young teen, that he has a blood disease that can kill him. His brother is match for transfusions—but his brother is also homophobic and the author is gay. WWYD ( What Would You Do )?
In light of the recent Supreme Court ruling, Terry Mutchler's Under This Beautiful Dome is particularly moving. It's the story of two women—a journalist and an Illinois state senator—and their relationship. It was a secret, at first, and they worried about discovery ( which could ruin careers ). Then, when one of them becomes very ill, they worried about how she could be supported by the woman she loved.
Everybody thinks that Stonewall started the gay-rights movement, but in Barbara Gittings: Gay Pioneer, author Tracy Baim shows that the woman who's been called the "Mother of the Gay Rights Movement" was working on LGBT rights many years before ( and after! ) Stonewall. This book, loaded with photographs, is a well-done celebration of an activist, friend and woman with a vision of the way things could be.
Terri Schlichenmeyer is a syndicated book writer whose reviews run in LGBT media across the country.
