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A botanical daughter
by Noah Medlock
It is an unusual thing, to live in a botanical garden. But Simon and Gregor are an unusual pair of gentlemen. Hidden away in their glass sanctuary from the disapproving tattle of Victorian London, they are free to follow their own interests without interference. For Simon, this means long hours in the dark basement workshop, working his taxidermical art. Gregor's business is exotic plants - lucrative, but harmless enough. Until his latest acquisition, a strange fungus which shows signs of intellect beyond any plant he's seen, inspires him to attempt a masterwork: true intelligent life from plant matter. Driven by the glory he'll earn from the Royal Horticultural Society for such an achievement, Gregor ignores the flaws in his plan: that intelligence cannot be controlled; that plants cannot be reasoned with; and that the only way his plant-beast will flourish is if he uses a recently deceased corpse for the substrate. The experiment - or Chloe, as she is named - outstrips even Gregor's expectations, entangling their strange household. But as Gregor's experiment flourishes, he wilts under the cost of keeping it hidden from jealous eyes. The mycelium grows apace in this sultry greenhouse. But who is cultivating whom?
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Some strange music draws me in : a novel
by Griffin Hansbury
It's the summer of 1984 in Swaffham, Massachusetts, when Mel (short for Melanie) meets Sylvia, a tough-as-nails trans woman whose shameless swagger inspires Mel's dawning self-awareness. But Sylvia's presence sparks fury among her neighbors and throws Mel into conflict with her mother and best friend. Decades later, in 2019, Max (formerly Mel) is on probation from his teaching job for, ironically, defying speech codes around trans identity. Back in Swaffham, he must navigate life as part of a fractured family and face his own role in the disasters of the past.
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The woods all black
by Lee Mandelo
A novel that is equal parts historical horror, trans romance and blood-soaked revenge is set in 1920s Appalachia.
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Funny boy : the Richard Hunt biography
by Jessica Max Stein
Funny Boy: The Richard Hunt Biography is the life story of Muppet performer Richard Hunt. As one of the "Original Five" performers in the Muppet troupe, Hunt's characteristic irreverence was an integral part of Sesame Street, The Muppet Show, Fraggle Rock, three major Muppet movies, a handful of short-lived shows, countless specials and even a couple of non-Muppet films. Hunt died in the AIDS epidemic at just 40 years old, predeceased by many friends as well as the love of his life. Yet day after day, in the face of grief and tragedy, Hunt showed up to work and was reliably funny. Was he just that talented, that driven, that resilient, or what? Yes, yes, and yes. And yet this caustic smart mouth was hardly the sanitized saint of many AIDS narratives. Hunt would sneer at being called "inspiring" but his life story exemplifies how to follow your passion, adapt to life's surprises, genuinely connect with everyone from glitzy celebrities to gruff cab drivers - and have a hell of a lot of fun along the way.
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Gender Studies : The Confessions of an Accidental Outlaw
by Ajuan Mance
When you’re the only Black kid in the honors program or (any program) at your mostly white high school, or one of a handful of Black graduate students in your PhD program, or one of two African American women on the faculty at your Pac-10 employer, it’s not your gender non-conformity that sets you apart from your peers. In those environments, your Blackness is the first thing people notice about you. Still, there are other ways of being different--and feeling different--that can’t be attributed to race, especially if you’re one of the people whose awareness of the unwritten rules of what it means to be a boy or a girl (or a man or a woman) is tempered by the fact that most of those rules don’t feel quite right. In Gender Studies: True Confessions of an Accidental Outlaw, Ajuan Mance gives comic treatment to the challenges, complexities, and occasional absurdity of life at the crossroads of race, gender, and geekiness. This graphic memoir answers important questions like: How many preschoolers have to mistake you for your dad before you actually start to forget your own name; if a Black girl is awful at double-dutch jump rope is it a reflection on her gender identity, racial identity, or both; and is viola player a gender or just a sexual orientation? Ajuan Mance’s comic Gender Confessions take up each of these questions and more, as it invites to share in those moments that mark the path of a gender explorer
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I'm so glad we had this time together : a memoir
by Maurice Vellekoop
Meet little Maurice Vellekoop, the youngest of five children raised by Dutch immigrants in the 1970s in a middle class suburb of Toronto. He loves watching Cher and Carol Burnett on TV, making clothes for his best friend's Barbie dolls, and helping his mum with her hair salon which she runs out of the basement of the house. In short: he is really, really gay. Which is a huge problem, because his family is part of the Christian Reformed Church, a strict Calvinist sect, which is not accepting of homosexuality to say the least. We see him participating in weekly church services, catechism classes, going to Christian schools, his stint as a member of the Calvinist Cadet Corps. Vellekoop struggles through all of this, until he finally graduates high school and gets accepted into the Ontario College of Art and Design in 1982. It is there that his life truly changes, thanks in no small part to his taking a class called "Plays In Performance" taught by the wildly flamboyant and brilliant Paul Baker. Baker is the first "out" gay man Maurice has ever met, and the two soon become close friends. It is through witnessing Baker's functional relationship with his long-time partner Martin that Maurice finally starts to reconcile with himself and begin to accept who he actually is. But it's going to be a long, messy, difficult, and occasionally hilarious process. I'm So Glad We Had This Time Together is an enthralling portrait of what it means to be true to yourself, to learn to forgive, and to be an artist.
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I finally bought some jordans : essays
by Michael Arceneaux
A New York Times best-selling author returns with a humorous collection of essays about making your voice heard in an increasingly noisy and chaotic world.
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Who's afraid of gender?
by Judith Butler
From a global icon comes a bold, essential account of how a fear of gender is fueling reactionary politics around the world.
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Ariel crashes a train
by Olivia A. Cole
Afraid of her own mind and the violent fantasies she can't control, Ariel finds herself questioning everything when a summer job at a carnival brings new friends into her world who show her that just because she has OCD, she's not broken—and not alone.
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Daughter of the Bone Forest
by Jasmine Skye
Two girls reluctantly bound by fate must weather a dangerous courtship as a prophesied war grows ever closer in this high-stakes, queernormative dark fantasy debut.
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A Different Kind of Brave
by Lee Wind
Nicolas “Nico” Hall is sixteen when he escapes from Dr. H’s religious gay reprogramming institute in California. On his own, he assumes one identity after another to avoid recapture as he flees south to Peru and then to Mexico. Seven days older than Nico, Samuel “Sam” Jonas Solomon is a privileged Upper West Side only child who idolizes James Bond. When his heart is broken, he vows that, like Bond, he’s never going to trust in love again. Then he meets Nico, and his heart won’t listen to any logic. Nico’s survived by living only for himself—until his love for Sam has him risking his freedom for others. Together, Nico and Sam set out to free the other teens trapped in Dr. H’s Institute, plunging readers into perils, drama, and a long‑shot chance at love.
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These bodies between us
by Sarah Van Name
Friends Callie, Talia, Cleo and Polly spend their summer learning to become invisible and when it actually works, they revel in their reckless new freedom until they discover disappearing comes at a cost.
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