Sponsored by Lerner Books.
History has often left out the stories of LGBTQIA+ people: men who loved men, women who loved women, people who loved without regard to gender, and people who lived outside gender boundaries. Historians have even censored the lives and loves of some of the world’s most famous people, from William Shakespeare to Cary Grant and Eleanor Roosevelt. Join author Lee Wind for this fascinating journey through primary sources to explore the hidden (and often surprising) queer lives and loves of historical figures.
April! So much warmer. So much rainier. Are you reading pretty steadily or are you experiencing a slump? Because I have been SLUMPING. As has my wife. We’re not sure why. Maybe the aforementioned warmer weather? Maybe our obsessive diving-into of HBO’s The Flight Attendant (SO GOOD)? But new books are always something to get excited about, so let’s go:
From a Whisper to a Rallying Cry: The Killing of Vincent Chin and the Trial that Galvanized the Asian American Movement by Paula Yoo
In 1982, a Chinese American man named Vincent Chin was beaten to death in a Detroit bar. The two men who killed him were given a $3,000 fine and three years’ probation. This is about the case “that took the Asian American community to the streets in protest, and the groundbreaking civil rights trial that followed.”
Love Lives: From Cinderella to Frozen by Carol Dyhouse
Do you remember that Facebook group called like “Disney gave me unrealistic expectations about relationships”? Ok, so this Oxford University Press book (that’s right, it’s acaDEMIC) by social historian Dyhouse is about “the reshaping of women’s lives, loves and dreams since 1950,” the year Disney’s Cinderella came out, and how that changed in the next 60 years (the book ends with 2013’s Frozen). How have women’s lives transformed since 1950? Check this out to get into it.
My Broken Language: A Memoir by Quiara Alegría Hudes
Pulitzer Prize–winning playwright Hudes writes a coming of age memoir about growing up in a Philadelphia barrio with her Puerto Rican family. Yes, Lin-Manuel Miranda definitely blurbed this book, and he did so with his characteristic enthusiasm, saying, “Her sentences will take your breath away. How lucky we are to have her telling our stories.”
Killing Season: A Paramedic’s Dispatches from the Front Lines of the Opioid Epidemic by Peter Canning
tw: drug use
Canning has been a paramedic for 25 years, and went from seeing those who use drugs as “victims only of their own character flaws” to individuals with different stories and paths. He now fights against their stigmatization and advocates for harm reduction, which includes safe-injection sites and community naloxone. His book includes personal stories, his journey to empathy, and ways we can reduce the severity of the opioid epidemic.
For more nonfiction new releases, check out the For Real podcast which I co-host with the excellent Kim here at Book Riot. If you have any questions/comments/book suggestions, you can find me on social media @itsalicetime. Until next time, enjoy those facts, fellow nerds.